Why is that funny? Stop laughing!

What is humor?

Analysis includes the use of specific ideology (often found in guiding principles used) to better understand the complex construction of a text, and to better articulate our view of that text.

Analyzing humor, for example, allows us to better understand our humanity! At least, we hope that it does. Furthermore, analyzing one's humor is a great topic because humor is a great example of how individual our ideologies may seem on the surface while united underneath.

Huh? Well, let's look at three large theories of humor, as described on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Superiority:

• Thomas Hobbes’ “Superiority Theory”: “The passion of laughter is nothing else than sudden glory arising from some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”

• Eminency – having a higher status (for some reason)
• Infirmity – lack of strength, character flaw

Incongruity

• “Arthur Schopenhauer agreed in 1844, when he explained in The World as Will and Ideathat laughter is a way of acknowledging an incongruity between the conceptions that listeners or viewers hold in their minds and what happens to upset their expectations.”

Relief: see definition on IEP link

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Applying New Knowledge:

Connect to your texts (primary or secondary sources) through inquiry:

1. Which of the three general theories is most prominently used in this text?

2. Who is the intended audience for the humor? What might be some of the basic characteristics of someone who might find the text funny? (ex: gender, height, religion, race, orientation, the South, East Coast, urban, rural, 12-year-old/80-year-old?)

3. Where do your inferences come from in answering the above questions? Clarify your inferences by discussing the connections between joke content and plot, and the theory. To do so, provide detail that you would attach to the inference. (

Now, lets practice this by watching an episode of Flight of the Conchords.

• Record down important details that will help build context for your analysis. (Location; relevant details of person telling the joke; content of joke; theme of joke...)

• Record down your inferences for who the joke is meant for...and why you think this way.

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Homework Reminder:

• Translating Field Notes 1 is due Friday.
• Make sure to include a Work Cited page and in-text citation.
• Consult MLA guidebook for any confusion. I suggestion Diana Hacker's on-line resource.