Blog Response

There are three central theories, the superiority theory, the incongruity theory, and the relief theory that help describe humor and explain why we laugh. Each are very different, but all resort back to the same central idea: comedy. One theory in specific, the incongruity theory, has several different accounts to it that help explain this idea. One account in specific, Kant’s account, stuck out to me because it sums up the incongruity theory very well. He states that “something absurd must be present in whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh” (Lippit). People find something to be funny because they expect a certain outcome to happen; however, something very unexpected and unusual happens instead. This can be seen in many comedy shows, like The Office for instance. Many times throughout the show you expect something to happen, but instead Michael will react a certain way that no one ever expected, resulting in people laughing because it is so absurd. 

I think overall all three theories of comedy, superiority, incongruity, and relief, are each just descriptions of different types of humor, but all are essential to illustrate comedy as a whole. Where some of the theories are strong, other theories “are weake[r], and weak where they are stronge[r]” (Monro). So without one of the theories, you are missing a central idea of what the essence of humor is. That is why sometimes examples of the theories are not always found to be funny. Each theory has a weak point and is missing what another theory may have. Another reason why examples of the theories are not always found to be funny is because “perceived funniness of different individual jokes with the same joke skeleton can vary massively” (Lippit). So even if a joke has the same idea and the same essence, certain people may not find the joke funny based on the context of the joke, but could easily find another joke with the same idea comical. Some jokes are found funny and others not because everyone’s situation is different so they will all have different reactions.