How does Heaven even work? — Experiment #1: Sketch (Week 1)

(please let me know if you’re having trouble viewing)

Reflection

From my research, I’ve found comedy to be a multifaceted and underrated genre of media in terms of its complexity and creation. Similarly to my own understanding, Stan Laurel quotes “a friend once asked me what comedy was. That floored me…” (2014:6)

Evidently humour is hard to define, yet another barrier preventing this is the common opinion of comedy as an unserious genre. As Emilio Audissino quotes “…when comedy and humour are not seen as aspects of the human species but as art expressions…seems to deter critics from taking comedy and laughter seriously…”. (2023:3-4). I believe this quote greatly encompasses a general social attitude towards comedy as something not innately deep or human enough to be worth researching, and admittedly reflects my own opinions before I began to study the genre also.

Because of previous connotations such as this, I admittedly found our class discussion more difficult than I thought I would. Seth Simons paragraph from his article “Six Small Essays about Comedy: What is Comedy?” (2023) explains my feelings quite well. “Comedy is the art of telling the truth. Comedy is the art of lying. Comedy is the art of calling things what they are. Comedy is…”. I feel what encompasses comedy is what encompasses life, something ever changing yet felt by all individually in which there is no one answer, just as Simons expertly alluded.

In order to explore this concept further, I looked into four primary theories of humour, however I took a special interest in the Incongruity theory.

The incongruity theory contends that humour and the act of laughter, amusement, and general comedy as an experience, arises from the disruption of our expectations just as Simons states in his essay ‘Why People Laugh’ (2023), “Because they hear something surprising…Because they hear a funny sound…”.

I feel I’ve encompassed key concepts of the incongruity theory within my sketch, particularly the element of surprise and thwarted expectations; the notion of what’s later revealed as a doctor dealing with a terminally ill patient in a strange, casual and even sassy way is not a professional expectation, and such subversions enhance the concept in itself as funny. The video also enhances a sense of comedic value due to its inclusion of a twist ending showing the doctor’s incredibly inappropriate behaviour prior to announcing horrible news, very much in line with the surprise element that defines the incongruity theory of humour.

References