Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Hollywood Comedy and American Culture From Chevy Chase to Tina Fey by Jim Whalle Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture sheds new light on the ways in which Saturday Night Live s confrontational, boundary-pushing approach spilled over into film production, contributing to some of the biggest hits in Hollywood history, such as National Lampoon s Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Beverly Hills Cop. Jim Whalley also considers how SNL has adapted to meet the needs of subsequent generations, launching the film careers of Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and others in the process. Supported by extensive archival research, some of Hollywood s most popular comedians are placed into the contexts of film and television comic traditions and social and cultural trends in American life. JIM WHALLEY has taught Film Studies at the University of Salford, Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and the University of East Anglia. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture sheds new light on the ways in which Saturday Night Live's confrontational, boundary-pushing approach spilled over into film production, contributing to some of the biggest hits in Hollywood history, such as National Lampoon's Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Beverly Hills Cop. Jim Whalley also considers how SNL has ada. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture sheds new light on the ways in which Saturday Night Live's confrontational, boundary-pushing approach spilled over into film production, contributing to some of the biggest hits in Hollywood history, such as National Lampoon's Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Beverly Hills Cop. Jim Whalley also considers how SNL has adapted to meet the needs of subsequent generations, launching the film careers of Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and others in the process. Supported by extensive archival research, some of Hollywood's most popular comedians are placed into the contexts of film and television comic traditions and social and cultural trends in American life. Terra Tackett. For the last 28 years, millions of people have turned their televisions on every Saturday night to hear those infamous words: �Live from New York it�s Saturday night!� Of course this is referring to the 90-minute variety show Saturday Night Live that first aired October 11, 1975 and is still on to this day. Originally, the show was titled �Not Ready for Prime Time Players�. The cast included Chevy Chase , Dan Aykroyd , John Belushi , Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner . In 1976 Chevy Chase left the show and Bill Murray took his place. A great tradition that the show has is that every week there is a new host. The first host was George Carlin. Other hosts have been Ralph Nadar , Drew Barrymore, John Goodman, Derek Jeter, Cameron Diaz, and the Rock. There are also historical segments like The �� which was presented by Chevy Chase and then later by Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd . Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey are presently reporting the news. Other great segments in the earlier years of the show were �The � and �Samurai Warrior� the adventures of an Oriental swordsman. NBC�s Saturday Night Live was developed by network Vice President . Lorne Michaels was the producer. The word �Live� was officially added in May 1977; NBC was later discarded. Major changes took place in 1980 when producer Michaels left with most of the writers and all of the regulars�Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner , Bill Murray, and Dan Novella. was named the new producer and put together a new company which included Gilbert Gottfried, Joe Piscopo , and Eddie Murphy. After very poor ratings, Doumanian was dismissed. Dick Ebersol succeeded her as producer and only kept Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy and added 9 more players one of which was Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Jim Belushi found himself part of the cast in the fall of 1983. The new crew helped the show regain success and ratings were once again very high. Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the most popular players. Joe could impersonate cultural icons like Frank Sinatra and Eddie Murphy�s act extended from Stevie Wonder to Buckwheat. Later that fall 6 new members joined the cast giving the series its largest annual stable of performers. These new faces were Billy Crystal, , Rich Hall, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Pamela Stephenson. The more popular skits of that season were Billy Crystal�s �Fernando� talk show host and Martin Short�s hyper-nerdy Ed Grimley . After 5 years being away from the show, Lorne Michaels came back to regain the position of the producer. The following fall he introduced an all-new cast. The 1985-86 cast included Joan Cusack , Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz , Randy Quaid , Damon Wayons , as well as others. The season was not too successful and yet another casting change took place. Joining Nora Dunn and Lovitz in 1986 were newcomers Dana Carvey , Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Dennis Miller, and Kevin Nealon . This group was able to stay together through the 1989-90 season and had some memorable characters such as Carvey�s �Church Lady� and impersonations of George Bush Sr., Dunn�s talk show host �Pat Stevens�, Miller�s �Weekend Update� and Lovitz�s �Master Thespian�. Mike Myers was featured in 1988 and 1989, Ben Stiller in 1988. Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz both left the show in 1989 and they were both succeeded by Chris Rock and Chris Farley. Because of the success of the show, it boosted the careers of many people. Ben Stiller, Mike Myers, Chevy Chase , Eddie Murphy, and Molly Shannon, just to name a few, are all Hollywood stars. People who are on their way to stardom from this season are Jimmy Falon and Will Farrel . SNL is a variety show unlike any other of its time. It maintains a mix of new cast members and writers and has evolved into a show for Generation X. SNL has gained so much popularity because it is designed by the same age group that it is targeting. . The young viewer can easily relate to the content because it is presented in a manner that is easily consumed. The show parodies everything from teenage pop stars to the 2000 Presidential election. The present popularity of the show is evident because it played a very important role in the recent election. In a Pew Research statistic, it reveals that 37% of Americans under 30 learned about Al Gore and George W. Bush from SNL and Politically Incorrect . This statistic sounds scary considering that the show makes fun of candidates and tends to exaggerate their minor flaws. However, even though the parodies are exaggerated and sometimes can be considered misinformation, it may be the only way in which young viewers can grasp the issues and make sense of them in their own personal way. SNL also serves as a way to get news. In the segment �Weekend Update� anchors will discuss an actual event and then will use satire to make fun of it. For example, in an episode which aired October 7, 2000 , Tina Fey reported on how Barbara Walters has made a deal with Cambell�s Soup that obligates her to �spontaneously� mention their products on air during her show, The View . Tina Fey states that media has expressed their concern because it may diminish her journalistic integrity. Then she goes on to say, �The same way oxidation can ruin your deck chairs. That�s why I use Thompson�s Water Seal�. This type of coverage is an example of commenting on current news while making fun of both the traditional news media and the news itself. According to �The New York Times�, SNL �is still the most pervasive influence on the art of comedy in contemporary culture�. SNL placed seventh on Entertainment Weekly�s list of the Top 100 entertainers of the past 50 years. The program has won 17 Emmy Awards and has been nominated 85 times since its debut. It has also been honored with the George Peabody Award and cited as �truly a national institution�. It has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and it continues to earn the highest ratings of any late-night television program. Works Cited With Links. Crisp, Kelly. �The Case Study for Saturday Night Live: It�s impact on politics and. Warren, Zach CATALOG LINK. Warren, Zach. “Searching for Comedy in the Muslim World: Reflections of a Harvard Joke Collector.” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 28.1 (2009): 35-7. Ethnic NewsWatch. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. Whalley, Jim CATALOG LINK. Whalley, Jim. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture: From Chevy Chase to Tina Fey . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Wright, Robin B. CATALOG LINK. Wright, Robin B. Rock the Casbah: Rage and Revolution Across the Islamic World . 1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Wallace, Charles P. Gibbs, Walter. CATALOG LINK. Wallace, Charles P.Gibbs, Walter. “Nice Witch Of The North.” Time International (South Pacific Edition) 35 (2004): 69. MasterFILE Premier . Web. 23 Sept. 2012. Shabana Rahman is Norway’s most famous comedian. Her comedy revolves around controversial topics such as religion and culure. She pokes fun at Norwegian culture, but she mainly pokes fun at various Muslim immigrant groups. Rahman has been accused to be ‘reinforcing stereotypes of immigrant Muslim groups; she definitely does not draw on Western/Eastern similarities. Rahman replies that she is simply satirizing and poking fun. She is an example of someone on the border of satire. Many different reactions are caused by her ‘comedy’ ranging from offensive to hilarity. I find Rahman interesting because she is originally from Pakistan, thus she cannot be labeled as racist by fellow immigrants. She is aware of the outrage she causes, yet she plows on, and tries to bring he version of reality though satire. She doesn’t really try to smooth edges, but sort of causes conversation under the guise of hilarity. This was the longest English article I could find about her. Nikitina, Svetlana CATALOG LINK. Nikitina, Svetlana Hackers as Tricksters of the Digital Age: Creativity in Hacker Culture Article first published online: 22 FEB 2012© 2012, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. In world mythology, trickster gods all share a characteristic of being uncatchable, unfair, deceptive but clever achievers through use of their wit. In general they are ‘indefinable’ and cannot be generalized because the mortal has a hard time deciding whether they trickster is good or bad, because of their ‘divinity.’ Hackers have the same characteristics of a trickster. Hackers aren’t usually fallible, unfairly deceptive, but are wit-using achievers. Like the trickster, they are also not definable since they do not fulfill any one mold. Tricksters and demonstrate ‘rebelliousness’ by not maintaining honesty, yet somehow, their rebelliousness is what possibly keeps us from deeply demonizing the hacker, the same way mythology does not fully demonize tricksters, regardless of deception (135). Nikitina discusses the commonalities of the trickster/hacker border crossing, as well as motifs of power subversions, creativity and craftsmanship, as well as whether a lot of the themes and motifs are recycled or not. This article is worth investigating because the idea is contemporary as well as interesting. Also, the article is well written and provides general ideas backed with references. Sturges, Paul CATALOG LINK. Sturges, Paul, (2010) “Comedy as freedom of expression”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 66 Iss: 2, pp.279 – 293. Sturges uses ‘literature of comedy, newspaper coverage of comedy in the UK in 2008’ as well as observations of performing comedians to investigate how comedians exercise freedom of expression and the relation of this freedom to ‘giving or avoiding’ offense’ (279). Sturges admits that this is a small study and in no way complete, but at the same time, demonstrates how in the case of most comedy and/or comedians that he has come across, there is some sort of monitoring and not crossing a certain border. Sturges presents his information in the manner of a scientific research paper, which may be in part because he tries to augment that comedy can be a type of information science, and through studying comedy performances (both oral and orthographical), a certain amount of ‘information provision’ as well as reluctance can be detected. Smith, Moira CATALOG LINK. Moira Smith. “Humor, Unlaughter, and Boundary Maintenance.” Journal of American Folklore 122.2 (2009): 148-171. Project MUSE . Web. 14 Oct. 2012.