Response: Humour and Palatability

In response to Raanan's post "Comedy" (April 30, 2012):

I think that humour and comedy frequently do help to convey important messages.  The main benefit, I think, to using humour in this way is that it makes potentially controversial issues less threatening.  The work of Terry Pratchett, for example, presents many of the problems of modern society in a funny, fictional context.  Reading about the dangers of censoring the press in a story about a fictional world populated with vampires, wizards, and werewolves is far more appealing to many people than reading about the same subject in a bleak, non-fictional treatise, or even in a dark, dystopian-future novel type setting.  I think that this same principal often applies to music; musicians can often address serious issues without accruing nearly as much opposition as politicians addressing the same issues.  This does not make their messages any less important or well-thought-out; it simply makes them seemingly less threatening to political systems than more officially conveyed messages.