What Is Comedy, Actually?
Everyone knows that humor is important. It permeates our entertainment, is a huge part of social conversation, builds friendships and romantic relationships, affects culture and so on. However, despite it being everywhere, it is seemingly rare that anyone thinks much about, why? What does it mean to laugh and why do we like to so much? How does this simple involuntary cackle of the voice influence so much of the world?
20th century American writer, E.B. White said: “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” However, of course people still dissect frogs because some people are interested and unlike the dissection of a frog, arguably the outcome of looking into the nature of humor reveals something beautiful.
Of course, there are many different types of comedy: stand up comedy, comedy films, theater, music, literature, commonplace, conversational humor and so on. Furthermore, there are many sub genres within each category of comedy. However, what’s interesting is what seemingly strings them all together; the ingredients of a comedic occurrence and the gravitational pull that we all feel towards it.
There are several theories on the nature of humor and what makes a funny thing, funny. However, one of, if not the primary and most popularly accepted theories is known as the incongruity theory. Simply put, the Incongruity Theory suggests that something is funny when one realizes the difference between what is expected and what actually happens.
A discrepancy between a person’s concept of a thing and their perceptual experience of the thing when both are supposed to go together, but don’t. This theory was proposed, accepted and discussed by renowned philosophers like James Beattie, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Soren Kierkegaard. In reference to this principal, Kierkegaard said: “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps: for he is the only animal that is struck with a difference between what things are and what they ought to be.”
Coinciding with the Incongruity Theory, 21st century behavioral scientist, Peter McGraw, crafted a theory known as the Benign Violation Theory. In which, it is suggested that humor is found when a violation or disruption of one’s expectations or sense of normality occurs. But more specifically, only when the violation is felt as benign. In other words, the violation does not cause any real harm to the person perceiving it. This of course means that one sense of humor is relative to their perception of how the world is or ought to be, as well as their perception of what is harmful or offensive within it.
Regardless the relativity of one sense of humor, generally everyone returns to the same principle of experiencing something unexpected, irrational or in-congruent, which begs the question; why is it that when something goes wrong, when something is close to being painful or when something dupes the rational mind, do we experience it as funny and pleasurable?
It is in the nature of the human being to take him or herself fairly seriously. A human is both consciously and rationally aware of itself. And so what option is there other than to be conscious and rational about itself and its existence? However, the experience of something humorous confronts us with the realization that our logic and sensibility is at least in the instance, inadequate or incongruent with reality. That we didn’t and couldn’t know what was going to happen on the other side of the joke or comedic occurrence.
20th century existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus writes: “Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” And so, how does a rational being confront the idea that it’s existence might not be rational, but rather absurd?
Perhaps the answer is simply to laugh. We all share in the same susceptibility of being wrong and coming face to face with the apparently unknowable, indifferent conditions of the universe. The ultimate comedian is life itself, as it apathetically mocks our attempts to put our foot on it. No matter our attempts to attribute meaning to existence; no matter anyone’s sense of truth it is fair to argue that the only truth anyone can ever be sure of is that they can’t be sure of their own truth.
And perhaps it is obligatory here to say that this might not even be true. Regardless, the point is, there is an inherent longing for certainty in human life. A longing that manifests itself in all kinds of ridiculous ways, ways that can be harmful, misleading or despairing. Humor helps us counterbalance this. It helps us lighten up a little when we fall too deeply into ourselves as individuals and as collectives. It helps us realize things aren’t always as they seem, nor as serious, and it reminds us of how little we know about what might happen next. It teaches us that we shouldn’t think too pompously of ourselves or live with too cold or too rigid of beliefs that claim ultimate power or certainty in the absurdity of life.
It shows us that we are all pretty goofy and foolish, but that that’s okay. We should share in the laughter rather than fight over the despair. Interestingly, many philosophers of the past, including some of the aforementioned, negatively critiqued humor’s role in the human condition. Immanuel Kant argued that the joy of laughter is purely physical rather than intellectual.
He posed the question that if to be human is to be rational and seek rational understanding, how could it be positive to realize and experience the irrational? However, if in fact we do exist in an absurd relationship with the universe, is it not of value that we can and do transmute the absurdity into playfulness, enjoyableness and happiness?
Is that not the most rational thing left to do? The role of the comedian is no different than the artist or the philosopher, the filmmaker, or the musician. To turn the mundane into the exciting, the bleak into the enjoyable, the confusing into the discernible, and to help us better consider and adapt our perspectives of the world with sincerity and honesty only possible to the medium.
Perhaps not all comedy and humor can be seen as positive, but fundamentally in every well-intended comedic moment, there exists an attempt to transmute the conscious experience of the absurd and chaotic into something pleasurable, earnest, playful, clever, or interesting. And in every experience of laughter, we are reminded of how foolish we are, but how joyful we can be. Nonetheless.
