Three, Such a Beautifully Short Number

It surprised me when I first saw Comic Relief.  The book by itself was so bible looking with its black leather like book cover. It demanded an aura of respect and solemnness when I looked at it.  So I went on ahead to open the book and get preached upon on humor and it’s details and the first thing I see is two fiery orange Orangutans, one holding the L from the word ‘relief’, laughing away to glory. Now I’m thinking that’s weird but, I’m also laughing at how this book built my expectation of it to be a solemn book but shattered it with the Orangutans at the very opening page.

There were many things in this book that could have gone right and did and there were the few other things that didn’t go so well. Being an optimist, I tend to take the positives out of this reading and I’ve written down three of the most significant things that I got out of this book.

Cognitive Shift, the Incongruity Theory

Morreall starts of the book by stating the three theories of humor; the superiority, the incongruity and the relief theories. The superiority theory didn’t seem to make much sense to me because sometimes, we laugh without having any ego.  For example, when we share a goofy moment with our friends about something we did in high school, we aren’t inflating our ego nor are deflating someone else’s.  It is simply a fun moment. The incongruity theory however made perfect sense in that it is so prevalent even today and even now as I’m writing this paper an hour before class.  We expect something and when it doesn’t go as per our mental scheme, we are amused by it. This amusement, according to the relief theory is what gives rise to laughter as we want to relieve the tension built up by this unsatisfied expectation. This, if we put in context, will fall into place almost in every situation.  For example, when I read my twitter feed this morning (because it is more important than reading early morning for my O-Chem test), I came across this joke:

“Two fish in a tank.

One turns to the other and says: “Do you know how to drive this?”

Laughter is a word; Humor is the language – as a play signal that gives rise to the bazillion benefits of humor.

Have we ever yelled, frowned or ignored a smiling, playful kid? Now that would just be really cruel right. What the child is trying to say is that she/he trusts us and that she/he wants us to play with her/him (did you notice that I’m pushing for gender equality too?). This is a play signal which Morreall thinks is what gave rise to laughter.  This is an assurance, from the person you’re communicating with, which makes both the parties feel safe and happy engaging in a conversation.  When I walk to the BLUU every day, I look and smile at at least four people.  This immediately gives them a sense of safety; a sense that I mean no harm and that safety leads to laughter. To me, laughter is just a word in the language called Humor.

Mind Your Language

Morreall takes us on this hot air balloon ride and shows us the different fields, mountains and lakes of humor; aesthetic, pleasant and beautiful.  But he also takes us over to this school in Idaho and shows us their tormenting blue football field, and points out to us that places like these can exist too. There are these places that are meant to be played in but very cautiously. Morreall, in essence, tells us that humor can also be hurting.  Humor suddenly, in light of the negative aspect, becomes irresponsible and blocks compassion.  It strikes bells for me too.  If we laugh at someone when they fall or get hurt, much like what we do when we watch TV programs like ‘Wipeout’, we are losing that human value of compassion.  Our hearts become callous in situations like this and that is not the intention of humor and laughter.

Another thing that he doesn’t directly mention but implies by talking about the negative aspects of humor is the principle of Schadenfreude.  We laugh at things in a relief that it wasn’t us in that awkward, funny or maybe even embarrassing moment.

Comic relief was a good book in its entirety.  It was informative and funny but still covered some ground on the course.