THEORIES OF HUMOR - 3. INCONGRUITY THEORY

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1 THEORIES OF HUMOR - 3. INCONGRUITY THEORY WTF and other aberrations of comedy

2 Schopenhauer the ludicrous is always the paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption of an object under a conception which in other respects is different from it, and accordingly the phenomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden apprehension of an incongruity between such a conception and the real object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object of perception. The greater and more unexpected, in the apprehension of the laugher, this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter.

3 Shaolin Soccer, 2001

4 Shaolin Soccer, 2001

5 Bergson For the comic spirit has a logic of its own, even in its wildest eccentricities. It has a method in its madness. It dreams, I admit, but it conjures up, in its dreams, visions that are at once accepted and understood by the whole of a social group. Can it then fail to throw light for us on the way that human imagination works, and more particularly social, collective, and popular imagination? Begotten of real life and akin to art, should it not also have something of its own to tell us about art and life?

6 To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is to intelligence, pure and simple.

7 Society will therefore be suspicious of all INELASTICITY of character, of mind and even of body, because it is the possible sign of a slumbering activity as well as of an activity with separatist tendencies, that inclines to swerve from the common centre round which society gravitates: in short, because it is the sign of an eccentricity. And yet, society cannot intervene at this stage by material repression, since it is not affected in a material fashion. It is confronted with something that makes it uneasy, but only as a symptom scarcely a threat, at the very most a gesture. A gesture, therefore, will be its reply. Laughter must be something of this kind, a sort of SOCIAL GESTURE.

8 According to Bergson, the comic is a living thing and study should be confined to... A- trying to explain exactly how the process works. B- watching it grow and expand. C- defining it in concrete terms. D- enjoying the humor found within.

9 For Bergson, laughter must answer to certain requirements of life in common. What does he mean by this? A- It must have some kind of social signification. B- It is only funny if it appeals to the humor of the collective C- It is funny to us because we can relate to the situation of humor. D- Society insists on the idea of living well. Laughter helps to fulfill this. E- All of the above

10 Kant We laugh at the simplicity that is as yet a stranger to dissimulation, but we rejoice the while over the simplicity of nature that thwarts that art. That the outward appearance, fair but false, that usually assumes such importance in our judgement, is here, at a stroke, turned to a nullity, that, as it were, the rogue in us is nakedly exposed, calls forth the movement of the mind, in two successive and opposite directions, agitating the body at the same time with wholesome motion.

11 According to Kant, what can laughter do? A- Reveal some of the basic natures in unsullied innocence B- calls forth the movement of the mind as well as the body C- unite humanity on particular moral grounds D- All of the above

12 Holland breaks down incongruity in to three different kinds. What are they? A- cognitive, ethical, and formal B- ethical, informal, and formal C- cognitive, bodily, and ethical D- formal, informal, and crass E-formal, ethical, bodily

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