In the movie Duck Soup, there are tons of instances that cause the audience to entertain two different ideas at the same time. For example, in the scene when Trentino meets with Chicolini & Pinkie to see what they found out about Firefly, there are puns and visual plays on words that are incongruous and therefore, humorous, like when Trentino asks the spies if they think that they can trap Firefly and Pinkie hands over a mousetrap. Instead of satisfying the actual meaning, the verb form, to catch Firefly in an incriminating act and expose it to remove him from office, Pinkie introduces a different idea or schema, the mousetrap, a noun.

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The entirety of Ghostbusters (1984) is one large incongruity.  The slapstick, slapdash manner of the ghost busting company juxtaposes their facade of a legitimate company.  Dressed as a cross between exterminators and firemen, the ghost busters parade around New York city as professionals.  Their first call is to a high class hotel before a large function in the ball room.  They proceed to destroy everything in sight.  They get covered in slime and don’t even understand their own equipment.

I began this entry by stating that this made the film one large incongruity.  So what two schemas are activated simultaneously?  I propose that the two schemas are the inexperienced, clumsy, and generally pitiful ghost busters and the facade of professionalism they create.  When they are able to convince others of their professionalism, we interpret their actions along the lines to two separate schemas.  When the hotel manager knocks on the ball room door, Dr. Venkman pokes his head out and with an air of professionalism explains that they will need a moment longer.  We understand that they are destroying the ballroom, so the schema of destruction, slapstick, slopiness, and unpreparedness is activated as well as the mostly incompatible schema of professional extermination.  Through these two alternative interpretations of the scene and of the film in its entirety, we find humor.  According to Martin, the entire film then produces and maintains a feeling of mirth.

-Matt Tomlinson

Mandrake has figured out the recall code for all the bombers, and needs to make a phone call to the president. With all the phone lines destroyed, his only choice is to use the phone box. In desperate need for some change in order to save the world, he asks Colonel Bat to shoot the coca-cola machine, and Bat answers: No. It is private property!

We have the situation with the nuclear bombs as a starting point of our first script. Anyone in that situation would do anything to make that phone-call happen, and everyone would understand the semantic meaning of this set-up. Bat’s reply to the request presents another semantic understanding of the event, dramatically different from the first one. With these two understandings held in mind at the same time, we laugh.

This is a very good joke because it doesn’t take long for one to “get it”. Some jokes have their punch line as an unusual perception that requires time for people to make sense of it. However, in our case, both the importance of stopping nuclear bombs and coca-cola machine as a private property are straightforward notions, but one would never put them together. Because it takes a short time for people to understand it, it is funny.

When men watch, When Harry Met Sally, they find Harry funny because he is raunchy, he is not afraid to tell dirty jokes, and he speaks his mind.  Women tend to like Sally’s character because she likes to recount funny stories and she doesn’t give a negative image of all women.  Most comedy movies follow this character formula to make the movie funny.  If you look at movies such as Knocked Up, Superbad, When Harry Met Sally, you often see the protagonist male as a person who is not afraid to speak his mind or tell raunchy jokes, while the women are shown as very proper and their humor is found in discussions, and anecdotes.  But I also feel that if you give a feminine character male qualities or humor, men could find the character very funny and relatable. This seems to be true in the movie Juno.  Juno possesses many masculine qualities in the movie, such as dressing like a tomboy, telling raunchy jokes, and even eating like a boy.  Her character appeals to male humor because her humor is more aggressive and sexually themed.

Humans also use laugher as a defense mechanism. Sometimes if we as humans are uncomfortable in certain situations, we laugh to show that we are not fearful, although we may be fearful deep down. Laughing stimulates pleasure centers in our brain so we try to laugh as much as possible (even in situations that aren’t inherently funny).

This can be explained in my film Annie Hall. The only reason the scene in the movie theater (is funny) in which Annie and Alvie are waiting in line, is because everything that is happening is against social norms. The man talking to loud behind them is rude, Annie discussing their sex life in a public setting is not socially acceptable, and the fact that a movie character talks to the audience is not something that’s common in most films. This is why laughter is a fundamentally SOCIAL EMOTION.

