When you study the Civil War, you don't expect to get bloody. When you study genetics, you don't expect to get cloned. Examination, by its very nature, alters your perspective on the thing you are studying in such a way as to make it no longer the experience it was "meant" to be.
But we do it anyway.
Here is a (incomplete) list of the things we've determined about humor so far:
1. It is often timely.
2. It is commonly used by in-groups.
3. Everyone's opinion on what is or is not funny differs.
4. It often pushes social boundaries.
5. No critic can agree on what makes something humorous (see 3).
Okay, so, our position as students studying humor makes us:
1. View pieces that are often no longer timely.
2. Definitely step outside of the in-group. Even if we are part of the demograph the original act was meant for, when we are in the classroom we are part of a different group, one I'm sure no comedian has in mind as the audience. Perhaps this is why I laughed more when I was watching the stand-up or reading the stories at home than I did in the classroom; I was in a different group. Essentially, I was a different audience.
3. We're trying to have a conversation as a class full of diverse opinions. This can be great as long as we don't approach it as something we have to agree on to understand.
4. Pushing the social boundaries is the reason to study humor, at least in my opinion. If it served no societal function, then maybe a class on it should just be fun, but the fact that it can be a vehicle for many larger issues makes it a field worth trying to understand.
5. We're English majors! Surely we can deal with critics who can't agree with one another.
In order to enjoy studying humor, our expectations have to change. I admit that coming in, I wasn't quite sure how to approach this task, and at times I wanted to just watch the clips, read the story, and be the audience the creator probably intended, but that doesn't help me understand humor. In other words, if the class was too fun, we probably wouldn't be doing a very good job.
Definitely you make some very good points. It makes me think of the old wisdom that "nothing ever came easy," or "no pain, no gain."
ReplyDeleteStill, these later writers have been a lot easier to enjoy (probably because they write in a time closest to our own). Nevertheless, like you said, just because this is a humor class, we shouldn't assume it is meant to be easy or always pleasant (I certainly don't transfer that belief onto my other English classes, so why judge this one with that bias?)
First of all, I really like this English class and second of all, I'm an English major because it is fun for me. I needed a major to get a diploma for law school, not for getting a job and so I think my classes are all fun. So maybe I have a different perspective than you all. However, that said, I want to suggest that the reason that this class is not gut-bustingly funny or fun at times might be because we are dissecting humor, something many philosophers/thinkers about humor deplore because it takes the humor out of a piece like squeezing the water out of a sponge. Then it depends on your idea of fun. If you don't enjoy dissecting words and such, it's not going to be fun.
ReplyDeleteE.B. White compares studying humor to dissecting a frog--it changes how we think about it. For my money, not analyzing humor is dangerous, exactly because of the unconscious influence it has on human beings and its ability to make change without thought. On a trip to Arkansas a few years back, a complete stranger walked up to me on the street to tell me a "nigger" joke. More disturbing to me than the actual fact of the joke or the strangeness of the man, was that he seemed to feel that it was perfectly acceptable and that I would agree with its ideas. That's why we need to look at humor in a "dissection" way that often makes it "not fun."
ReplyDeleteExcellent, Michelle. This post articulates ideas that have been in my head for quite some time. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteBut, on a side notes - wouldn't it be fun if when we studied Moby Dick we went sailing (not quite whaling), when we read the Phaedrus we sat under a plane tree, when we study genetics we sequence our own DNA. Think about how awesome education could be if we did participate in everything we studied. I suppose, from that angle, creating the humor presentation is part of trying to be funny after studying the humor. Yay.
Stitch's--I, too, am an English major because I enjoy analyzing words and dissecting language, but I don't think that's the same as it being "fun"--at least not for me. I associate fun with a sort of light-heartedness that just doensn't fit with much scholarship. In order to give a work of literature (including humor) the attention it deserves, it has to be a serious endeavor.
ReplyDeleteAbigail--we should lobby for sailing! And I think that I will appreciate participating in the humor presentation much more because of the more serious dissection we've done of humor in this class. I certainly appreciate stand-up a lot more (even the bad ones)!