Comedy is something that is meant to be funny. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of comedy is “the genre of dramatic literature dealing with the comic or with the serious in a light or satirical manner.”

Comedy is an art form that takes characteristic or exaggerated life depictions into entertainment and humor. A question that tends to arise regarding the topic of comedy it; where do we draw the line in comedy?

Good comedians don’t exclude their audience when making jokes. Good comedians take into account their whole audience so that everybody is laughing. Imagine only half of the audience was laughing, and the other half just took offense to the joke. That could just mean the joke wasn’t funny. There’s no harm in seeing the other side in things, comedians just need to be aware.

Comedians need to be able to have that flexibility to take criticism from their audience. They also need to be able to think about, and consider the one-liners that they come up with, and whether or not they achieve the laughs that they were hoping for.

There are people that will just take offense to the jokes for no reason, but it’s not that difficult for the comedian to notice when they’re just being a moron. Today’s society has accepted that comedy blurs the line between what should be offensive and the shock value that it causes. 

Some people however believe that there isn’t a line that comedy can cross. Those who think that believe that a good comedian will find the perfect way to execute a joke that would make the audience have a good laugh.

The line in comedy is really only crossed when the joke that the comedian is trying to make fails, and is not executed well. It helps find the difference between a good comedian and a bad one. Today’s society lives in a world that promotes the idea of freedom of speech and that idea should not be obstructed in the world of comedy.

Despite all of this, this doesn’t mean that we can stop anybody from being offended by the jokes. Everyone has a right to feel offended or not to jokes in comedy, or to anything they watch or listen to. Comedy, and its reaction, is determined execution and delivery.