All posts tagged: Laugh

Live, Laugh, Love … and Submit? + Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Live, Laugh, Love … and Submit? + Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Published by Sam Flores

Are you a total woman? We’ve been waiting literal years for Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s new book “Live Laugh Love.” And here it is! Just in time for a new season of Saved By the City. One thing that struck us about Kristin’s new book is how much it centers on consumer products marketed to Christian women. It’s less a history of ideas from the top down and more a history of ideas from the ground up, via the things that white Christian women buy and sell. And so many of those cultural artifacts were familiar to us! Like “Love Comes Softly,” by Janette Oke, or “Christy” by Catherine Marshall. Kristin’s book also features two of our favorite SBTC guests! Beth Moore and Amy Grant, of course. But as we’ll get into with Kristin, a lot of these cultural artifacts taught women to be happy despite the circumstances – to kind of accept their lot in life with a smile on their faces and to above all make their husbands happy. As Kristin explains, there’s …

As the world burns, what does it take to make people laugh in 2026?

As the world burns, what does it take to make people laugh in 2026?

Published by Daniella Wilson

One of the biggest arts festivals on the planet, the Edinburgh Fringe is still hitting audiences’ funny bones almost 50 years on – even though, in 2026, they might seem harder to find than ever. From international conflicts to climate change and threats of a British recession, it feels like we’re slapped with a barrage of bad news on a daily basis. However, the depressing state of the world won’t stop the comics at this year’s Fringe from looking for laughs. “If anything, I feel like people want to laugh and go out and have a good time,” says Ania Magliano, who is performing her show Peach Fuzz at the Fringe. “I haven’t felt any more resistance.” The Saturday Night Live UK star is getting personal on stage, tackling everything from sex and boundaries to how “a lot of us are quite disconnected from our bodies”. “Society can feel more isolated, with us spending a lot of time on our phones and feeling quite separate,” she continues. “It’s a good sign that there’s still a …

Stop Looking for Someone to Make You Laugh

Stop Looking for Someone to Make You Laugh

Published by Jenni Sidey

Scroll through any dating app and one wish appears more than almost any other: “You should make me laugh.” It sounds harmless—charming, even. Who doesn’t want laughter in a relationship? But listen closely to the grammar. You should make me laugh. One person performs; the other receives. One is the comedian; the other is the audience. Before the first date has even happened, the job description assigns your future partner a role: supplier of your good moods. The wish for laughter is healthy. The outsourcing hidden inside it is not. What the Research Actually Says About Laughter and Love Laughter genuinely matters in romantic relationships—but not in the way the dating-profile phrase implies. In a study of couples, Kurtz and Algoe (2015) found that the amount of time partners spent laughing together predicted relationship quality and feelings of closeness. It was the shared moment—two nervous systems in sync—that carried the benefit. A meta-analysis of 39 studies reached the same conclusion from another direction: Hall (2017) found that relationship satisfaction was linked to humor that partners …

On “The Comeback,” AI gets the last laugh

On “The Comeback,” AI gets the last laugh

Published by Sam Flores

Over three seasons set in three different decades, “The Comeback” has been guided by the constant, evergreen punchline of Lisa Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish not quite getting what’s happening to her career. The first season, in 2005, follows her return to TV on a bland network sitcom called “Room and Bored.” Season 2 returned nine years later to wrestle with Peak TV’s onslaught. For its third and final season, “The Comeback” finds Valerie a project in which she’s the star and an executive producer. The catch, and it’s a big one, is that the show is entirely written by artificial intelligence. Valerie and her publicist, Billy (Dan Bucatinsky), are compelled by a non-disclosure agreement to keep that a secret from the rest of the cast, the crew and the rest of Hollywood. Otherwise, the town would revolt and the show’s prospects would be ruined. Probably. Well, possibly. “The Comeback” is a handy distilling mechanism for an industry that can’t help drowning itself in excess. Valerie’s career is a long curtsy to declining standards and …

David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh

David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh

Published by Daniella Wilson

On March 5, a week after inking a $111 billion deal, Paramount CEO David Ellison and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav conspicuously lunched in the executive dining room on the Warner Bros. Studio lot, breaking bread over their megamerger that will reshape Hollywood.  Unlike December’s visit from Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters to the WB lot, no glamour photos were taken, but the public appearance of Ellison on his property-to-be underscores the new world order that is about to engulf the industry. The rich and powerful are poised to get richer and more powerful, and much of the rest of the industry is wondering what comes next. The Paramount-Warners marriage is perhaps the quintessential example. A year ago, Ellison was the CEO of Skydance, a studio with a valuation of $4.75 billion. When this deal closes, he will control two of Hollywood’s legacy studios, an empire valued at north of $120 billion. Zaslav is running a company that had a share price of $10 a year ago. Now he is the toast …