Katherine's comedy blog

The movie Elf is a great representation of the superiority and incongruity theory. It's one of my favorite Christmas movies, and I think I look differently at it now than how I did as a kid. Watching the movie again knowing about the theories of humor has definitely changed my perception of the type of humor used in the movie. I liked how Jane gave specific examples from the movie and tied it into the superiority theory and how we as an audience tend to feel superior to him due to his child-like and naive behavior. I think Buddy's child-like tendencies and behavior is one of the main reasons why so many people find this movie humorous. In a way, we can all relate to Buddy. We all (and maybe still) have this young and childlike wonder about us. Who wouldn't want to stay in a mall overnight and make paper snowflakes and etchy sketch the Mona Lisa? The incongruity aspect comes from his age (a 30 something-year-old man) and the contrast between his sense of humor and mannerisms...

In response to Hannah's lead blog post, I found it interesting how my results varied from the different episodes and the types of humor that stuck out to me. I scored a 5 and 6 for Friends and found sarcasm, satire, people doing stupid things, put down, and incongruity. For The Office, I scored an 8 and 7 and found satire, dark humor, people doing stupid things, joking around to fit in, and naughty humor. I think this experiment demonstrates how people's perception of humor affects their favored type of humor and what they find as funny. Not everyone will like Friends, and not everyone will like The Office. But why do some people find certain things funny while others do not? It could all be linked back to the three types of humor theories, or maybe just plain life experience. If you like the kind of humor where there are discrepancies between what the character is saying and the actual meaning of the action, then you are inclined towards the incongruity theory and so on. In te...

Social interactions definitely play a huge part in shaping not only our humor but our perceptions about society. Today, many people make a lot of jokes or come across comedy with a hidden or deeper meaning to it. Like Faith's example, a simple joke that a friend told made the other friend question the meaning of the joke itself along with his own personal views. Although a scenario like that doesn't happen very often, comedy has the potential to shed light on convoluted or complex thought. Using sociology to explain our perception of humor is clever, and helpful to us in many ways as we attempt to understand the human brain and how it perceives humor. Comedy clearly has the potential to shape our opinions and personal thought. To me, analyzing comedy through a sociologic lens is an interesting method and point of view. Perhaps, it could further explain how comedy even has the capability of shaping our thoughts and opinions in the first place.

I personally love The Office and have watched the series multiple times. I also find it interesting that each of the characters plays a specific and important role in the show, providing different types of humor in certain situations that are best fitting for that type of humor. Just how the character of Micheal Scott ties into the Superiority theory of humor. We tend to laugh at Micheal the most because of his childish personality, cringy jokes, and outlandish behavior in and outside of the workplace. Sometimes we may laugh at Micheal because of his silly mistakes or almost violating jokes. But I think many theories can tie into many different characters of the show. I like how Lucy used the character of Micheal Scott to explain the Superiority theory in a way that is easy to understand, especially in a well-fitting setting. It seems that The Office most likely won't come back on air due to its type of humor, and how it may not work in today's society. Overall, the characters...

I think we all know that laughter serves as an excellent form of medicine when it comes to coping with a difficult situation, or even if we are just feeling down. I think it was interesting how we can make our own selves laugh, even if it is just looking at ourselves in the mirror and flashing a cheesy smile. I think the act of almost talking to yourself in the mirror and then realize what you're doing is crazy (cause let's be honest, smiling at yourself in the mirror is a bit strange) is what causes people to laugh in the first place. It releases stress because we allow ourselves to find humor in our own chaos/shortcomings. I think Paige brought up an interesting point, at the fact that laughter can actually serve as a form of medicine. The research used proves that having a sense of humor can go a long way with therapy and people's perceptions of themselves in general. Allowing ourselves to laugh and stay positive will obviously improve our mood and processing of thoughts...

In Alexis's lead blog post, she describes how the superiority theory coincides with Cody Ko's video on "That's Cringe" (which I personally love). I think she did a great job of explaining how this theory can be used to explain why some may find the video funny because we are laughing at the unfortunate situation that Skippy finds himself in along with the commentary on Cody and Noel's part (and most importatnly just the cringy situation as a whole). I also like how she incorporated the benign theory of violation, which explains why some of us may not have been laughing as much considering the multiple humor violations that took place. We can all agree that the video is pretty cringy, and Noel and Cody kind of come off as assholes, but it's just the type of humor that some people may or may not be drawn too. If you don't know Cody Ko and his humor style, you may find this video just downright mean and offensive. But overall, I would say that Alexis high...