Humors Implications - Case Study Example

There is no such thing as a joke. There is just the telling of jokes.’ Discuss the idea that all humour is situational. Does comedy have inherent structural features or is any form of communication potentially funny if the situation is right? Refer to specific examples Dissecting Humor & Comedy Humor is one element that distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world. The only known animal known to “laugh” is the laughing hyena, but its purpose for making a laughing sound is entirely different from that of humans. Human humor has many different facets and has been a subject of interest of many researchers over the years. Humor serves a variety of purposes. People use it all the time in social situations. A significant amount of research indicates that humor is valuable in coping with life’s challenges (Martin, R.A.,1996; Martin, R. A., & Lefcourt, H. M. ,1983; Miczo, N, 2004) It alleviates stress and can be resorted to in building stronger interpersonal relationships. Studies on humor’s implications on physical health have likewise been done and it shows that “there is very little evidence of stress-moderating effects of humor on health-related outcomes, using existing self-report measures of sense of humor and life events measures of stress” (Martin, 2001, conclusion, para. 13). However, it was also contended that certain types of humor may be effective with certain types of stress. Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir (2003), have identified four dimensions relating to individual differences in uses of humor namely Affiliative, Self-enhancing, Aggressive and Self-defeating humor. Affiliative Humor relates to jokes that make another feel more at ease. It reduces tension in an otherwise uncomfortable situation. It is used to foster stronger ties with wholesome humor that does not hurt anyone. Self-enhancing humor is humor that allows a person to have a generally humorous outlook on life. It may help a person cope with stressful situations by averting the negative emotions attached to it and trying to look for a funny flipside to the situation, thus protecting the self from it. Its purpose is more to serve the self than to please others – more “intrapsychic” than “interpersonal”. Aggressive humor uses sarcasm, teasing, insults, ridicule or disparagement to elicit laughs from others at the expense of somebody else. The person using this style of humor may express irreverent or even hostile jesting without any regard for its potential impact on the target of his humor. At the other end of the spectrum, Self-defeating humor is used by a person who subjects himself to self-disparaging jokes and sarcasm just to make others laugh. He does not mind the humiliation he brings upon himself as long as he gains the approval of others. This may also be used to cover up underlying negative emotions and as a way to avoid constructively dealing with problems. Although individuals may have the tendency to use one dimension in accordance to their personalities, it is possible that they may switch to other dimensions if the situation calls for it. Humor may depend on how one interprets a situation. What may be funny for one person may not at all trigger a smile in another. “In the usual phrase, a comedy begins in confusion and ends happily, often by means of a recognition ; according to the psychological restatement, a comedy presents the solution, by criticism, of a puzzling state of affairs — a readjustment of warring forces by the choice of a way out that makes for harmony.” (Smith, 1910, p. 86). Aristotle defines comedy as the imitation of a ludicrous action. Such action may be a defect that is neither painful nor destructive. Later theories decided that comedy must ‘begin turbulently and end happily’, as it imitates the ‘follies and foibles’ of men and must exaggerate a little by making the human condition seem ‘worse than life’. (Butcher, 1907) Hence, the comic experience indeed involves a conscious ‘feeling’. It is more than surprise or shock which produces laughter. Laughter due to witnessing a clumsy act such as a slip on a banana is a physiological reaction due to a slight nervous tension that was suddenly resolved. (Smith,1910.) A joke will only be funny if the reader or audience understands its meaning and punchline. However, written jokes remain to be words printed on paper waiting for a laugh from a reader who would “get it”. In contrast, jokes delivered “live” by a comedian may easily be given life by the comedian if gestures and inflection is added to effect audience impact. One important aspect of a good joke is timing. Comic timing calculates the optimum delay between the setup of the joke and the payoff. Upon hearing the joke, it takes a moment or two for the audience to process it. The effective comedian waits a beat before springing the punchline. The comedian has the benefit of gauging his audience response and may be able to calculate the timing more accurately than a joke writer (Anderson, 2001) One unique form of performance where the reaction of the audience is integral to the success or failure of each individual performance is stand-up comedy. It is the audience who decides which is funny or not, and a joke is funny if and only if they laugh at it. The audience laughter or any other reaction is a key aspect of meaning. (Wuster, 2006) The stand-up comedian may be considered a special type of anthropologist whose commentaries on everyday life make “obvious behavior patterns, explicit and tacit operating knowledge and other insights” (Koziski, 1997, p. 87) about society something to reflect about. “The comedian thus occupies a position of insight that allows him to show the audience unpleasant social