Monday, November 10, 2008

Laughter is One Kind of Medicine, Among Thousands

On Salon right now there's an article about medical student comedy skit revues. The essay asks 3 main questions:
1) what do you think of medical student comedy skit shows?
2) Do you think just one way about them?
3) Did you know that there are two ways to think about them, pro and con?

In addition, the essay provides: an undeveloped subplot about how now the skits are in the form of videos posted on youtube and the Internet changes everything. Does it? And then another less-developed subplot about how how maybe humor challenges power and can be a tool of change?

here's one of the sample videos:

It's stupid.

The best part of the article is when the author rips off his "mask" and says, "THE REASON I KNOW IS BECAUSE I WAS ONCE A MEDICAL STUDENT!" And he does it in style, saying:
In my fourth-year show, lyrics of a barbershop quartet song were changed when some students felt they unfairly stereotyped women of a specific ethnic group.


I'm writing this blog post to ask you: what could this mean?
What ethnic group of women? In what ways was the stereotype made present in a barbershop quartet song?


"He look a like a mAAaaAAAaan"



Pretty.

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