On Hicks

Before today, I never knew who Bill Hicks was. Even though I didn’t know anything about him, Jillian’s presentation was very interesting. I like that she showed a lot of clips of his stand-up act. A lot of his stand-up acts were based on controversial issues like war, Aids, smoking, and the first President Bush. I like the way he made people laugh but still got his point across. What he was discussing are serious issues yet he gets us to laugh about it. Hicks was a good comedian to pick because he dealt with a lot of the topics we have discussed this semester in class like the use of sex in commercial ads. The sad thing is that he was joking about commercials that were made fifteen years ago. They have gotten much worse since then. Jillian did a good job of bringing all of his performances together and showing the rhetoric side of his stand-up. I’m glad she pointed out that his skits ended on a serious note with what he called the “It’s Just a Ride.” It showed that underneath all of the humor he really took all of the issues he was talking about seriously. I am also glad that Jillian made cds for everyone to take with more of his stand-up.