20. "Humour is a rubber
sword—it allows you to
make a point without
drawing blood."
Mary Hirsch
Editor's Notes
Big part of everyday life and interactions with each other / the world
Benefits of Comedy/ Humour:
Usually leads to being more likable (if not done wrong)
Makes people listen more
Relaxes the person, making them more receptive to whatever BS you have to say
Makes information more memorable
Distracts the person from thinking about counter-arguments
Makes the person feel good and hence not think so carefully about the proposition
Continue points from last slide
Benefits of Comedy/ Humour:
Usually leads to being more likable (if not done wrong)
Makes people listen more
Relaxes the person, making them more receptive to whatever BS you have to say
Makesinformation more memorable
Distracts the person from thinking about counter-arguments
Makes the person feel good and hence not think so carefully about the proposition
History of comedy - Dionysus
For the god of grape harvest and wine. - when the Athenians sang (you just become exponentially funnier the more you drink) so Dionysus became the God everyone told jokes to
Was also used to take attack on political opponents in Athens / Greece
Superiority theory = Schadenfreude
Assert the person's superiority on the background of shortcomings of others.
“Your Mother is So fat ...”
Thomas Hobbes: “laughter is a"sudden glory" we feel over the butt of a joke” But if humoractually did spring out of a feeling of superiority, then every time we felt better than someone, we would want tolaugh — and every joke, in turn, would have to give us a sense of dominance. Theformer isn't true because we often win games and competitions without laughing,and because it's possible to insult someone without also ridiculing them. Thelatter isn't true either, since some jokes don't evoke any feeling ofsuperiority in the listener. For example:
incongruity theory
To do with expectations of a joke (the Punch line jokes)
An effective punch line must be unpredictable and take us by surprise.
a joke sets up a situation; then,
punch-line causes the listener to reconsider what he's just heard.
A man at the dinnertable dipped his hands in the mayonnaise and then ran them through his hair.When his neighbor looked astonished, the man apologized: "I'm so sorry. Ithought it was spinach."
#3: The Benign Violation Theory
We laugh when something is violated — like morals, social codes,linguistic norms, or personal dignity
Dead Children jokes
"DonaldTrump said that he was running for president as a Republican. That's funny,because I thought he was running as a joke." — Seth Meyers, WhiteHouse Correspondents' Dinner, April 2011
4: The Mechanical Theory
Repeat Repeat
Most comic characters depend for their laughs on enduring personality trait.
HomerSimpson's inability to anticipate consequences — "Doh!"
Austin Powers' single-mindedsex-drive.
repetitive nature of our personalities — thatis the source of humor.
Laughter is a mechanism that makes sure that tension is reduced to be in equilibrium/ balance.
overcome sociocultural inhibitions
reveal suppressed desires
It is believed that this is the reason we laugh whilst being tickled, due to a build up of tension as the tickler "strikes"
Freud
laughter is a reaction
to release sexual tension.
German + Woman
10-15% of women in comedy
Reason might be stereotypes/ cultural barriers
1600Playwright William Congreve never made observation of
true humour in women because of too powerful a passion
1884Richard Grant White, one of the most powerful cultural critics of the 19th century
humour is the rarest of quality in a woman
2007 essay in
Vanity Fair “Why Women aren't Funny” by C. Hitchens
2011 Psychology Today 'PROVED' that
men had a biological reason to be funnier
1600Playwright William Congreve never made observation of
true humour in women because of too powerful a passion
1884Richard Grant White, one of the most powerful cultural critics of the 19th century
humour is the rarest of quality in a woman
2007 essay in
Vanity Fair “Why Women aren't Funny” by C. Hitchens
2011 Psychology Today 'PROVED' that
men had a biological reason to be funnier
less appropriate for women to behave like
“alpha males” being out of line,
while male comedians can do whatever they want and being EDGY
The view that there are styles of humor that are appropriate to use by men but not women
Women who turn into what is perceived as a more masculine act, using sexual and more aggressive types of humor, may not succeed as much as their male counterparts.
False research
Apparent researchers saying Women are't funny and backed up by “SOLID” data; here is one example of how the data is collected:
one such study:
Students & their response to the hypothetical situation
colleague whose briefcase flies open, spilling papers all over the hallway:
(1) ignoring
(2) helpfulness
(3) use of humor
"humor" response
"helping" response
Language
Brian Lowry expressed his concerns that by trying to imitate men’s humor using vulgarities and crude humor, Sarah Silverman was hurting her career.
Dirty = bad
clean = bad
humor that disparage individuals or groups,
is not considered "polite," and women are brought up to avoid any semblance of impoliteness.
Members of a group that has suffered from some type of social discrimination find humor directed against other victimized groups less funny than people who have not experienced discrimination based upon their social identity.
Stand up Comedy has a tradition of ridiculing moral, social, and political conventions
Strategies for women:
making themselves less feminine (to be less judged for being a female over non female characteristics)
or using self deprecating humor (to avoid exerting power over audience and seeming
Members of a group that has suffered from some type of social discrimination find humor directed against other victimized groups less funny than people who have not experienced discrimination based upon their social identity.
Stereotypes of women in comedy
Some of the Roles for women in comedies:
Fat chic
Dumb chic
Comedy as a tool of social change
Gender Flipping – stupidity of oversexualising the female body
start conversations about taboo subjects
comedy as a venue for minorities to challenge the assumptions of mainstream society
This all works if its funny. People can take it lightly while still thinking about the message.
stand-up comedy, draws criticism for being offensive and for perpetuating negative stereotypes. This, however, is a sign of a healthy comedy culture because it means that
comedians are pushing social boundaries.
It will facilitate the development of ‘a culture that allows women to self-critically question the stereotypes that have governed our lives.
A strong, rebellious humor empowers women to examine how we have been objectified and fetishized and to what extent we have been led to perpetuate this objectification’ (Merrill, 1988, 279).
