In the first week of ‘Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre’ i have learnt quite a lot. So far this has been quite an exciting first week out of all my studios i have done previously, maybe its because everyone in class just laughs or maybe its just naturally a different change. In the first week i learnt many new abilities to enhance my knowledge on the styles of comedy and various theories with the help of the readings and incorporated these into my artefact. As i learnt, people laugh when “they hear something surprising…something familiar” (Simons, 2023). I used this idea in my artefact to surprise the audience with the familiarity of our generation and joking about the hilarious absurdity that people detail about one another in a dating atmosphere. My understanding so far of the comedy form is to obviously make people laugh, but do so in a way with a sort of plan in mind, whether its because its relatable or it just gives them a kick to pause from the world. As i learnt through class discussion and Audissino’s reading, there are many types of comedic theories that are not only unique but hold large value and history towards one another. Superiority theory which is based upon ancient Greek figures explaining that the centre of humour should focus on feelings of superiority. Relief theory, which focuses on the 20th century world of thinking involving Freud and psychoanalysis and how the brain permits into something being funny. Benign violation theory which is the humour that is currently with us in this century this is a special theory as it can add to things that are not funny actually making the audience laugh. Finally Incongruity theory which is the theory that focuses on the work we focused upon this week. Incongruity means basically ‘out of place’, whether this is like physically or just something that does not belong or is just flat out absurd in reality. This use of out of the ordinary is following my work i created. With the use of repetition, i felt that by doing the slightly same thing would help categorize the piece with comedy and as it drags on for the rest, it would become funnier. In my sketch, i created the idea of showcasing the phenomenon going on in social media since the last couple years of mostly serious people calling out peoples ‘icks’ which are basically turn offs for who they potentially will date (deal breakers). The thing about ‘icks’ are they are not really normal they are oddly specific, which i wanted to spin and play on by how they are so specific they are out of place. The reason i chose this week to showcase this idea was because these turn off’s are so surprising because you think how would someone even be thinking in their heads that these actions made by another person is affecting them so badly that they cannot do it anymore and have to run while they can, its hilarious.
References:
Simons, S. (2023) 6 Small essays about Comedy, Humorism. (Accessed: 07 March 2024).
Audissino, E. (2023) ‘From Dionysia to Hollywood: An Introduction to Comedy’s Long (and Bumpy) Road’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema. 1st edn. Springer International Publishing AG, pp. 3–23. (Accessed: 07 March 2024)