cultural issues and using comedy to talk about these issues. As I was watching tv with my

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1 Context Description Paper Comedy has been being used a way to perpetuate social change, this is tied to multiple ideas that are present in media today including what does it mean to be a good consumer. This is a question that most people have but not many people are able to answer. This is also something that I am constantly thinking about when I am doing anything. The perfect consumer and how that is tied to consumerism due to power structures as well as how comedy is tied to this is used when discussing tv shows present today on tv. Many tv shows are starting to place their focus on cultural issues and using comedy to talk about these issues. As I was watching tv with my roommates we came across a very interesting show called the good place, this instantly became a show we wanted to binge watch. From the beginning of the show it was very interesting and immediately attracted my attention, they talk about how to get into the good place which is heaven. Being in the good place is a luxury if you are good, while all of the bad people go into the bad place where they are tortured. This show focuses on moral implications of our existence and everyday life that come about by operating in our culture/ system. That's what makes this show such an interesting one to watch, it uses comedy to focus on these real life social issues and make fun of them but also bring attention to them. The Good Place is a Tv show that is on NBC, this show has been airing since around 2016 and still today has new seasons coming out. They are currently on season 4 of the show, each episode is around 30 minutes long. The Good Place is a town where those who have been good throughout their lives go once they have passed away. Michael is the architect who oversees the town--and this is the first one he has been in charge of creating. What the audience later finds out is that Michael is actually a worker from the bad place who was hired to create an

2 after life made to torture humans by making them think they are in the real good place when they are not. Eleanor arrives at the Good Place and realizes they have her name right, but everything else is wrong. She isn't meant to be there at all. With the help of Chidi, her soul mate, Eleanor tries to right her wrongs, seeking to finally earn her spot in the Good Place. (IMDB) Along for this fun adventure is Tahani and Jason, they are also soulmates and become best friends with Eleanor and Chidi. There is also Janet a robot who helps the gang out during the show and is their voice of reason. This show focuses on a group strangers who all end up in the good place that actually ends up being hell. In this place they learn lessons about becoming better people as well as realizing that their actions are not their own but everything they do is being controlled and has major consequences. As the seasons have gone on the characters learn that they are actually not in the good place but instead they are in this dystopian world that they think is the good place but really is their own eternal hell. The show deals with the moral dilemmas that they all go through as they realize their actions on earth all had consequences that made them end up in the good place. The show has twist and turns every single episode and focuses on the gang trying to find their way out of the good place to get to the actual good place, while trying to do this they break many rules and do things selfishly which does not help their case to get into the actual good place. In the show the only way to get into the real good place is through a point system that was installed to track humans actions on earth and how they live their lives. The point system ranks people from best to worst, their point score goes up when they do something unselfishly and for other people as well as something good like donating to charity or helping the homeless. Their point score goes down when they do something selfish or something considered to be bad

3 like litter, steal, curse, or lie. The point system was made by humans who come from both the good place and the bad place. There is a panel that screens all the humans who will be getting into either of the places. The system is completely man made so there are obvious biases present in the system itself and who is considered to be good and bad person. There is also one supreme judge who handles all of the cases for people and is the ruling law. There are obvious distinctions between the good place and the bad place. The bad place is full of bad souls who are getting tortured for the rest of their lives, the torcher comes in many forms. People are getting animals put into their ears to crawl inside them, they are also being pulled apart by a machine every single day. This bad place is made to torture people who were bad on earth, you can hear their eternal screams for the rest of their lives. The good place is the exact opposite. In the good place people are matched up with their soulmate and are given their dream house as well as all the things they could ever want. The good place is a place where they to live their dream for the rest of their life and have so many happy memories to make with their soulmates. The good place that Michael made is supposed to be like the real good place, it has all of the aspects of this place but instead everything goes wrong and it is was made to have these four humans running around ruining each other's lives for all eternity. Eleanor the main character knows she does not belong in the good place because she was an awful person on earth, they got her name right but not her life on earth. The other character dealing with this as well is Jason, he is given the correct name but is told he was a monk on earth when in reality he was an aspiring DJ. Chidi and Tahani believe that they actually belong in the good place, but Chidi was so indecisive on earth that he hurt others and Tahani was a spoiled earis who wanted mommy and daddy's attention.

