For as long as I can remember, I’ve always tried to make people laugh. “Tried” is the important word here. Though I did often succeed, it has always been clear to me that I am not funny to everyone. One thing that has never been clear is why. Why can I be completely bored with a comedy movie while my friend dies of laughter? Why can famous comedian Louis C.K. leave me in awe of his hilarity while simultaneously offending millions of people? These are the questions I ask today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x84GKqcpY4E
Imagine that a man slips and falls. This could be hilarious to an observer while the fallen man is left enraged, throwing his snow shovel. Now imagine the same scenario, except the bystander worriedly rushes to the fallen man’s aid while the man laughs at his own blunder. These instances show that humor is largely unpredictable, but the Benign Violation Theory gives us a hint as to why. The theory explains that for something to be funny, it must be a violation of what you expect while also being benign and harmless. In the scenarios above, the fall of the man is a violation, because the man and his observer were not expecting the fall to occur. This idea is also seen in the Incongruity Theory, in which humor is caused by the realization that something that has occurred is abnormal and ridiculous (Boyd). The reactions after the violation, the fall, shows us whether or not the situation is deemed benign by the two participants. Those who see it as harmless will also see it as humorous. This is the reason why a joke about Hitler in 1940, no matter how clever, would not be funny while that same joke today might elicit a lighter response.
The Benign Violation Theory works fine when the thing that is funny is also a surprise, but what if I saw a banana peel in front of the man’s path and expected the fall? Then, surely, the fall would no longer be a violation of my reality and would not meet the needs of the theory. This situation can be explained by one of two theories: Superiority Theory and Relief Theory. The former tells us that we might laugh at the man because we see that he has failed in his duty of walking and wish to bask in our superiority with laughter. This theory is not a favourite of mine because it focuses on using laughter in a hurtful way, but you cannot deny that this ideology is a staple of bullies across the globe. With the Relief Theory, we may laugh because we are have a build up of other, more stressful emotions, and need a release through laughter. In the banana peel example, maybe we have a build up of tension because we anticipate the man to fall. Maybe we are just having some trouble in our lives and seeing somebody fall is just something to allow ourselves to feel good. Either way, we laugh. A famous example of Relief Theory, the Tanganyika laughter epidemic occurred when students burst into spurts of laughter that lasted for years because of recently added stress put upon them from higher academic expectations. In a way, there was nothing funny about the laughter, it was simply stress relief.
Another strange way to be funny does not involve humor at all: this article from LiveScience.com tells us that laughter itself can make a person laugh. Something about the positive emotion effects our brains in a way that makes us laugh along with other people who are laughing, even if we missed the joke or didn’t think it was funny at all. Psychology Today reports on findings from Sophie Scott of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London that, since humans are good at telling fake laughter from real laughter, we tend to act more positively to inappropriate laughter because it seems more genuine. Still, some people might find the situation too inappropriate and, instead, think that you are childish and insensitive. If this happens to you, perhaps citing this scientific excuse will help you save face.
It is clear that what is funny to you will never be exactly what is funny to someone else. What you perceive as being benign is different from others, because you have different life experiences and values than others. Your current life situation and stress will never be the same as someone else’s, so how could you equally engage in humor through Relief Theory? There really is no way to make something funny for everyone, so, next time you make someone laugh, appreciate the connection you’ve made with your audience.
Boyd, Brian. Laughter and Literature: A Play Theory of Humor Philosophy and Literature — Volume 28, Number 1, April 2004, pp. 1-22
Ty, this post is enlightening and interesting; thank you! When I was younger, I would never be able to watch the television show America’s Funniest Home Videos with my peers because I can not be subjected to people getting injured. My mother, on the other hand, laughs uncontrollably when someone gets injured and blames it on nerves. Another involuntary bodily function my mother experiences is crying tears of joy when she is extremely happy. Why is it that some people can not control urges to cry when something is happy, rather then just when things are sad. The Connecticut Post has an article that explains that a surprisingly small amount of research has been done on the science of crying. An article from Telegraph explains a research study on the topic that was published in Psychological Science. It is hypothesized that “crying tears of joy may well be the body’s way of restoring “emotional equilibrium”. This is because responding to an overwhelmingly positive emotion with a negative one allows people recover better from strong emotions. It is interesting that, similarly to laughing, we are not in complete control of our reactions to certain stimuli. It is interesting how these reactions differ vastly between different people.
Theres a lot of definite truths in this, however i don’t know if the Benign Violation Theory is necessarily true. As long as it is not too serious, a lot of people will laugh at other peoples pain and a lot of funny videos and jokes are at the expense of someone else. Check this video out if you haven’t seen it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tufnWwV2J5I its hilarious!
There are many good points in this blog. Such as, how we laugh when other people are laughing. I found that funny because I did a blog on yawning last blog period, and concluded that we yawn when other people are yawning. Another interesting point to add could have been nervous laughter. Nervous Laughter happens when someone is so overwhelmed by emotion and to create emotional balance again, the opposite emotion occurs, which is nervous laughter.