Lead Blog Post

When Bae Wants More Romance in Your Relationship

copy link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEVhHtexS7w&feature=youtu.be


Hey everyone! For my lead blog post I'm going to be discussing gender norms and how they connect to humor and the theories.

To start off the scene begins with the barbie doll complaining about how the guy doll isn't dressed up for the date. The guy doll says he's fine and begins to complain about how women always want to look special for everything. Barbie doll replies with more complaining about how average their date night is going to be and the guy doll is fine with that. She continues to talk about how she is special and won't settle for anything less and that she wants more romance in their relationship. The clip continues to a couple of flashbacks where there was "romance" but instead it was the guy doll making cheesy romantic jokes to her.  She wants a love story like Romeo and Juliet but he thinks that its fantasy and not realistic. Instead he says that romance is about being together all the time and not killing each other and it's about loving each other despite the flaws. Barbie doll begins listing all of his flaws. The clip continues to her finally understanding that he is right but she won't admit it so instead she holds up a sign saying "you're right." The clip ends with them about to get along but he says another cheesy pick up line and she just sighs in defeat.

The first thing I wanted to point out in this video is this can be applied to the relief theory. This video is a way of releasing tensions through tendentious jokes on a topic like gender. This video dives into the gender norms of men and women. The video is mocking relationships in a harmless way which is the point of relief theory.  This clip is saying that women always complain about what men do, from the way that they dress to the things that they do. For example, the barbie doll was complaining about how he never dresses up for anything, especially date night. Another thing this clip is saying is that what he does in the relationship is never enough for her. For example, he tries to defend himself when she says that he does nothing romantic for her and she just fires back with more things he does wrong. Also, this clip is showing that flirting between males and females is by being funny and teasing each other. The barbie doll complains about him always being funny and teasing her and that she wants something more romantic. His way of being romantic is through cheesy pickup lines which is not enough for her.

This video wouldn't nearly be as funny without the use of the dolls and the cheesy voices. If this video was with real people using normal voices this scene wouldn't be funny and probably would come off as more aggressive. In my opinion, this video overexaggerates how women are in relationships. The video makes the idea of women come off as really needy and controlling about a relationship. This exaggeration is an important part of humor. Without exaggeration humor and comedy wouldn't be as funny. You need exaggeration to make jokes about a topic that is sensitive to other people. Without exaggeration people wouldn't understand jokes as much and might get more offended.  To summarize, this clip was an example of the relief theory and gender norms in today's society. The video used exaggeration to make the gender norms topic more humorous to the viewer.

Anna-Kathleen's Lead Blog Post Response

I liked how Anna Kathleen used a different form of comedy this week. Jeanna Robertson was funny by relating to the audience with real stories from her life compared to other clips we have been watching where they are fiction like the Office. Jeanna was funny by emphasizing important parts of her story and pausing which left room for the audience to laugh. She would also wave her hands around when she wanted to emphasize something more. Without this, she wouldn't nearly be as funny as she was. She made a big emphasis on following things to literally. Her husband got her the supplies she needed but in too big of quantities because he followed the numbers on her list. When the husband shows up with more baking supplies than she needed this could be an example of the incongruity theory. She was expecting the trip to the store to be quick and get exactly what she asked for on her list but instead, the trip took way longer than expected and she got way more than what she asked for. I thought it was interesting that she referred to her husband as the left brain, this added humor to her performance. Anna Kathleen made a good point about there is a difference between something that is funny and something that is comedy. I agree with her point! The biggest thing from this difference between the two was that retelling a situation in a story format is comedy. I also thought her example that all squares are rectangles was a good way to emphasize the difference between something being funny and something being comedy. Overall I liked how her example was different from all the clips we have been watching and this clip was a great way to explore different types of comedy.

Alex's Lead Blog Post Response

In Alex's blog I liked how he introduced a new theory called Absurdist humor. Both videos were examples of this theory, especially the second video. The second video is a great example of absurdist humor. It is hard to fit the Sims video into any of the other theories we have talked about. Like Alex said, the only theory it would fit into besides absurdist humor would be benign violation.  In my opinion, the first video could be an example of incongruity theory because we can compare the spelling of the word pregnant to the incorrect spellings of the word in the video. The unexpectedness of how the word is spelled could be the incongruity along with the way the word is used in the sentence. For example, there were some weird questions in the first video such as "if a women has starch masks on her body does that mean she has been pargnet before.?" This is an unexpected question and its even more shocking to find the words and punctuation aren't used correctly. I think the first video could also be an example of the superiority theory because we can compare how we spell things to how the other people spelled things. We know that we wouldn't spell things the way it was put in the video and if we did we would go back and double check our spelling before posting a question on the internet. I agree with Alex that the superiority theory would not apply to the second video. Overall I thought Alex did a great job of covering all the theories and explaining why they would or woylndt work for each video.

