To start of this whole blogging assignment for humor class I figured that I would be a good idea to let everyone know what exactly I find funny, what makes me tick, and how my brain works. I’m writing this first entry like this because I don’t want people to be offended by the things that I write on this. I am not the type of person who likes to go with the norms. If someone tells me that I should go left my first instinct is to right, I’m not sure why I do this but its worked well for me so far. I love shaking things up and I enjoy comics who do the same thing. As far as things that I find funny it is honestly the things that most people would snicker at and say that it was just stupid or rude.
Before I get too far into things that I do enjoy, it’s probably a good idea to talk about some of the things that I absolutely can’t stand when it comes to humor. There are not too many things that wont make me laugh in the right situation, but in general jokes that my parents would find funny and amusing are absolutely not funny to me. This might be due to the fact that I am 21 and there is a divide in the humor that different generations find funny. Actually that is probably a very accurate statement, but I don’t want to get off on a tangent. In general, things that are done tastefully are not going to get me rolling on the floor laughing. That’s not to say that in the right situation these things won’t make me laugh but in general, not my cup of tea.
Now that we know what I don’t find funny, now to talk about what I do enjoy. The best example of something that I enjoy is anything that Tom Green does. This man’s presence just makes me crack up. He is rude, politically incorrect, gross, shocking, and just all around awesome! This man is everything that I want to be and more. I enjoy watching the norms and boundaries of society pushed. If people are going to get mad about it, then I most likely will love it. I am probably a sick puppy but I’m just being honest. I hope this is a good start to a humorous and academic bog.
Attached is a website that is not for the faint of heart, but it is quite possibly the best example of what I find funny.
Man, Tom Green--I haven't heard about him in years. I don't think I ever paid much attention to his show, but I did like to watch Andy Milanokis sometimes and definitely Wonder Showzen. What I'm leading to here is that I get the whole "this doesn't make any sense, so it's funny thing. But I don't get the dead squirrels. I think maybe because I see them so much. I saw a dead squirrel on the sidewalk once and had this brief idea that it had commited suicide by jumping out of a tree. Usually I don't find dead animals funny, though.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way, but to a different extent. I love humor that pushes the boundaries because it's different than everything else. Commonplace (not crude, controversial, etc) comedy is mostly dull to me because it's all been done before. Politically incorrect humor is something new, something unexpected, something you wouldn't normally hear. However, I'm not a huge fan of Tom Green for the same reason I'm not a huge fan of "normal" comedy. That is, Tom Green- as out there as he can be- mostly does the same kind of shocking stuff (random comments, physical humor, animals, etc). His jokes, while funny in their own regard, become muddled together when done repeatedly. In the end, you wind up expecting his version of the unexpected and insane- and it becomes dull. He's funny in small doses, but anything more and his humor falls a little flat. I need constantly fresh and edgy material or I get bored. Maybe I just have ADD.
ReplyDeleteI was intrigued by the weblink after you mentioned it in class yesterday, and I'm stumped when trying to apply that humor to any theory we've discussed in class. However, you might want to look into Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. She explains that people are often horrified when confronting dead bodies (among other things)--yet, at the same time, the confrontation yields a sense of release and renewal in that we are reminded of our own vitality (as opposed to mortality). Still, Kristeva doesn't write much about the humor behind it.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, thinking about Tom Green reminded me of that song he sang when promoting cancer self-checkups. Now I can't get it out of my head... (or the image of the bouncing ball at the bottom of the screen that went along with the lyrics). Oh, MTV.
It might be, if you don't appreciate anything that your parents would find funny, that you are still in the rebellious stage where you feel the need to differentiate yourself from your parents. It is also possible that anyone's parents don't want to laugh at something that might give their children the "wrong" impression--parents are supposed to be a certain way and no other.
ReplyDeleteBut that said, the idea of studying humor is not merely about figuring out what you--or any other individual--finds funny. Of interest to study is why particular agents of humor are funny to audiences, how they create humor, and whether or not it can generate social change. We are (or should be) more interested in these things than what each other thinks of as funny. for example, why did people think Franklin was hilarious? Not just the Silence Dogood letters, but "How to Make a Great Empire into a Small One" and his Poor Richards Almanac, which was a best seller for 25 years.