truths, as long as the audience can laugh at them, thus disarming their radical danger” (Wuster, 2006, p. 24). And it is an intellectual town, I enjoy coming here, like, for example, things are always happening here that are so above everything else, like before the show, I was standing back stage and a couple came back and they asked me if I was "bi" and well I studied a little Spanish in high school but not enough to really be "bi" but I didnt want to look stupid so I said "Yeah Im bi." And they said "Well we would like you to come over after the show cause we got some S&M people coming over." And I said "Hey great, Spaniards and Mexicans." So itll be interesting to go there after the show, speak a little Spanish and have the intellectual thing, cause this is what I am into {Steve Martin, Lets Get Small). Steve Martin is one successful comedian who started with stand-up comedy. “In Martins performance, stand-up comedy does not ultimately lead to some deeper social meaning but rather plays with the idea of entertainment, which in turn calls into question the very notion of meaning. By focusing on the performative aspects of the stand-up situation and by turning himself both verbally and visually into the character of the "comedian," Steve Martin represents one limit of stand-up comedy as an art form: stand-up comedy as a philosophy of meaninglessness” (Wuster, 2006, p.24). Martin enthralls his audience who troop to wherever he is performing. They laugh or react not so much at the jokes but at Martin as comedic performer. Martin’s style is considered “metacomedy”, wherein the comedic performance becomes the object of laugher in themselves. The jokes that do remain funny are so because of how Martin tells them. In view of “the comedian as anthropologist”, it is ironic that Martin’s comedy turns himself into the character of the comedian by emptying his act of social content and highlighting an overabundance of formal elements, he placed himself outside the image of what a comedian does in the social sense (Wuster, 2006). Another arena where humor is abundant is in television situation comedies. What pulls the audience toward watching them are the actual situations the characters are in, which the audience may directly relate with especially if they share the same situation. What may be funny would be the coincidental circumstances the characters and the viewers may share, and the way the character dealt with the situation may have been how the audience would have done so, or have done in the past. Situation comedies or sitcoms for short are usually pre-taped, complete with audience reactions. These reactions may refer to events immediately following the comments or behaviors of the characters in the show. These reactions may come from a live studio audience which is present during the taping, or they may occur by virtue of a tape editor who places bits of prerecorded "laugh tracks" or "canned laughter" onto the final program before it is broadcast (e.g.. Chapman, 1976; Mercer & Fouts, 1978). Audience reactions to television characters may be reflections of how media may affect people in terms of propagating information or societal values. An audience may be conceptualized as the societal context in which comments made by members of that society are supported. Audience reaction may also be a type of “reinforcement of reinforcement”, meaning viewers may be influenced by the canned audience reactions to some comments made by the characters and vicariously influence the behavior of viewers and subsequently either use it on and/or accept it from others (Fouts & Burgraff, 2000) “Thus, when negative comments about womens bodies are made by male characters (ex. Comment to an overweight lady trying on a sexy gown: “How about wearing a sack?”; comment to an overweight girl eating her lunch alone: “Great! You brought food for everyone!”) and are followed by audience laughter, this suggests implicit societal approval that heavier womens bodies are laughable and/or to be ridiculed and punished” (Fouts & Burgraff, 2000, p.927). Fouts and Burgraff (2000) conducted a study on sitcoms depicting female weight, the negative comments of males and the effect of audience reactions. Findings of their study have the following: “First, the modeling of making negative comments about heavier women results in approval or reinforcement by an audience or group within society; thus, the effect of this modeling may increase due to the vicarious reinforcement it receives (Bandura, 1965, 1969). Second, there is modeling by the audience; i.e., it is acceptable to react positively (e.g., with laughter) to instances of hurtful comments directed toward heavier women, even women who are of average weight. Third, the more negative comments are made about womens weight, the greater the reaction (and funnier it is) to others, thus likely encouraging such behavior in the presence of others. Fourth, television situation comedies not only reflect stereotypic values within society, but also model gender stereotypes, e.g., that heavier women are unattractive, undesirable, and laughable implications” (Fouts & Burgraff, 2000, p. 930) Thus, situation comedy material per se may not be funny, but it is how it is depicted in the show to elicit laughs from the viewers. In doing so, it promotes certain values which may or may not be positive, and since media is so powerful, sitcoms have the ability to propagate certain viewpoints that directly influence the viewing public. Another topic that gets a lot of exposure in comedy is disability humor. Although most of the time, jokes about disability may be offensive, a new breed of comedy on disability is on the rise. This is mostly done by comedians with disabilities themselves. It spells