Comedyblog

This is my response to Alex's lead blog post. For his lead blog, Alex posted two videos of what he describes as absurdist humor. As well as being very good examples of absurdist humor, they, according to Alex, demonstrate a very interesting point. This being that none of the theories can adequately explain such humor. So fundamentally, these videos act as counterexamples to each of the theories. On the face of things, Alex seems to be perfectly correct in this point. I myself found it to be quite difficult to understand how any of the humor theories could apply to the videos that Alex posted. So he makes his case well. In fact, of all the lead blogs posted (including my own) this one made me think the most. However, I do disagree with Alex's claim that none of the theories can explain the absurdist counterexamples he gave. Obviously, I can not explain here every absurdist statement given in the "funniest patch notes" video. However, I believe we can analyze a ru...

This is my response to Jack's blog. First of all, even though I have seen this video before, I found it absolutely hilarious. It definitely qualifies for my favorite Key and Peele Skit of all time, and I love that Jack chose this one. Also, I think it is a very good example of Incongruity Theory(as Jack Pointed out) as well as Benign Violation Theory. In reference to its incongruity, the video clearly breaks our expectations on how the students' names are typically pronounced. For example, he pronounces Aaron as A-Aron. So, it seems to me that the situation has a descriptive element(the way we typically pronounce names as a matter of fact.) In this case, this typical description is broken, and hence incongruity results. In addition to this, we have a prescriptive element in the skit. In my opinion, this is the social demand that people pronounce each other's names correctly. I.e., it is looked at as a simple courtesy to have our own names pronounced the way we ourselves ...

Hey everyone, for my lead blog I would like to write about something I call "Feeling Tone Interpretation" and its application to comedy theory.                                                https://Youtu.be/oPpzJAzdpTU                                           First of all, events typically have a certain "feeling tone" associated with them. For example, a murder is despicable, a hug is affectionate, a fall is painful etc. We can call the typical feeling tones of an event the "Standard Feeling Tones." However,  when we look at an event not individually, ...

This is my response to Kimberly's blog post: I definitely agree with the points made in Kimberly's blog, and I thought the application of the different theories to the video was well done. First of all, she points to the incongruity of Dwight's character with the fact that he is literally starting a fire that will cause total chaos. He seems perfectly calm as though he were simply making a point about some abstract theory. Also, throughout the video, even though everyone else is in complete panic, he never once losses a sense of implacability. So, we see incongruity in Dwight's calm demeanor contrasted with the surroundings. Also, as Kimberly pointed out, we see the relief theory at work. Typically, due to the harm it causes, the topic of a fire is uttered in very serious contexts. However, since we know the fire is actually totally under control, we do not need to think or feel about this fire in these terms. this creates a relief from the burden of needing to repres...

In my opinion, the Incongruity theory is probably the best explanation of most instances of comedy. The reason for this, I believe, is that the positive emotion of humor is separated for other positive emotions by it's spontaneity. Take hope for example, both of these are produced from the fact that we are expecting something good to happen according to plan or as desired. However, with humor, it is not expected but unexpected outcomes which make us laugh. Therefore, if humor is fundamentally spontaneous positive emotion, it seems that this can only be produced by means of some unexpected pattern emerging between incongruous events. In addition to this, is seems that the Incongruity Theory is able to include the other theories as well. For example, the theory of superiority states that one feels a sense of greatness at seeing something or someone humbled or made silly in one way or another. Whether or not this is right, I find that in comedy this is done by equating something or so...

My favorite comedy I have seen recently would have to be "The Quest for the Holy Grail" from the  Monty Python series. I believe that many of the different theories of comedy are portrayed in the film. For example, the Incongruity theory is exemplified in the scene involving the anarchist workers that verbally taunted King Author. Historically, the Middle Ages(the context of the movie) is so far detached from any 19th century Russian style anarchism that the connection of the two ideas completely unexpected, i.e. Incongruous. It is hilarious to see King Author bewildered by this group completely rejecting his Kingship and, in fact, any concept of kingship in an age when the idea of kingship was not even questioned. At the end of the scene it escalated so much that King Author was yelling "Shut up!" to a peasant who was screaming "Help, help I am being repressed by the system!" In addition to this, one can see quit Herbert Spencer's interpretation of th...