Nicolas Blanton
Mat Wenzel
28 February 2018
ENC 2135-15
I can have a very dark sense of humor. I enjoy jokes about tragedies and I don’t know why but they can be some of the funniest because they are so controversial. I recently viewed Chris Rock’s new comedy special titled Tamborine. It is on Netflix and I have always liked Chris and his comedy, so I knew I was in for a treat. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I can see how some people would be very upset about what he has to say. In the special, Rock talks about police brutality and mentions that maybe every once in a while, cops would shoot a white kid. Instead of just shooting kids of color, they may try and not be racist. Now this I found humorous because instead of saying that cops should not shoot kids in general, he provides the alternative of shooting white kids as well. Rock did receive some blowback from this, but I think we all realize that he is a comedian just trying to be edgy.
Another poorly timed joke was one he made about mass shootings. Since the south Florida shootings, we have all been a little on edge, which amplified the effectiveness of the insensitivity of this joke. Rock states “And somebody will come on tv and say, ‘Ya know, guns don’t kill people… people kill people. As a matter of fact, if the gunman would’ve had a knife, he could’ve stabbed one hundred people to death.’ Could have stabbed a hundred people? Now check this out. If a hundred people ever got stabbed at the same time, in the same place, by the same person, you know what that would mean? Ninety-seven people deserved to die.” This joke is extremely insensitive, but I still laughed, and I am sure I am not the only one. This joke even made the news a couple of times for being so controversial. Nevertheless, I believe Rock did it on purpose, because it is this kind of ‘pushing the envelope’ type of comedy that he is famous for.