Comedyblog

This is my response to Walker's lead blog. First of all, I think that Anthony Jeselnik is very funny as I very much enjoy dark humor. I think that many people believe there is something wrong or immoral about dark humor. However, in my opinion, this is not the case for a couple of reasons. First of all. and most obviously, we have the relief theory. Relief theory states that relief is achieved by talking about things which we typically can not talk about. For example,  in Jeselnik, we see him talking about topics like gun violence, dementia, etc. However, I think that one could look at the relief theory from two different angles, and view Jeselnik's comments from two different angles.Through these, we can see the value and purpose of dark humor. Firstly, relief can function by relieving the individual of certain societal restrictions.That is, in humor, the individual is no longer obliged to stay silen about taboo subjects. Because of this suspension of the oppressive rules...

This is my response to Rebecca's lead blog. I thought Rebecca's lead blog was very interesting in its application of Alastair Clark's theory of humor. Obviously, his pattern recognition theory of humor is relatively new, but his theory does seem to have some strong merit. It does seem to be the case that any instance of humor will involve pattern recognition. After all, how could something be an incongruity without being an unexpected or atypical pattern? I also think Clark's theory has the strong advantage of being able to explain why humor is present in every society that has ever existed. In Clark's theory, pattern recognition permits us to discern the rules by which our world works, understanding the rules by which are world works allows us to predict our environment, and being able to predict our environment allows us to act on our environment in an effective manner. So, in other words, we had every incentive from an evolutionary point of view to develop a s...

This is my response to Mallory's lead blog. I think that Mallory is completely correct in noting that the incongruity theory is a very good explanation of this video. The main character is acting in a manner which is incongruous with the way people typically behave regarding water. That is, we typically look at water as being a very everyday sort of beverage which is only remarkable for how unremarkable it is. Nevertheless, we see the main character and, later on, the others acting as though water was the most astounding and remarkable beverage one could possibly encounter. The surprising linking of two typically unconnected things, (the unremarkable nature of water, and the attitude of the characters in relations to water) is clearly explained by incongruity theory. In addition to this, and even though it is a little harder to see, we can also apply the benign violation theory to this case. Initially, it seems difficult to do this. After all, in what sense is the act of deli...