Comment: Step Brothers Clip

Step Brothers is one of my all time favorite Will Ferrell movies, along with "Kicking and Screaming" and a few others. I enjoy the comedy that most people find as stupid, dumb, and immature. The best thing about Will Ferrell's comedy is how he performs deadpan. Ferrell can tell the best joke in the world, but keep a straight face the entire time. I think this makes the audience for the joke, truly appreciate the joke. If the joke teller laughs while delivering the joke, then the audience automatically picks up on the joke and finds it funny. If the joke teller keeps a straight face the entire time, then the audience has to pick up an understand the joke on their own. In every scene from this clip you (Isaac) chose, I think you can find all three forms of comedy. My favorite scene from the clip, is the interview with Pam. I mean Pan. Never mind, I meant Pammm. The conflict in this scene is clearly the mispronunciation of the Interviewer's name, Pam, one of the most simple names to pronounce. The irony in this whole scene is that they are wearing tuxedos to a job interview for a janitor's position. The audience has no idea what type of job they're interviewing for, but the climactic moment when this information is revealed, creates incongruity theory and superiority theory. The superiority theory is seen in the fact that Pam believes wearing tuxedos is not something a janitor would do. Incongruity is seen because no person in the audience is expecting the brothers to be interviewing for a janitor's position. Overall, I love your choice in comedy, and I though your analysis of the clip was spot on. Thanks for sharing.

No lead blog post? Then blog about whatever!

Unfortunately this week, we did not have a lead blog post to comment on, so instead I'm going to discuss Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick". In Swift's satirical piece, he discusses the growing problem of dead beat families in Ireland. In short, the dead beat family cycle goes as follows. The mother has nothing and becomes a beggar, but ends up having three to six children. These children don't grow up in any sort of safe, family atmosphere, so they become thieves, and in turn, restart the cycle of the dead beat family. In the story, Ireland becomes over-run with useless kids that only take up space. Now, the goal is to find something for these kids to do, and to try and turn their life around. Swift claims that instead of trying to make them productive, that the country should turn to eating the spare children laying around. I find this particularly funny because it is such an awful idea, and is something that would never happen. This can be seen as the incongruity theory. It reminds me of when we talked about absurdity in class. This idea that Swift tells the reader about is completely absurd. There is no way that any of the ideas he is talking about can be true. This allows the reader to recognize this and then have some fun using their imagination while reading.

Comments: Goodnight, Sweet Prince

I find it absolutely hilarious that you chose Harambe Memes for your topic this week. Personally, I find them hilarious, and without a doubt a great controversial topic in society. To answer your question, I think the only way we can laugh at something so awful is to show that we accept what happened, and we truly understand all of the circumstances following the situation. Society and the whole Harambe issue have really caught on, and the true reason I think it is so funny, is because of the Incongruity theory, like you said. In randoms situations, people will throw around Harambe's name, when there is no reason or connection to Harambe. For instance, when something really bad happens in our country, someone will post of a picture of Harambe and say "Harambe didn't die for this." Completely out of place, and completely controversial, the Harambe obsession is  humorous and catchy. Everything needed for an epidemic of comedy. Thanks for sharing!

Comments: Substitute Teacher

First off, I want to say that you did a great job picking this clip, as well as a great job picking the piece of comedy apart. Towards the end off your excerpt on the piece of comedy, you talk about the relief theory regarding the always present tension and awkwardness with a substitute teacher. This makes me think of some of the times I had substitute teachers in lower and middle school, and we always played jokes on them. The most common joke we would play was changing names with a friend. Before the teacher would walk in, you would grab a friend and exchange names for the class period. The teacher ultimately would catch on about halfway through class due to the occasional slip ups by the students, but the result would be tons of laughter and enjoyment from the students, making the sub feel awkward. I agree with the point you make about the incongruity theory being a play here, but more importantly I want to talk about the superiority theory point you make and the racial issue you bring up. How far can you go with a so called "racial joke"? When is too far, too far? Personally, I find some racial jokes funny, even when it is about my race, but I find it hard to laugh anymore at racial jokes due to societal circumstances. I think it's always to far with racial jokes. Overall, great job on the lead blog post for this week, Sophia.

Response to the first lead blog post

I think you did a great job in analyzing this piece of comedy, Erika. I, personally, find this parody of a made up movie hilarious because I like parodies a lot. I also find it amusing that this is a parody of a movie that does not exist. When I first watched this video, I found myself thinking about coming to Furman. My roommates and I are all from different places, so naturally we pronounce some words differently. As the three of us are casually hanging out in our room, we point out the differences in our pronunciations of different words, casually poking fun at each other. I also agree with your point about the Superiority Theory. There are always two sides to the theory. One being the humorous, superior side, and the other being possibly offended inferior side. To answer your question that you posed, I believe the answer is yes. I think it all depends on what is socially acceptable at the time because if the joke is about socially unacceptable material, then people are more likely to feel offended.

FYWS Hw 2: Most persuasive piece so far

I believe that the most persuasive piece of work that we've read so far is "Humour and Superiority" by John Lippitt. Reason being, John Lippitt uses the best mode to get his point across, refuting what others have been saying about the same topics. One main example of this is Lippitt's refutal of Hobbe's claim that you can not laugh at yourself, unless you have become superior of that old self. Lippitt wants to know what happens when you find something funny out about yourself? Because it is very possible for this to be true. I have had several cases of this happening. One being when I was with a group of my best friends in high school. All of the sudden I just began to start laughing  hysterically. All of my friends, bewildered by my laughter, curiously asked "why are you laughing?". Then I explained what happened earlier that day. I told them about how I was home alone with my dog, but instead of laying around and watching television, I played with my dog. All I ever wanted for that day was to put a hat on my dog, but he would just shake the hat right off. In my failure, I worked best, cutting holes on each side of the hat, and running an elastic string through the holes. Now, I had created a doggy hat that would not fall off. At the time, I was determined to make all of this work, so I did not realize how funny it was that I wanted my dog to simply wear a hat. So when I was hanging out with my friends that day, my mom got home from work and found my dog wearing his hat. Then I proceeded to laugh hysterically at what I'd achieved earlier in the day. I believe that all the different theories just describe different types of comedy, rather than reaching a larger main theory. I also believe that not all examples of incongruity, superiority, and relief aren't funny because society has changed so much. First off, different people find different things funny, but secondly, because of what's wrong and right in society makes specific things not funny anymore. Specifically with the incongruity theory. Most examples of incongruity in society today are considered as degrading, rather than funny.

My most recent and probably most favorite piece of comedy is the Office, a documentary tv show that follows around the employees of the Dunder Mifflin paper company. The show portrays comedy through the relationships of the coworkers, and by making a real world job relatable to all walks of life through the role each character plays. An example of how the comedy serves to all walks of life is through the relationship between Jim and Dwight, two of the salesmen for the paper company. They come from two completely different walks of life. Jim is married with kids, and Dwight owns a beet farm, and struggles in his search for love. Dwight also is very serious about his job, Jim is not. The comedy in these guys relationship shows up when their work life collide, creating a constant tension. While Jim plans his pranks of Dwight, the audience plays along with Jim. This creates anticipation for what is about to happen, and it always is more fun to be on the giving side of a prank than the receiving end. Overall, the long, drawn out tensions between coworkers, creates an engaging show for the audience, allowing the audience to feel apart of the Office itself.