On Monday, November 18, Loyola University artist-in-residence and multi-faceted funnyman Harry Shearer will host “What’s So Funny About That,” a public forum that will examine how films, through comedic action and dialogue, are able to capture the severity and asininity surrounding certain social issues issues. For it, Shearer selected excerpts from three films to display: Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 WWII spoof To Be or Not to Be, Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 nuclear meltdown Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Milos Forman’s 1971 runaway satire Taking Off.
Harry Shearer participates in Loyola University's public forum "What's So Funny About That" on Monday, November 18, 2013.
Also a part-time New Orleans resident, Shearer began acting in 1953 at the ripe old age of 7, scoring a spot in the Sci-Fi misadventure Abbott and Costello Go To Mars. A working comedic writer and actor, Shearer’s big break came by way of the 1984 Rock ‘n’ Roll mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which he plays Spinal Tap’s bumbling, mutton-chopped, trouser-stuffing bassist Derek Smalls. Since 1983, Shearer has served as the host for the weekly, satirical news broadcast Le Show. To many, he is best known as the longtime voice of Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers and many other characters in the animated television series The Simpsons, but to New Orleanians, nothing tops Shearer and wife Judith Owen’s annual Holiday Sing-Along. An outspoken defender of the Crescent City, in 2010 Shearer released The Big Uneasy, a documentary which takes the Army Corps of Engineers to task for the failures of New Orleans’ levees during Hurricane Katrina. Last year, Shearer released the album Can’t Take A Hint, which features locals Dr. John, Nicholas Payton and Tommy Malone as well as wife Owen, Glee’s Jane Lynch, the Fountains of Wayne, Jamie Cullum and several others.
“What’s So Funny About That” will take place at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 18 at Nunemaker Auditorium, located in Monroe Hall on the campus of Loyola University (map). The event is free and open to the public.