-David G

In “Knocked Up” Debbie, the sister of Allison, one of the protagonists, suspects that her husband, Pete, is having an affair.  He constantly goes out after odd hours and makes up an excuse for doing so, whether he states that he has to work late or go somewhere with his friends.  One night, Debbie decides to follow Pete to a house and follows him into a house. When she and the audience hears a distant voice, tension then starts to grow, and we believe that the first schema is actually true.  However, when Debbie enters the room, we see Pete not having an affair, but having a fantasy baseball draft with a group of friends.

The scene in “Knocked Up” thus complies with Martin’s schema theory.  The initial schema manages to hook the audience into the scenario especially when we hear the noise from the distant room, believing that Debbie’s worse fears have come true.  But the second schema throws us off balance and provides humor and tension relief to the situation.  This second schema is inconguous to the first one and provides humor to the situation since sneaking out after hours to have a fantasy baseball draft with your friends is less serious than having an affair outside of marriage.

By Jonny Grossman

If we took Billig’s model into our analysis of humor, we will have Disciplinary humor and rebellious humor at the two ends of our spectrum, and most jokes in Dr Strangelove would, without of doubts, fall into the rebellious side. In the scene where the president is questioning General Ripper about the bombs, he is surprised by the fact that the bombers can go ahead and bomb their targets without a confirmation from the president, a rule that seems so problematic. However, Rippers reminds him that this is an order signed by the president himself. Consequently, we see the president’s face turning into a strange expression, showing a definite sense of embarrassment and anger, maybe towards himself.

In this scene, the president, representing the political system, is being mocked by the director and laughed at by the viewers, a rebellious mocking from below. Billig would argue that by laughing at this gag, the audiences are seemingly taking the position of a rebel, but at the same time conforming to the freedom of thought and speech, a notion utterly American. On the other hand, by mocking the powerful, the director is also reassuring their powerful position, for this joke only works when the president is both the maker and victim of the law. It should remind the contemporary leaders in reality of the outrageousness of their Cold War measures. In this sense, the joke also possesses what Billig calls, the disciplinary function.

The scene that I have chosen is the “retard” scene. In the scene Matt Dillon pretends to work with mentally challenged people; however, explains that he works with retards instead of using the socially acceptable term of mentally challenged. In society the term “retard” is a socially unacceptable term. We socially understand that this term and acting on this term is socially unacceptable and that is why we laugh. Furthermore we use our intelligence and not our emotion to comprehend the scene. If we were to comprehend the scene with our emotions we would feel empathy towards “retards,” because we would take into account what they are lacking.

In conclusion, I agree with Bergson’s ideas. Emotions would bring a seriousness to the scene and that is why emotions must be forgotten.

Billig’s main argument in his paper is that Erving Goffman’s theory of embarrassment is flawed. He claims that Goffman ignores the role of humour and laughter, and he also claims that Goffman does discuss the role of humour, but it is part of an argument that seems to concentrate optimistically on the nicer sides of things.  When I read this essay, I immediately thought of the scene in my movie where Sally embarrasses herself in the diner when she says, “I have had great sex.”  The onlookers look at her coldly and in a manner that suggests, “what is she talking about?”  I feel as though Goffman does not take a nicer or general approach to his assessment of embarrassment. In this scene, he would suggest that the onlookers feel sympathy for the actor.  This assessment seems to be true because the onlookers did not laugh her; they merely stared at her in astonishment.  The onlookers seem to be more unpleasant when they hear Sally’s comment because it disrupted their meal.  But it seems as though Billig would suggest I am taking a nicer approach to this scene. He would think that the onlookers in this scene enjoyed seeing the embarrassment.  But that is not the case here, the only people in this scene are laughing is the audience.  So, I think that Billig is quick to judge the works of Goffman as being general or nice guy.