Jack's Lead Blog Post Response

In this blog post, I'm going to argue that the students in Jacks's clip could also be an example of the superiority theory. The clip starts with the substitute teacher walking in and saying "don't mess with him." The students give each other weird looks and seemed confused at first. Eventually, the substitute teacher starts to go through attendance. He pronounces the first girl's name wrong, and she tries to correct him but he just yells at her. This continues as he continues to call out people's names. Eventually, the students give in and just let him pronounce their names wrong. In my opinion, the students aren't scared of the substitute teacher. Instead, they realize that their names are going to be pronounced wrong so there is no point in arguing. In this case, they are superior to the teacher because they know that the teacher isn't going to change the way he says their names and they might even find this amusing. They all keep giving each other looks like what the heck is happening and sometimes are even smiling. For example, when Aaron doesn't respond right away the teacher gets up in his face and Aaron is smiling as he finally tells the teacher why he didn't respond was because the substitute teacher was pronouncing his name wrong. This could be an example that Aaron felt superior to the teacher because he thought he had finally corrected the teacher but instead that moment of superiority is quickly released when the teacher goes up to the desk and swipes everything off of it. This video also reminded me of someone's paper I read on Friday for peer editing. They came up with their own theory called "exaggeration theory." This video reminded me of this theory because the teacher is purposely pronouncing their names wrong and is getting mad when the students try to correct him. This video is mocking and exaggerating how substitute teachers come into a classroom not knowing anything and try to go through attendance without messing up. We find this video amusing because most of us can relate to it in some way even though it is greatly exaggerated. Overall this video was fun to watch and was a good example of the superiority theory and the exaggeration theory.

John's Lead Blog Post Response

First off I thought the video John used was pretty funny and he did a great job of tying incongruity and a new concept called ''Feeling Tone Interpretation." To start off I never knew what to expect what was going to happen next while watching this clip. One moment the chef was saying not directly that he liked the dish and then the next moment he would make a comment saying how bad it was. Like John said this is an example of incongruity because we expect the dish to be either good or bad, not both. It was hard to tell when the chef was being nice or being mean and this is where the "Feeling Tone Interpretation" comes in for me because the chief never changes his tone but the music changes from very dramatic to uplifting and happy. With the changing music this helped me understand when the chef was being nice or rude. If the music wasn't there, I think it would be hard to apply the idea of "Feeling Tone Interpretation." I think relief theory could also be an example in this clip. The dramatic music builds up tension on what the chef is going to say. That tension is released when the chef says something nice about the dish and the music changes to more uplifting. The moment of released tension is quickly gone when we realize the chef is now saying something mean about the dish. This moment is where incongruity plays into this clip because I did not expect a rude comment after the chef just gave a nice one. Since the tone was constantly changing throughout the video I'm still unsure if the chef liked the other chef's food or not. Overall I thought this was a funny clip to watch and was a good example of the incongruity theory and possibly the relief theory.

Kimberly's Lead Blog Post Response

I have tried numerous times to watch The Office but I just can't seem to get into the show. However the fire drill scene I found hilarious. To start off there are numerous examples of all the theories we have covered so far. I think the most interesting theory in this episode was the incongruity theory and Dwight. Kimberly said that he normally follows the rules and is normally tame but in this scene, he breaks a couple of rules by starting a fire. I think this is odd and interesting that he started a fire at work because his coworkers weren't listening to his lecture on fires and procedures the week before. I'm curious if there was more to why he started a fire, again it seems pretty extreme. Maybe Dwight got fed up with people not listening to him at work so he showed them that he is still there and doesn't want to be ignored anymore. Could Dwight also be an example of the superiority theory? He doesn't laugh throughout the scene but maybe internally he finds their panic amusing because he knows what to do in a situation with a fire but his coworkers don't because they didn't listen to him. I thought it was also funny how people coped with the fire in the office. Kimberly gave a couple of examples of the relief theory and how the people coped with the fire. I think another example would be Micheal. When he first sees the fire he begins to yell at everyone to stay calm but he's not even taking his own advice and proceeds to yell even louder for people to stay calm. Overall I thought this was a great example of all three theories and this example makes me want to give The Office another shot!

Lippitt Response

In my opinion the incongruity theory is easily the most understood and most accurate theory out of three theories. The incongruity theory I find is accurate because I'm always laughing when I predict whats going to happen in a movie or show and something completely unexpected happens. An example would be the movie Deadpool. Throughout the movie you would expect a superhero to act mature but instead Deadpool is the complete opposite. In one scene his hand gets cut off but it slowly starts to grow back. I find this funny because it is completely unexpected that his hand will grow back and when it does he makes inappropriate jokes about it. Also another reason is the incongruity theory is a more positive idea of humor than the superiority theory. In my opinion the superiority theory doesn't do a great job of explaining laughter and seems to put the concept of humor in a more negative view. The superiority theory says we laugh because we feel we are superior to the other person when they are struggling. An example would be laughing at someone for spilling hot coffee on themselves before leaving for work. Sometimes we do laugh at our friends when they mess up or do something just plain stupid like falling down the stairs. In my opinion this is okay to laugh at because you know the person and they mostly likely will be laughing too. The relief theory is also accurate but I think is too focused on just one idea which is laughing to relieve tension. An example would be laughing at a jump scene in a horror movie because the tension was building up for awhile before hand and when it finally happened you weren't ready. In response you maybe laugh to relieve the tension that the horror movie had created. In my opinion there is more to humor than just laughing to relieve tension. The theories do describe different types of comedy. The superiority and the incongruity theory do overlap slightly. They both describe humor as laughing at something that could be unexpected. For the superiority theory someones misfortune could be unexpected in the moment causing laughter just like the incongruity theory where we laugh at something that was not the expected outcome. Besides that they both give off completely different tones and describe different types of comedy. The relief theory is also different because it is a build up to the moment of laughter or humor compared to the superiority or incongruity theory where it is more sudden. When I think of humor, I think the incongruity theory does the best at getting close to the essence of laughter. The incongruity theory is easily understood and explains more common reasons why people laugh compared to the other theories.