4 All four characters start to realize that they are actually in the bad place and start to try and change and reevaluate their actions on earth in order to become better people. They end up being sent back down to earth where they must try and make themselves better people. Once on earth they realize it is not worth it to try and change. Michael comes down to earth and realizes that based on all of their actions on earth no one has gotten into the real good place for over 500 years. This is later found out to be due to all of the negatives things that come with good actions on earth and being a good consumer and human. The good place is one of many shows that have been focusing on social issues in their shows. The good place is a show that can be categorized as a comedy that really gets you thinking about social issues. The good place falls under the same category as many new comedies on tv that use their platform and their positionality to get the audience to realize the social issues occuring while also making them laugh and making it something fun that people want to see. This genre of comedy has become pretty popular among tv shows and among young adults who watch tv. Along with the good place come shows like; Angie Tribeca, Brooklyn 99, Parks and Recreation, and Community are just a few. This is also very popular and done among late night shows where they focus on politics but do it trough comedy. Shows such as The tonight show, Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live are all shows that use comedy to talk about serious issues. By using comedy shows are appealing to a crowd that is enjoys this kind of entertainment. The Good Place is on the same network as Brooklyn 99, a show that does this same kind of social commentary on social issues. Brooklyn 99 focuses on things such as police issues as well as racism but they do this once again trough comedy, they make jokes about serious issues

5 to get their audience to laugh and to realize why they are laughing at these things. Parks and recreation is another show that does this same thing, this show is a sitcom made to make people laugh but there are episodes where they talk about serious things such as racism and sexism and how this has an affect on both men and women equally. Shows like Saturday Night Live also fall into this category of comedy being used for social change. SNL focuses on making fun of politics, they make sketches that are incredibly satirical that make people laugh about the issues they are listening to. SNL loves to make fun of things the president currently says as well as they make fun of real social issues like racism and when doing this people can either laugh or realize that this is a bigger social issue that needs to be dealt with. The good place uses comedy to shed light on some very large philosophical questions that all have to deal with consumerism and how it is tied to capitalism. The show also highlights the idea of the perfect consumer and how this all comes down to power structures and there being negative consequences to everything we purchase. This show is one of the few that focuses on strong philosophical questions about human life existence and also deals with religion by arguing that there is a haven and a hell in the afterlife. The show uses comedy to talk about the afterlife in a light hearted way and makes fun of the idea of what the afterlife actually is supposed to look like. It also uses this same idea to talk about philosophical ideas about being a good consumer and being a good person. The newest season of The Good Place aired September 27th 2018 at 8:30/7:30 cn on NBC (NBC.com). This show can be found on multiple streaming platforms. People watch this show on NBC, Hulu, Netflix, and can be found for free on YouTube. This show came about from creator Michael Schur who also created the shows"brooklyn Nine-Nine," "Parks and Recreation" and "Master of None" (NBC.com). This show is watched by the same people who

6 would watch the shows that are made by the same director. The humor and jokes used in each of the shows as well as the characters are really similar to one another and they all work together to talk about different social issues but also be under the same genre. People tend to encounter this show through TV and platforms that stream shows, this makes it readily available to most people and it is easily accessible to most who have a TV/ streaming service. This show gained popularity quickly for being funny as well as bringing to light philosophical questions that the audience starts thinking about. This show has a buzz and following online as well. Not only is the show famous for being on TV and being funny, it also makes a great impact online and gets people to feel some time of way when watching the show. Some critics online say The fact remains. The Good Place the story of a group of recently deceased earthlings navigating the afterlife is the best sitcom on TV (The New York Times Magazine 2018). There is a lot of people who think that this show is funny and they have a connection to it making it one of the best shows in their minds. Within the show ethics is not some kind of moralistic byproduct; it s baked into the very premise. The show is entirely life lessons. (The New York Times Magazine 2018). The show focuses heavily on teaching people something about themselves as well as getting them to start thinking about their own positionality on earth. Critics of the show talk about the lessons and the ideas behind shows that are using comedy to tell their stories. Most critics tend to agree that The Good Place is exploring more ethical avenues for us to travel down, in which our badness is openly acknowledged, right before we are gently nudged back onto the road of rehabilitation, via snappy but casually earnest dialogue (Buzzfeed News 2019). Another huge lesson from the show is that The human race,

7 may actually have some redeeming qualities; that our moral fiber might not yet have gone fully rancid (Buzzfeed News 2019). The Good Place tries to teach these life lessons to their audience by showing the characters dealing with their own moral and social dilemmas and trying to balance this with their social lives. By making the characters more relatable to the audience, critics agree that the show makes people want to come back and continue watching the show as well as actually get something from the show. The show uses it platform as well as comedy to show people these life lessons and get them to think a little about the things that they do. The show has an overall 91% rating on rotten tomatoes and has a constant base following as well as gaining more and more fans every season. (Rotten Tomatoes 2016) The good place has become a perfect sitcom machine that uses its comedy to make fun of social issues and makes the audience question their entire lives (Slate 2018). Social media has also taken a hold of this show. On social media platforms such as twitter you see behind the scene videos of the characters dancing and being foolish with one another. You can also see the whole cast tweeting at each other and showing their genuine connection to one another. The internet has even gone as far as making memes and jokes that come from certain episodes that if you are a part of the public that watches the show you will understand them and laugh along with them. All those who are talking about the show talk about how good the show is. The discussion is how the show is putting life lessons out there and making fun of them that is making people think and question their own actions as well as their friends actions and their consequences. Critics tend to agree that this show is hilarious as well as being a great sitcom for people to watch and take time out of their day to think about the show.

