We take comedy for granted.

When we watch someone doing stand-up or in a comedy movie, we look at it as pure entertainment, something that should make us laugh. And yes, you should want to laugh — and it’s reasonable that we look towards people to provide us with entertainment. But it’s important that we recognize comedy itself as a philosophy, one which helps society reflect upon itself. 

In his essay, Essay on Comedy — (I know, how ironic) — 19th century English novelist, George Meredith, depicts the comic spirit of a man as “a gentle spirit with tiny arrows meant to sting man’s vanity.” Or for a simpler way to put it: it’s an ‘intelligent’ set of humor that operates in a detached perspective that recognizes the absurdities in human behavior, where ‘arrows’ act as witty observations, clever dialogue or sharp satire. And they’re ‘tiny’ as they don’t hurt anyone but do ‘sting man’s vanity’ to target ego and make people laugh at their own flaws — humble them, if you will. 

Take Marcello Hernandez’s Netflix special, American Boy, for example. I watched it the day it came out, sitting on my bed at 11 p.m., neglecting homework, to see what this individual, whom most of the world was introduced to as an SNL cast-member, had to offer us — and boy, were we not disappointed. 

Hernandez shares his Latino roots, throwing ‘tiny arrows’ left and right at his experiences growing up in a single-parent household as a Cuban-Dominican in Miami. He throws some of his ‘arrows’ at the predominantly female household norms he grew within, even touching upon the topic of beauty standards of women. 

He jokes that “a bathroom of a woman that’s getting ready to leave the house is not a bathroom anymore, it’s Dexter’s Laboratory,” in which he says “there’s electricity and water at the same time.” He continues to speak about makeup where he says “she has a pencil and she’s putting it in her eye,” even though “the eye is rejecting the pencil.” He calls waxing “violent,” telling his audience that every woman has a mustache, and that they get it treated by “ripp[ing it] off their faces.” 

Is he exaggerating? Maybe. But is he wrong that it looks absurd? Not really. I mean, women ripping hair follicles out of their skin is not the most pleasurable image. And yeah, when I’m trying to get my kajol just right on my under eyelid, and it doesn’t turn out the way I hoped, the eyelid does get wiped, cleaned and re-stabbed. 

We call it calming and self-care, and even though those claims might hold some truth, from an outside perspective, like Hernandez’s, maybe it is quite absurd, and we’ve just become too accustomed to it. 

Those are Meredtith’s ‘tiny arrows.’ They don’t condemn women. They don’t truly wound us either. But they sting our vanity just enough to make us step back and laugh at ourselves. Is that not absurd, how something so “violent,” so stigmatized, so personal, becomes material that makes us laugh, and, in laughing, recognize ourselves?

That’s why, like any art, comedy is multi-dimensional. It doesn’t just serve a purpose to entertain, but it can be provocative. 

Leonard James Potts, a specialist in literary comedy, wrote in his book, Comedy, that because  “emotions evoked by tragedy are too complex to be called merely sad, so comedy is too complex to be merely funny.” If we start off with tragedy, it doesn’t just make you cry, but evokes pity or sympathy for the hero. However, it also leads to the fear from the audience that misfortune can happen to anyone, leading to catharsis — a definition deemed by the famous philosopher, Aristotle. 

Most of us associate comedy with laughter, making us believe that it should be in the realm of lightheartedness. But comedy often stems from dark and difficult subject matter. 

Here, we can turn to comedian Hasan Minhaj, best known for time as a senior correspondent on The Daily Show, his Netflix series Patriot Act and his three Netflix specials. In his special, Off With His Head (2024), he introduces the concept of ‘beige-guilt,’ by first addressing a common phrase white-guilt. 

He says, “[w]e talk about white guilt all the time. Black people you have no guilt, that’s why you can dance,” then points at a white guy in the front row telling the audience he can’t cause of slavery. Minhaj then shifts to ‘beige guilt’ and how we’re immigrants by choice who “know the world is like Star Wars.” He calls America “the Empire ran by Lord Vader” that “has all the money, the weapons, and the military bases all over the galaxy,” bombing the Rebellion — “[t]hat’s Beige-stan.”

He starts to name countries off — Cambodia, Korea, Vietnam, Japan — and interrupts his list by scatting The Imperial March Darth Vader’s Theme and soon after imitating an explosion and screaming. But right after he doesn’t hesitate to continue listing off places— Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza — once again interrupting to scat to The Imperial March Darth Vader’s Theme and imitate another explosion and scream. 

To put an end to his bit, Minhaj finishes off by telling the audience that his dad got a green card to go live in the ‘Empire’ and for the past 40 years, they’ve been “funding the destruction of Tatooine,” all for a white BMW 3, “[w]hich ironically looks like a Stormtrooper.”

After, as expected, the audience was left laughing, grasping for air — I definitely was when my friend and I were watching it as we sat on my gray carpeted floor trying to make sure our chewed up popcorn in our mouths didn’t slip out onto the ground. 

But even if the whole thing felt chaotic, with punchline after punchline, Minhaj wasn’t just being chaotic for the sake of laughter but to make a point, circling one singular truth: colonization is bad, and immigrant guilt comes from knowing about it. 

Knowing you’re living in the ‘Empire.’ Knowing you benefit from it. Knowing that your family chose it. 

It’s something I can speak truth to, and most first-generation individuals can too. 

Knowing you’re far away from your homeland. Knowing you’re apart of an ‘Empire’ whose power still operates in shadows and systems whom you’re paying taxes to and working under. Knowing your homeland may have fought for liberation from the very powers you now participate in. 

That’s not lighthearted. That’s not surface-level funny. That’s heavy. 

And yet — Minhaj makes us laugh about it. 

That’s the complexity Potts was talking about. 

Comedy is not merely funny. It carries guilt. Fear. Recognition. Discomfort. It forces us to confront truths we would otherwise avoid, and it does so in a way that makes us open enough to receive them. Unfortunately, it just shows how closely comedy and tragedy really are interlinked — just different sides of the same coin. 

As this popular art form continues to be the center of the entertainment industry, it’s an important part of not just the nation’s cultural life, but the global community’s. 

As Lawarence Mintz, associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland writes, “[c]omedians provide us with some of our most valuable social commentary,” as comedy within itself is a social phenomenon, confront all of the profoundly important aspects our culture society, and serving an important role allowing for expression of shared beliefs and behavior. 

There is much more work to be done if we are to properly appreciate the role of comedy. Because who else can make us reflect upon ourselves through laughter if not for comedians and comedy? 

Comedy is not just entertainment. It is an observation. It is philosophy. It is discomfort made digestible. It is a tragedy wearing a lighter face. 

We take comedy for granted. But comedy has been taking the weight of the world and asking us to laugh while learning how to understand it.