MORN 102 - Humor

Consider the essay that charted the cultural role of the light bulb joke to start thinking about this essay.

Your task for this essay is to chart a joke or comedian’s role or political trends in SNL or something like that. Pick some genre of comedy you’re interested in, select a program that has changed over time, etc.

Examine, like Harris did, how the joke has affected racial stereotypes or political views or economic turmoil (you get the idea…I hope). Your essay should:

• contain a clear, concise thesis;
• have clear, transitional, and supportive topic sentences;
• have a well-developed intro and conclusion; and
• include clear, concise, and accurate support.

1. Introduction: Start with something interesting. Surprise your reader. Tell a series of jokes, describe a scene from the skit you’ll be analyzing. Lead into your thesis statement.
2. Supporting paragraphs
   1. Details of cultural/political/whatever concepts being developed in the humor concept. Be sure you include support from other sources!! Other sources can include the television programs, people who have written about the series, etc.
   2. Another series of details. You should be building your trend (how did it start, how did it evolve, how did it change – or not, etc.) Every time you build these paragraphs, they should explain, support your main point.
   3. Another set of supporting details (do this as many times as necessary).
3. Conclusion: You should have been working on a causal argument (how did this particular humor concept affect something…), so by the end of the paper, you should be able to succinctly answer the “so what?” or “who cares?” question.

Remember, you do not just want to search for the "trend" you are examining, but also the influences that trend had on society. Keep this in mind when you are choosing keywords to search by, especially in the library's catalog.