Author : Christopher Miller
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062225197
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)
Book Synopsis American Cornball by : Christopher Miller
Download or read book American Cornball written by Christopher Miller and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Cornball is Christopher Miller's irresistibly funny illustrated survey of popular humor—the topics that used to make us laugh, from hiccups and henpecked-husbands to outhouses and old maids—and what it tells us about our country yesterday and today. Miller revisits nearly 200 comic staples that have been passed down through our culture for generations, many originating from the vaudeville age. He explores the (often unseemly) contexts from which they arose, why they were funny in their time, and why they eventually lost their appeal. The result is a kind of taxonomy of humor during America's golden age that provides a deeper, more profound look at the prejudices, preoccupations, and peculiarities of a nation polarized between urban and rural, black and white, highborn and lowbrow. As he touches on issues of racism and sexism, cultural stereotypes and violence, Miller reveals how dramatically our moral sensibilities have shifted, most notably in the last few decades. Complete with more than 100 period illustrations, American Cornball is a richly entertaining survey of our shifting comic universe.