Is humor ever not funny?
"The Office" takes on suicide
"The Office" has gotten a lot of attention over the past week or so for its Halloween episode, which showed boss Michael Scott in a noose, sharing a particularly poorly worded suicide prevention message. I was struck by how a similar image, also in the public sphere this past week, generated a different kind of response. Ireland's "Sunday World" newspaper published an image of a man in a noose as a way of drawing public attention to police delay in removing the man's body.
I wonder if because "The Office" is a comedy, we are prepared to laugh at whatever comes across the screen. But, in the case of the photo published in the newspaper in Ireland, the image of a man hanging was not at all humorous. Similar image, very different contexts.
Is humor ever not funny?
"The Office" takes on suicide
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