is comedy inherently conservative?

It's an antidote to 'enthusiasm' that keeps us from straying too far

i don't like bill hicks either

Michael, I think there's been at least some general agreement itt that 'conservative' is kinda value-neutral in this context (i.e. not inherently despicable).

I don't particularly care for Hicks or that style of confrontational, "tellin' the truth, maaaan" style of comedy more generally. It has its place, I guess, but it just really isn't my thing.

horseshoe, louis ck is someone i often think about irt to these issues as well

re "conservative" yeah it is presumably not being used here in its modern american sense where it is code for "revolutionary psychopathy".

I think there's definitely a strain of contemporary comedy, maybe the dominant strain of comedy, that's extremely coarse, and in that sense is not really very "compassionate." This sort of relates to some of what was said in that Tyranny of Humor thread -- a kind of vaguely oppressive non-seriousness and mockery of everything that's a bit numbing and doesn't really lend itself to compassion because you can't be compassionate to an object of mockery.

I don't know if that makes it "conservative" except inasmuch as it indirectly promotes the status quo and complacency

the dominant strain of American life is extremely coarse

it's hard for me to think of any popular comedy that's terribly compassionate in its humor. the jokes may occur within a broader narrative that displays compassion, but the jokes themselves, the funny bits, are never the product of compassion. agree that comedy, the funny in comedy, is fundamentally heartless, even when it's simple pratfalls. we laugh because we do not empathize. we may understand the pain or shame that's driving the joke, but we're only able to laugh because we're not actually feeling it.

strongo otm about bill hicks whom i can't really stand because though he is sometimes (often!) really funny/poignant/whatever it's just not worth having to sit there for like ten fucking minutes being yelled at about how new kids on the block suck. maybe it's a lenny bruce thing and audiences in 1991 were shocked into hysterics by the taboo suggestion that new kids on the block sucked. maybe not.

yeah, this is the conservatism i was thinking of when i brought this up. yelling to a crowded room that some hated thing is actually worth hating, developing conformist collective identity through ostracism of the different. this remains conservative in a certain sense even when it's "punching up", in that it's all about oppositions and exclusions, defining and defending a single correct way to think and be.

maybe "conservative" is the wrong word here, though. maybe centrist is a better way to think about it. comedy establishes a center point of correctness and/or normalcy from which it punches out at extremity, however that's defined. even when the comedian is his own punchline, that's what's going on. inspector clouseau's pratfalls and idiocy are funny because peter sellars has created such a perfect portrait of comically unacceptable behavior.

i don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with this, but it does make me stop and think about how the center point of right and normal thinking is defined in comedy.

Does it make you more fond of wacky comedy?

it's hard for me to think of any popular comedy that's terribly compassionate in its humor.

parks and rec?

dunno if you'd call it popular.

The humor in a Sturges comedy isn't cruel. Shakespeare either.

Shakespeare can be very cruel!

only on those who deserve to be the butt of a joke (e.g. Malvolio)

I think there's definitely a strain of contemporary comedy, maybe the dominant strain of comedy, that's extremely coarse, and in that sense is not really very "compassionate." This sort of relates to some of what was said in that Tyranny of Humor thread -- a kind of vaguely oppressive non-seriousness and mockery of everything that's a bit numbing and doesn't really lend itself to compassion because you can't be compassionate to an object of mockery.

― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Tuesday, May 15, 2012 12:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh wait sorry, that's ILX, not comedy.

that's a good question. i love absurd, unpredictable comedy, the sort that changes directions and levels of reference constantly, borderline nonsense. like zucker-abrahams-zucker stuff, the better adult swim shows, repo man, etc. maybe i like it because that sort of comedy because the chaotic absurdity makes it hard to say where it's coming from, exactly, or what the boundaries are. and maybe i just did too many drugs when i was young, i dunno.

i also like pratfalls (the pink panther), wordplay (rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead), "conservative" comedy of misbehavior (seinfeld), observational humor (70s & 80s woody allen), recent/contemporary stuff like arrested development and 30 rock. not sure to what extent my ideas about comedy affect my taste in humor, if at all.

it's hard for me to think of any popular comedy that's terribly compassionate in its humor.

parks and rec?

again, the show has compassion towards its characters, overall but the comedy - the jokes themselves - aren't compassionate. they're barbs puncturing the characters image of themselves, jabs at one another.

i think we're just laughing at different jokes.

The humor in a Sturges comedy isn't cruel. Shakespeare either.

that's a very good point. light silliness and wordplay are forms of comedy that can exist absent cruelty. now that you mention it, i'm sure there are others. shakespeare does also traffic in the comedy of buffoonishness, error and cruelty though.

I think you're only seeing part of the picture, contenderizer. That strain is definitely prevalent, and I agree that it exists to a degree even in stuff like P&R, but humor that's about tearing others down is just one facet in the Jewel of Guffaws.

xposts, obvs

Is there any identity w/o exclusion and if not, is it not at some level cruel or the beigining of cruelty?

Mitch Hedberg is not cruel.

But tbf that's largely because he's dead.

there is this tiny horse and some people think it is the best thing ever and one person doesn't understand why everyone else loves this tiny horse.

i don't think this is a barb puncturing a character, but then what do i know.

Is russell simmons def comedy jam inherently conservative

yeah it's from wikipedia, but seems to make some sense...

Benign Violation Theory

The benign violation theory (BVT) is developed by researchers A. Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren.[35] The BVT integrates seemingly disparate theories of humor to predict that humor occurs when three conditions are satisfied: 1) something threatens one’s sense of how the world “ought to be,” 2) the threatening situation seems benign, and 3) a person sees both interpretations at the same time.

