The Penn Stater Magazine

My Buddy Keegan: Just in ‘Time’

March 13, 2014 at 2:23 pm Mary Murphy 1 comment

Yep, that’s Keegan-Michael Key ’96g, with his Key & Peele co-star Jordan Peele, gracing the cover of Time‘s Ideas Issue, hitting newsstands now.

In the magazine, Key and Peele author a piece on America’s obsession with political correctness and what it means for comedy. It’s brilliant stuff, and like everything Key does, it will probably make you laugh. But it’ll also make you think. When I interviewed Key for our March/April cover story, we had a surprisingly philosophical discussion about comedy. Key blew my mind with his insights into satire, comedic timing, the element of surprise—and why the funniest jokes are almost always the results of intelligent, critical observation. The Time article touches on some of the same ideas, and Key and Peele reveal “the true purpose of humor.” A favorite snippet:

To not make fun of something is, we believe, itself a form of bullying. When a humorist makes the conscious decision to exclude a group from derision, isn’t he or she implying that the members of that group are not capable of self-reflection? Or don’t possess the mental faculties to recognize the nuances of satire? A group that’s excluded never gets the opportunity to join in the greater human conversation.

Check out the full article here.

Mary Murphy, associate editor

Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Key & Peele, Time Magazine.