I personally find inherent and perceived incongruities to be the most persuasive explanation as to why people tend to find humor in incongruities. This theory states that the reason some may find incongruence funny is because of the societal background and stigmas that may lie behind the joke. The example in the text was how a man and a women are in bed together and the husband of the woman walks in and goes, "What's he doing here" making a reference to the stigma surrounding homosexuality. The contrast between what we thought was going to happen in that scenario and what actually happened created humor through complete incongruence. As I continued to read deeper into the passage, a great example that pertained to this theory popped into my head. One of my all time favorite episodes in all of TV comes from the hit series The Office. In season 5 episode 13, Dwight creates a simulation of a real fire, because his co-workers wouldn't listen to him during his fire safety presentation. After he sets up the entire office for the 'fire', he pours lighter fluid into a trash can, lights a cigarette, and says "Today, smoking is gonna save lives", and proceeds to toss the cigarette into the trash can starting the fire. The reason why this example of comedy stood out to me is because of the meaning behind Dwights’ simple phrase and the cultural norms that surround it. Controversy has surrounded the tobacco industry for many years. In recent years, we have science to back up the correlation (and causation) between smoking and lung cancer. We see "Truth" ads on TV telling us scary statistics about the consequences of using tobacco in any form. The phrase "Today, smoking is gonna saves lives" is humorous on multiple different accounts. One, Dwight is wrong because of what we know now about smoking (it's unhealthy and has dangerous consequences), and two, he starts an actual fire. Yes, this example is pretty different compared to the previously mentioned in terms of subject matter, but society's reaction based on the conditioning all humans face in our communities is what creates the humor or surprised reaction.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 4, 2018 at 9:05 PM

    omg shut up I just submitted mine and I wrote on this exact episode lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shane HerronSeptember 5, 2018 at 12:52 PM

    The thing that always makes me laugh the hardest is throwing the cat.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The interesting thing about comedy, in general, is that it's all subjective. What I find hilarious may not even register with someone else as humorous. This same principle is applied to comedy tv shows as well. In response to Jake's blog post, I found some of the points that he raised as interesting. He explained how the show Seinfeld has no overlying plot, and that's what makes it so exceptional. In a way, I agree with him. There is always a time and a place where we just want to laugh, and not worry about keeping up with a detailed plot or keep track of attributes we need to remember in order to understand the show. Seinfeld is definitely that kind of show where you can turn it on and just enjoy the singular episode for what it is. The humor in Seinfeld is a sort of observational comedy, where the premise of the humor is based on going through the motions of everyday life. But referring back to my original point, someone may not be interested in that type of show or hum...
Read more
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...
Read more
I think Alex's blog post does a fine job with relating the three main humor theories to the hit show Friends. I personally found it helpful that each character from the show matched up with a particular theory of humor. This helped me remember the theories in a more in-depth way by relating them to something I already have knowledge about. For Instance, Phoebe aligns with the incongruity theory because of her sporadic jokes and personality, combining concepts and things that normally would not go together. There is one particular episode I remember watching a few weeks ago where Phoebe is playing her guitar alone in the subway station singing "Your love is like a giant pigeon, crapping on my heart". I found this line exceptionally funny because no one would think to associate a giant pigeon and a broken heart. Phoebe's constant use of incongruous ideas as such make her a prime example of what the incongruity theory is all about. The show Friends is an easy comparison...
Read more