From an evolutionary perspective, humorous violations likely originated as apparent physical threats, like those present in play fighting and tickling. As humans evolved, the situations that elicit humor likely expanded from physical threats to other violations, including violations of personal dignity (e.g., slapstick, teasing), linguistic norms (e.g., puns, malapropisms), social norms (e.g., strange behaviors, risqué jokes), and even moral norms (e.g., disrespectful behaviors). The BVT suggests that anything that threatens one’s sense of how the world “ought to be” will be humorous, so long as the threatening situation also seems benign.

There is also more than one way a violation can seem benign. McGraw and Warren tested three contexts in the domain of moral violations. A violation can seem benign if one norm suggests something is wrong but another salient norm suggests it is acceptable. A violation can also seem benign when one is psychologically distant from the violation or is only weakly committed to the violated norm.

For example, McGraw and Warren find that most consumers were disgusted when they read about a church raffling off a Hummer SUV to recruit new members. However, many consumers were simultaneously amused. Consistent with the BVT, people who attended church were less likely to be amused than people who did not. Churchgoers are more committed to the belief that churches are sacred and, consequently, were less likely to consider the church’s behavior benign.

also I want to quip after reading the conservapedia thread that conservatism is inherently comedic ...

Steven Wright is not cruel.

Conservatism is ideal fuel for a type of comedy I really appreciate (i.e. laughing at the fucked up things in the world in order to stave off abject despair).

want to clarify something here. i still think humor is rarely compassionate (by "humor" i mean jokes, not the larger narratives in which they might occur). this dearth of compassion needn't be cruel though. while wordplay and absurd silliness can be funny without being cruel, they're not typically compassionate.

i'm not saying that truly compassionate jokes categorically can't exist, just that they're rather rare. to the extent that they seem to exist, it usually isn't really the compassion itself that's funny, but rather some behavior or turn of phrase that's used in the communication.

i suppose that there is a strain of compassionate humor that results from the combination of cuteness and oddity. it's rarely laugh out loud funny, imo, in that it depends too much on real sympathy to permit laughter. the response is more an appreciative "awwww".

it's hard for me to think of any popular comedy that's terribly compassionate in its humor.

You could probably make a case for the Rosanne show and Strangers With Candy.

Adventure Time!

i think there is something at the psychological root of a lot of comedy that might lend itself to reinforcing the status quo

Dilbert to thread.

This thread is doing a lot to firm up my already semi-solid belief that I need to work on humorous projects aimed at kids. A lot of what I think about wrt comedy relates to its often needless cruelty or the extent that it establishes unnecessary oppositions. And I don't think there's a lot of room for transformative, humanistic comedy for jaded adults.

think there is some confusion here between compassion and being nice

think there is some confusion here between compassion and being nice

I'm interested to hear more about this confusion you speak of.

well, the presence of compassion in the overall tone isn't at all what i'm talking about. i'm talking more about the direct expression of compassion as a joke. directly expressions of cruelty can be jokes, with little else added. a pratfall, a pie in the face, an embarrassing blunder, an unfortunately nude person, etc. this isn't really true of direct expressions of compassion, which are hard to distinguish from "being nice": a hug, a pat on the head, medical aid, etc.

is it the act of cruelty that's funny or the contect in which it happens?

well i think it's possible to feel compassion for someone -- to recognize their humanity and project yourself into them and feel their fears -- and then make harsh jokes about them. the same way you can make harsh jokes about yourself. in fact it's necessary if the jokes are gonna be more than like "lol you talk funny". i haven't watched parks and rec specifically but:

again, the show has compassion towards its characters, overall but the comedy - the jokes themselves - aren't compassionate. they're barbs puncturing the characters image of themselves, jabs at one another.

how could you make jokes about the characters' image of themselves if you didn't understand those images and their frailty at a level only attainable via compassion? and how could you separate the jokes themselves from the compassion that enables those jokes to exist? making fun of people in this way is not the same as cruelty, which requires the reduction of another creature to an object to be toyed with, with no interest in or sympathy for how that person feels. people often describe comedies that rely on bad shit continually happening to someone, or on someone's foibles being revealed and exploited, as "cruel", but the feeling of laughing at these is not the same as the feeling of laughing at, like, the way a dog with a broken leg walks. i think this is why nabokov was always annoyed at people calling his stuff cruel.

a pie in the face is i guess cruelty but i mean most of why people laugh at pies in the face (if they indeed do) is surprise.

yeah, i think you're using a much more extreme definition of comic "cruelty" than i am. a pie in the face is funny because it's unexpected, sure, but it wouldn't be anywhere near so comical if it was an unexpected hug, or an unxepected gift of flowers. it's the violence that makes the surprise funny. we're shocked, but we immediately realize that there's no real threat or harm, so we laugh to relieve tension.

and i agree that a lot of character based comedy depends on our compassion towards the characters involved, but on a certain level, that framing compassion is merely the device that allows us to accept and understand the small cruelties that provide the laughs. i don't think that cruelty requires complete othering and objectification. even if we're only fondly cruel to our loved ones, there's still a little barb in there.

I'm interested to hear more about this confusion you speak of.

tbh i thought this thread was much more interesting before half the participants sounded like this guy:

http://theinfosphere.org/images/d/dc/Billionare_bot.jpg

that is: making fun of people is is always cruel, but it's not always so cruel as to be hurtful or otherwise objectionable. calibrating the degree of cruelty one can get away with while still earning audience sympathy is the key to a lot of comedy.

guess i shd read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_humor

surprise seems like a key element, or the unexpected or unplanned.

a joke in a pure form is about setting an expectation or creating a structure (setup) and then not meeting that expectation or wrecking it in some way (the punchline)