Previous
For example - The following points out a difference in the way men and women act (stereotypically):
RESTROOMS:
Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges.
Men in a restrooms will never speak a word to each other.
Women who've never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends.
And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, "Hey, Tom, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?"
This is obviously an American writer as we Brits do not generally refer to "Restrooms" - but the stereotype transcends the continents. I don't think either of the sexes are bashed in this joke... and I am amused by the way the difference between them is pointed out.
The following was taken from the same website:
How does a man have the power to make a woman happy?
By remaining a bachelor.
Why do men die before their wives ?
They want to.
If your wife keeps coming out of the kitchen to nag you, what have you done wrong ?
Made her chain too long.
Did you hear about the man who won the gold medal at the Olympics?
He had it bronzed.
There were plenty more where they came from... I find all of the above examples, and 99% of the rest of the jokes on those pages unfunny. There is nothing clever in them, there is little shock value, hell there is little value of any sort. These sound like they were penned by someone recently dumped and needing revenge.
Part of Misty's degree required her to write a paper about humour... and she told me about the "fill in the blanks" type of joke. These jokes are a generic formula where the "victim" is changed to suit the purpose of the joke teller. An example from above is the Gold medal winner. Locally that joke would probably be in the form of the "Irish" Joke... based on the premise that the Irish are not that bright. It could easily be changed to a "Blonde" Joke as they too are stereotyped as stupid. I have come to the conclusion that any joke that can be changed in this way is not a good joke. I'll be working on a proof of this at some point in the future.
This prompts the question "What is funny?"
The dictionary says "Intended or designed to amuse." (at least in the sense that I mean it)... but that doesn't tell us what makes something funny funny.
For me funny is what happens when a train of thought is de-railed. This is usually caused by looking at something from a unique angle or a shocking revelation. Someone said that all humour involves pain... I'm not so sure about that - but a lot of humour involves pain - someone else's pain of course! Our own pain is rarely funny... at least not at the time. The pain can be physical (watching someone fall in one of the many "send in a video" shows on the TV) or emotional (all fill in the blank jokes above cause pain to the "victim" chosen). There is a special word for deriving pleasure from others pain (or misfortune) - Schadenfreude - one of my favourite words!
I prefer surreal humour which is rarely about pain.
Surreal humour is not just a de-railing of your train of thought - it's turning the entire train into a duck. There is a thin line between surreal and stupid. Earwigs making chutney is surreal. Earwigs flying planes is stupid. Okay - so who clicked the link?
Funny is also about wordplay or puns. The English language has many words for one thing, and one word can many things. This can lead to double entendres. Punning can be the worst form of humour and yet still be funny. This seems to be its own little paradox; because it's supposed to be funny and isn't it becomes funny. If there was a way to trap the power of this paradox we would be able to ditch all fossil fuels.
Tags: rant
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Depeche Mode - Condemnation
Funny is as funny does.
