Sociology of Comedy

Lesson 11SOC 86 – Popular CultureRobert Wonser

Why is Comedy Funny?

Which comedians do you find funny and why?

Humor is found by those who share things; history, values, norms, beliefs, traditions, customs etc (that is, culture).

Are Germans really the most unfunny people in the world?

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South Park: Germans Least Funny

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What Makes Something Funny

What makes something funny when we share the requisite knowledge?

• Incongruence • Think about how boring everyday life is, until something unexpected happens

• Jokes told by comedians are like mini-breaching experiments and the comedian is like an ethnomethodologist

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Breaking Norms is Funny

Norms are rules for behavior in society.

Rules aren’t fun or funny.

Pushing the boundary or edgy (operating at the edge of respectability) comedy plays with these norms.

This is where the funny is.

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Durkheim wasn’t very Funny

Deviance clarifies moral boundaries by highlighting them.

So does telling a joke about something ‘inappropriate’.

And doesn’t ‘inappropriate’ vary by the audience?

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Clive Clemons/Conan Inappropriate Response Channel

SOC 86: The Sociology of Comedy

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Telling and listening to jokes allows us tip toe around the moral boundaries of our group (including society).

Playfully deviating in accepted form

Especially as audience we can absolve ourselves of wrongdoing (after all we didn’t tell the joke) and even condemn the joke teller.

•Daniel Tosh’s rape joke

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Cultural Capital

Cultural capital is the groundwork for getting a joke.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report aren’t very funny to those who don’t follow politics.

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That Joke isn’t Funny any more!

What makes a joke no longer funny?

Once people have heard it it is no longer ‘unexpected.’

Favorite song; has to be played in concert, favorite joke; never retold (because it is not funny anymore!).

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Some Examples: Seinfeld

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All good satire

According to sociologist Peter Berger, all good satire has four criteria:

•Fantasy (often grotesque)•A firm moral standpoint•An object of attack•An educational purpose

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“The only reason you mock something is when it doesn’t live up to the ideal.”Jon Stewart said. “There’s a huge difference between what these journalists are doing on the ground, and the perversion of it that is the 24-hour news networks.”

“To entertain and subvert” – Matt Groening.

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Satire—the gap between what is and what should be. What should be doesn’t exist, only what is.

Satire makes the lie of what should be manifest and in doing so weakens or destroys it.

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Satire beautifully exposes the gap between ideal and real culture in much the same way that a breaching experiment reveals social norms that aren’t self-evident.

Satire comes from deep anger, and is at its best when it is ruthless in its assessment of the subject’s ills, but its final message is that the sickness, once satirically diagnosed, can possibly be cured.

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