In catchy YouTube videoBritish comedian Jo Brand explains a scientist’s long-winded description of the fossil fuel industry’s role in the climate crisis: “We’re paying a bunch of rich dudes $1 trillion a year to f**k up our future,” she said. says. “Even the dinosaurs didn’t finance their own extinction. Who is the stupid species now?”
While there’s nothing funny about this topic, what’s funny is the way she says it.
He speaks truth to power. It alleviates the burden of rhetoric. And he drops F and S bombs in a British accent. At the starting of the film, Brand comments, “If people like me have to get involved, you know we’re in deep trouble.”
We all need a little bit of refreshing levity today – especially this year.
Around the World, voters will select national leaders in countries representing almost half of the human population. In many cities, states and counties, these decisions may have a direct impact on how the world deals with climate change. The results, including one other US presidential race wherein Donald Trump promised to advertise fossil fuels and undermine climate policy and democracy itself will reverberate across the planet. It’s heavy.
At the same time, the planet just finished its warmest year on record, 2023, and ocean temperatures remain abnormally high. Even heavier, The 10 hottest years since records began all occurred inside the last decade.
The world must not only cool down, but additionally brighten up. How professors studying climate comedywe can say that the need for levity is one among the reasons why atmospheric comedy works.
Lightening up to take care of difficult things
For many generations, comedy has been an efficient way not only to make clear situations, but additionally to propose unlikely solutions.
In ancient Greece, the comic playwright Aristophanes took on the crisis of his time – the Peloponnesian War – with comedy wherein women from either side of the conflict go on a sex strike until their men comply with a peace treaty. As you can imagine, there’s loads of sexual innuendo.
Brand, a British comedian, teamed up with climate scientist Mark Maslin to seek out revolutionary ways to effectively communicate about the climate crisis. In the movie they’re communicate effectively with one another about the causes and consequences of climate change. In a humorous tackle their contrasting communication styles, they find it amusing when Brand makes observations like, “If you liked the climate crisis, you’ll love its complete fucking collapse.”
Their combination of clever timing, absurdity, scatology and full commitment to every of the roles of scientist and comedian gave their atmospheric comedy tractionwith over 3 million views.
In South Africa, a bunch Politically, Aweh produces creative content on climate change and other related issues in the run-up to this year’s general elections.
In one YouTube video, host Zipho Majova creatively compares our collective avoidance of coping with climate change to our avoidance of our moms’ texts. Then he says, “You can’t ignore your mom’s texts forever. And when I say mother, I mean mother Earth!” Zipho’s skillful editing of reports clips and popular TV shows woven into his commentary makes this atmospheric comedy successful.
In the USA, creative collectives similar to An atmospheric town in New York, Yellow Dot Studios in Los Angeles, Center for Media and Social Impact in Washington and ours Inside the greenhouse project in Boulder, Colorado, are working to alleviate climate anxiety and galvanize people to debate climate change and do something about it.
With elements of exaggeration, innuendo, witty truth-telling, suspense and the utmost sincerity, the atmospheric comedy of groups like these and late-night shows like John Oliver “Last Week Tonight” resonates.
Why climate comedy works
Comedy has the ability to transcend the language of science and open conversations with recent audiences while helping to “keep it real” and discover solutions.
It can also provide emotional relief because it lowers people’s resilience and allows them to seek out promise and the ability to assume positive change.
Our research has shown that comedy can help college students work on negative emotions related to climate change. In one A performance on the occasion of Earth Dayfashion student at the University of Colorado-Boulder, in search of a loophole to satisfy her clothing addiction, discovers thrift and hilariously quips, “Nothing says ‘I love planet Earth’ more than wearing other people’s clothes.”
Creative videos like “Don’t Look Up!” and TV shows like “Unstable” starring Rob Lowe, tackle topics similar to climate change and science denial in a comedic way, making fun of certain behaviors while introducing serious issues into on a regular basis life. Biotech billionaire Lowe’s efforts to capture carbon from the atmosphere in cement have gotten people talking about carbon capture and similar projects in real life.
Introducing absurd ideas into an otherwise logical world, like comedians Chuck Nice – co-host of “StarTalk” with Neil deGrasse Tyson – i Kasia Patel anything you do can also make people laugh. It’s similar with imitation and twiddling with social inversions that can be seen in comedians Nicole Conlanwho writes for “The Daily Show” and Rollie Williams.
Although a few of the solutions proposed by comedians could seem funny, history shows that such antics can attract attention and lead to alter.
Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr. and the hip-hop club did collaborated with comedians for years to interact audiences on the issue of climate change. Their recent documentary with comedian Wanda Sykes combines comedy while documenting the growing risk of sea level rise in Norfolk, Virginia.
Comedy may simply distract people from the serious climate challenges we face or trivialize the problems. However, the transformative and subversive power of comedy as a tool for social, political, economic and cultural change is proving strong.
Jokes introduced into our collective consciousness can cure the plague by creating laughter and opening the mind. At that moment, rigidity is loosened, the only solution is forked, hypocrisy is exposed, and pleasure is intoxicating.
