The Science Behind Funny

 

Art Parody via Pin-interest

It all starts when I came across a blog post with the title “Three Types of Jokes Ellen Uses to Make People Like Her”, which pointed out very specific aspects in Ellen’s content, explaining why has she managed to be the most likable celebrity host over the years. A few arresting observations made about her were self-depreciating humor, or the humor which focuses on one’s own self, rather than on making fun of others. Consider this “I sat on my ass all day long, drinkin’ tequila and imaginin’ ghosts of baby goats”. This sentence, parts of which are spoken frequently by Ellen, implies that she is unproductive and useless at home, but it does not come off as critical to the ears.

OK. So, it might seem, far of a stretch to call something ‘science’, but as we will see later, in greater detail that characteristics like these are shared by most giant comedic performances and literature in our culture. Another worthy to mention observation would be the presence of a story, or a story-like background. A very good example of this, would be when Ellen tells the story of Finding Dory….to comment on the travel ban, even though she makes it very clear that she finds politics exceptionally boring.

What makes Ellen funny takes us to another question, what makes something funny in the first place?

Scott Weems in his book, “Ha! The Science of when we laugh and why” takes up the challenge to answer exactly that. He gives an example of the movie Pompeii, which is about the destruction of the city, Pompeii in historic Rome, by a volcano. The audience, which remains in laughter the whole time during the movie, which was not meant to be funny, is explained by him in terms of conflict and surprise. Why do people laugh at tragedies? is another nook in the bigger story. Charlie Chaplin, in the settings of class-divisions in Victorian era and the monotony brought by Industrial life, or Bean, an all-lonely fella with whom nothing right ever happens. The answer is conflict and surprise, something which Daniel Dennett et el also mention in their book “Inside Jokes”.

To sum up, there are two major things which makes something funny. One is incongruity. It is an instance when an absurd iteration of a normal event takes place, thus disrupting our expectations. Good humor makes excellent use of what we already know about the world and the predictive faculties of our brains. It takes the normal chain of events, which exhibits in the form of unwritten, unsaid rules of our daily lives and then derails them.

Another is conflict, which is an integral part of all forms of art. Good humor involves some sort of conflict with the external agents, which builds the emotional and intellectual tension wanting to keep us going, pretty much what a good novel or story does to our minds. Humorous conflict then branches further into irony and satire, a more sophisticated way to express conflict. Consider this, we know that our society is obsessed with sex, but we also know that we hate to admit it. (I am not talking about the West here, where in most countries porn is legalized. I am talking about particularly puritanical societies such as India or Pakistan, marked by strict segregation of the sexes which ranks repeatedly on the frequent consumers of porn)

Moreover, there is another convoluted question which underpins all of this “Why do we have humor?” Many have explained it in terms of the function it serves, and some still give it an evolutionary color that is humor serves as a coping mechanism in the face of uncertainty. Well, that sort of explanation is good, the problem is that it can be made about every other thing. What purpose did Neanderthals making laborious pearl jewelry serve? What function did pre-historic humanoids carving paintings on cave walls serve? I mean, one could say it provided a hobby in their long free times, to prevent them from dying of boredom. We can see, this is a slippery area. However, there is another way to look at it. Mainly, that humor or any other complex intellectual activity is the result of some of the cognitive and psychological faculties which evolution equipped us with. This is especially true of religion and art. Humor is not one thing, it is a combination of separate propensities coming together once in a while to get us into a chuckle.

Now, some might find this a naïve approach, especially when you look at humor, which historically has been used to perpetuate stereotypes, roll bad ideas, or objectify. This is true, and that is why it is important to differentiate between shallow humor, lacking in sophisticated understanding of social wits, the kind which might make someone laugh in the moment but is going to alienate someone and thus is not not capable of reproducing the effect. Deep humor on the other hand cuts right through the fabric of power dynamics and institutionalism and has the potential to sweep audiences on their feet over and over again. Put in another way, the latter has a strong mental takeaway and induces a lasting effect. 

We don't know yet, what more there is to humor, or that when we will be able to dissect any of that. Till then, lets keep our fingers crossed and keep...humoring.

Further Reading 

Inside Jokes. M.Hurley & Dennet. 

Ha! The Science of When we laugh and why? Weems, Scott.