Download 4. Assignment #1: Explaining Humor (3-4 pages)

4. Assignment #1: Explaining Humor (3-4 pages)
The Assignment:
Using one of the theories of laughter or humor listed below explain why readers or
audiences would find one of the texts also listed below funny. Point to specific passages
or moments in the text that seem to fit the theory best and explain why. Use the “funny”
text to test the theory, and be sure to fully demonstrate why the theory works or fails.
Thoughts to Consider in Preparation:
We all have laughed at a joke—a seemingly involuntary response to something we find
funny. But what does it mean to say something is funny? And why does it make us
laugh? Why, for example, do we laugh when something embarrassing—or even
sometimes when something awful—happens to someone else? Why do we call some
jokes “over the line,” while other times we feel perfectly comfortable laughing at
something offensive?
Complicating these questions are the fact that something that we find uproariously funny
(say, The Three Stooges) might merely irritate someone else. If something is only funny
to one of us, is it still funny? We may have also found that we laugh louder and harder
when we are with other people and may not even laugh at all when we are alone. Does
this mean that laughter serves some kind of social function? Could it be that somehow
company makes what we already find funny even funnier?
Audience: An informed individual interested in theories of humor. Assume that this
person is familiar with the humorous text and the theories of humor, but that she or he has
not necessarily considered looking at them together.
Pre-draft Writing Assignments: A close reading of a passage, an abstract of a theorist’s
position (a summary of the main argument of the theoretical essay).
Writing lessons: Performing close readings, analyzing texts, applying theories.
Comedy Sources:
Margaret Cho, I’m the One That I Want, or Notorious C.H.O.; John Leguizamo, Freak;
Chris Rock, Kill the Messenger; Mark Twain, “Advice to Youth”; Selected Limericks;
Selected Your Momma Jokes; Selected Puns and One-Liners
Theoretical Sources:
Sigmund Freud, from Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
Henri Bergson, from Laughter
John Morreal, from Taking Laughter Seriously: “Can there be A Theory of Laughter?”
“ The Superiority Theory,” “ The Incongruity Theory,” “ The Relief Theory”
Marina Davila Ross, et al. “Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and
Humans.” Current Biology. June 4, 2009.
Simon Critchley, selections from On Humour (Thinking and Action): “Laughing at Your
Body-Post-Colonial Theory” and “Is Humour Human?”