the difference from disabling humor which is humor that denigrates people with disabilities. Having a disability in itself is never a funny situation. However, disabled people who choose to use humor to accept their disability do so for their own coping, as well as to make others aware of what they go through. In doing so, disability humor serves as a vehicle for slipping constructive images of disability into mainstream culture (Haller, 2003). “It provides non-disabled audiences opportunity to learn that the problem is not the impairment per se, but attitudes and structures that render the impairment disabling (i.e., disability).” (Reid, Stoughton & Smith, 2006, p. 630) As a blind person I found communicating with my former boss, who was deaf, one of the most challenging aspects of the job. I learned enough sign language to communicate with him, and his speech was quite understandable to me. Once, after we had collided with each other, my boss remarked jovially, ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’ ‘Why should I?’ I responded in sign language. ‘You never listen to a word I say.’ (Johnny Jokes, n.d.) Using self-deprecatory humor positively to dissolve and recreate disability helps disabled comedians dispel negative reactions towards their handicap. It is one way for them to undermine the power of people who may look down upon them, as it shifts their role from victim to perpetrator. They emerge as survivors who find life’s predicaments amusing instead of debilitating. Fonseca (Sowell, 1996) jokes about his difficulty speaking: ‘I know it’s not politically correct to call myself handicapped. I’m supposed to say physically challenged or developmentally disabled. But I don’t have that kind of time.’ Disability humor not only focuses on disabled people’s handicap, but on the non-disabled individuals as well: A nun in the convent walked into the bathroom where mother superior was taking a shower. ‘The blind man is here to see you,’ she says. ‘Well, if he is a blind man, then it doesn’t matter if I’m in the shower. Send him in.’ The blind man walks into the bathroom, and mother superior starts to tell him how much she appreciates him working at the convent for them. The man interrupts: ‘That’s nice and all Ma’am, but can you put your clothes on now? And, where do you want me to put these blinds?’ (Johnny Jokes, n.d.) The cliché “Laughter is the best medicine” is true in most situations, and people capitalize on humor to escape everyday stresses. Laughter is also used in therapy. An example is the Comedy Club. Comedy Club was established in January, 1986 at the Colmery-O’Neil VAMC in Topeka, Kansas due to a need to serve veterans suffering from chronic psychiatric problems. Therapy focused on humor and the response from the beginning up to the present has been very positive. In each session, each member takes the floor in sharing some kind of humor. It may be a joke, a "one liner," a humorous anecdote from "Readers Digest," or humorous quotes from the newspaper, etc. Joke etiquette has been established and members need to follow: everyone is expected to give an appropriate response to someone who gives a joke, even if it is only a “polite chuckle” if the joke is remotely funny. The joke-teller is also rewarded with a round of applause at the end for his effort. Another rule is to never step on the punch line, as stealing the joke-teller’s thunder is considered rude. Finally, listeners should respond quickly when asked a question in the process of setting up the punch line. The energizing act of sharing jokes and laughing with others is beneficial to one’s over all health. “Laughter is a natural part of the human experience. By promoting it, we can help others rediscover its benefits for themselves” (Brausa, 1993) In conclusion, humor is one thing that has the capacity to bring people together despite their differences in backgrounds and situations. The human connection is strengthened when people interpret simple events with a twist of humor just so to drive away stresses and share with others one of life’s best free gifts… Laughter. References Anderson, M.T. (2001) “Not a Vaudeville Routine: How to Write Comic Dialogue”, Horn Book Magazine, March/April 2001 Brausa, R. (1993) The Comedy Club, Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 1993 Oct; 17 (2): 189-92 Butcher, (ed) (1907) Aristotles Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, 4th ed. London:1907 Chapman, A. J. (1976). Social aspects of humorous laughter. In A. J. Chapman & H. C. 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Psychological Bulletin, 127, 504–519. Martin, R.A., Puhlik-Doris, P, Larsen, G., Gray, J. & Weir, K, (2003) Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire Journal of Research in Personality 37, 48–75. Mercer, J., & Fouts, G. (1978). Effects of canned laughter on children’ s humour responding. Paper presented to the Canadian Psychological Association, Ottawa, June. Miczo, N. (2004), Humor ability, unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, and perceived stress: Testing a security theory. Communication Studies, Vol. 55, 2004 Reid, D.K., Stoughton, E.H. and Smith, R. M.(2006) “The Humorous Construction of Disability: ‘Stand-up’ Comedians in the United States”, Disability & Society Vol. 21, No. 6, October 2006, pp. 629–643 Smith, W. (1910) “Comedy and the Comic Experience”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol 7(3), Mar 1910. pp. 84-87. Sowell, C. (1996) Is laughter the best medicine? Available online at: http://www.mdausa.org/publications/Quest/q34laughter.html (accessed 23 May, 2008) Wuster, T (2006) “Comedy Jokes: Steve Martin and the Limits of Stand-Up Comedy.”, Studies in American Humor, 2006 Issue 14, p23-45, 23p Read More