I Like to Sock Myself in the Face

Written by Henry Jenkins, 'I Like to Sock Myself in the Face' is an essay that touches on gags in popular entertainment from 1940 to 1960 in relation to 'Vulgar Modernism' written by J. Hoberman in 1982. It is an example-driven essay which gives a really detailed description of vaudeville performance by Olsen and Johnson in the television film Hellzapoppin, M.A.D Magazine cartoonists and Tex Avery's cartoons, which are made in the Modern era, to explain how vulgarity were fit into popular entertainment. The essay talks about how artists which Jenkins classifies as 'vulgar modernist' assimilate high art and popular culture 'to produce laughter as opposed to the shock and displeasure that often surrounds reflexivity within the modernist tradition'. Some of these transgressive jokes mostly emerges from the artist's commentary on current affairs and trends from his 'avant-garde impulses'. The Simpsons and South Park are some example of innuendo cartoons that are widely watched by the mass today. People will never get bored with transgressive jokes because they are continuously changing with respect to trends and events. Personally, I really like these kind of comic relief, but the fact that the jokes are short-lived is undeniable, such that when the trends have calmed down the jokes will become corny. This links Adorno's theory on the standardisation in the Culture Industry to popular television cartoons through the manufacture of jokes out of popular trends and affairs. Also, it exposes the capitalist nature of the television cartoon industry as they maintain a certain standard of their product out of what has been prolific in the past without any consideration on ethics.