8 The object I am focusing on is significant based on the way it talks about the afterlife as well as how this all affected by the way someone consumes on earth before they die. It really ties in elements of life and death and balancing being a good person on earth while being a consumer in our capitalist system. By juggling with philosophical ideas it makes the characters relatable with the audience that is watching it and gives them a sort of connection to one another. This artifact is located among popular media and is highly prevalent on social media platforms in the way that people talk about it every time there is a new episode. The buzz around this show has been constant since the show first aired and it has not stopped buzzing since then. Most fans of the show would also agree that the diversity of the cast is one of the main reasons that it is so good. The show has an incredibly diverse cast and the 4 main friends are all from different background and races which makes it more like real life than other shows. The Good Place is a show that has been capturing the attention of both audience and critics alike and getting people to think. The Good Place seems to be a show that is teaching people life lessons through a group of friends that all made mistakes on earth and ended up all going to the bad place in the after life. The show focuses on using comedy to show these life lessons. The idea of the perfect consumer comes out during the show by the use of the point system that they have in place for the people who are dying and going into heaven and or hell. This show is similar to other comedy shows out there that focus on using comedy for social change. But the show also has some uniqueness to it in the way that it uses comedy yes, but it talks about more of the social and moral dilemmas that individuals deal with as opposed to the whole public. The way the show uses its characters and

9 their moral and social dilemmas that they are dealing with is very specific to the way that human beings deal with their own ethical issues. The show uses their actions on earth as consequences in the after life. The fact that there is a point system used to decide who gets into the good place and who gets into the bad place shows how things are divided based on class and power structures. Those who are lower class will have more negative points based on their standing in life and the fact that they may not be able to be the perfect consumer due to their class status. This object would fall into the category of critiquing the social world and the capitalistic system that we live in. It pokes fun at how consuming has many negative consequences that we do not expect and this is all adding to our negative point totals to get into heaven. This show is unique in the way that it tackles large philosophical questions trough comedy. By using comedy it reaches a much larger audience and in a weird way makes the lesson people are learning more fun and interesting. The questions I have about the show are as follow; how does the good place use comedy and their positionality to discuss what is the perfect good consumer and how is this tied back to our overall culture? And how does the good place use comedy to situate and make light of how good is tied to consumerism as well as how things that happen in our culture are due to power structures? Also how does the good place use comedy as a form of social change? I will answer these questions through analyzing specific scenes from the TV show that deal with these larger social implications.

10 Bibliography: Adewunmi, Bim. Russian Doll And The Good Place Want Us To Be Better. BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 8 Feb. 2019, ap italism. Anderson, Sam. What Makes 'The Good Place' So Good? The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Oct. 2018, y. html. Best!, Ranked worst to, et al. The Good Place: Season 1 ( ). Safe Haven (2013) - Rotten Tomatoes,

11 Christiansen, Adrienne E., and Jeremy J. Hanson. Comedy as Cure for Tragedy: Act up and the Rhetoric of Aids. Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 82, no. 2, 1996, pp. Fury. (2019). TRAUMA TOURISM: The Complicated Comedy of Hannah Gadsby Nanette. Metro, (199), Gray, Jonathan, et al. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. NYU Press, Howley, Kevin. Prey Tv, Televangelism, and Interpellation. Journal of Film and Video, vol. 53, , pp Marc, David. Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture. Routledge, Meier, Matthew R. I Am Super PAC and So Can You! Stephen Colbert and the Citizen-Fool. Western Journal of Communication, vol. 81, no. 2, 2016, pp Saraiya, Sonia, and Sonia Saraiya. The Good Place Became a Perfect Sitcom Machine. Slate Magazine, Slate, 17 Dec. 2018, slate.com/culture/2018/12/tv-club-good-place.html. Todd V. Lewis, K. Arianna Molloy. (2015) Religious Rhetoric and Satire: Investigating the Comic and Burlesque Frames Within The Big Bang Theory. Journal of Media and Religion 14:2, pages Valerie R. Renegar, George N. Dionisopoulos, Matthew Yunker. (2016) Up in the Air with a Western Burkean Clown: The Comic Frame of Acceptance in Uncertain Economic Times. Journal of Communication 80:2, pages Valerie R. Renegar, George N. Dionisopoulos. (2011) The Dream of a Cyberpunk Future?

12 Entelechy, Dialectical Tension, and the Comic Corrective in William Gibson's Neuromancer. Southern Communication Journal 76:4, pages Young, Dannagal G., and Russell M. Tisinger. Dispelling Late-Night Myths: News Consumption Late-Night among Late-Night Comedy Viewers and the Predictors of Exposure to Various Shows. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, vol. 11, no. 3, July 2006, pp

Jesus said that to prove his divinity. You re not Jesus. It s not funny to even joke about.

Jesus said that to prove his divinity. You re not Jesus. It s not funny to even joke about. Holy Humor Sunday, April 8, 2018 Phil Habecker 1 John 1:1 2:2 You may be wondering why I have this shepherd s staff up here: prop joke. I had to look all over for this thing. I was going to say that I