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What's cooking with Tannishtha Chatterjee's roast?

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Vichitra Amarnathan
Vichitra AmarnathanOct 07, 2016 | 14:33

What's cooking with Tannishtha Chatterjee's roast?

'But any comedy means laughing at the expense of someone else.' 

How many times have you heard that? I'm not talking about any trend here because I've been hearing this for as long as I can remember and something just never sat well with me about this. What if you were the 'someone else'? What if you were the butt end of the jokes? You've perhaps been in this place sometime and the done thing is to "be a sport". After all, who wants to be someone who lacks a sense of humour.

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So when the actress Tannishtha Chatterjee chose to walk out of a roast comedy show, she was slammed by some commentators on social media for not having a sense of humour. She was going to be roasted; what did she expect? But I see that as a brave move and here's why.

The roast format of comedy originated in Britain and has been around for a while now. It was meant to honour someone by making fun of their achievements among a close knit group with each member taking turns to crack a witty joke and even belittle the one being roasted. The underlying spirit was that of accepting that someone had done well for themselves. We all have that one friend or colleague who has gone places and we tend to get a tad jealous.

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When did mass bullying replace a good sense of humour? 

A roast lets people deal with these feelings in a constructive manner. In the end, you should be able to laugh at yourself for the absurd ways in which you can dispense the fact that "hey, she/ he simply did better than me." It's actually not about laughing at the other person and certainly not by belittling their personal attributes. It's another matter that TV shows and AIB interprets the roast differently. But to me there seems to be a schadenfreude-style of pleasure seeking in this twisted interpretation of humour.

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And then there are the endless wife jokes and gay jokes. I cannot see what is funny about the stereotype that men are helplessly and perennially unhappy in their marriages. Why get married then? I also don't understand the many stereotypes about gay people or any group of people. I'm sure the question of freedom of speech will come up.

But when freedom entails stepping onto another person or group's identity or self esteem for fun, it is not freedom but borderline abuse. If I walked around using abusive words for a person, I should be called a bully no matter the ingenious way in which I can string words together. The challenge is to be creative within the limits.

And that brings me to what a good sense of humour is intended to be and it definitely has an important purpose. Hailed as the most advanced coping mechanism by psychologists, it is the ability to laugh at oneself and at one's circumstance without becoming cynical or resigned.

So when I see a young man on America's Got Talent who has damaged his vocal chords permanently (in an accident) such that he has a nervous stammer for life, going on to become a stand up comedian, I sit up and take notice. When this man laughs at himself saying what would happen if his voice were to be made the GPS voice giving directions to people while they are driving, he makes everyone laugh. That, to me, is a good sense of humour and great comedy.

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A sense of humour should challenge your mind to think differently and see something fresh. What happened to puns, alliterations and word plays? When did mass bullying replace a good sense of humour? There can be comedy in laughing at the expense of someone else only as long as you are laughing at a fictional character far removed from you when it comes to circumstances.

Last updated: October 07, 2016 | 14:33
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