Is comedy possible without stereotypes?

Great Debates
1

Inspired by I’m Getting Tired of Gender Generalizations, of course.

Got me wondering if humor, or comedy, is possible without generalizations or stereotypes (used synonymously for the purposes of this post). Seems to me that humor is about taking what we have in common, and either shocking people by vocalizing what isn’t normally spoken about, twisting familiar concepts or situations into something surprising, or commenting on common experiences.

For all of those, humor is about commonalities. It’s about having at least a vocabulary in common, where we agree that *in the context of comedy *“Mother-In-Law” means an overbearing woman who interferes in your relationship with your spouse. “The Office” means that place you go to everyday, even though you resent it, which may be staffed by wacky folks or mindless drones. “The Freeway” is a long stretch of highway which is full of traffic congestion and angry drivers.

It doesn’t matter whether or not I love my job and all my co-workers at the office, sail home through an empty freeway at 2:00 PM on my way to pick up my mother-in-law whom I love dearly so we can go to dinner together. For comedy to work, I need to at least understand and accept the definitions of these words* as used in comedy*. I need to accept the generalization and stereotypes in order to have enough in common with the comedian to find what s/he’s saying funny. Outside of the comedy, I no longer need to hold those stereotypes in mind.

I was trying to think of an example of comedy that doesn’t involve an understanding of generalizations or stereotypes, and I can’t.

I thought for a while I had one, from the TV show Firefly. The Revered Book is lecturing Captain Reynolds to keep his hands to himself under the sexual advances of a sweet young thing. " If you take sexual advantage of her," the Reverend tells him, “you’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.” That’s one of my favorite bits ever. But in order to “get it”, you need to know several generalizations: Reverends counsel against sex. Spaceship captains are rakes who enjoy the amourous attentions of sweet young native girls. Child molesters are very, very bad people who deserve to burn in hell. Hell is a place where dead people are tormented in punishment for their badness. The comedy, or twist, comes when “people who talk at the theater” are made equivalent to child molesters. And that only works if you know that many, if not all, people are really ticked off by people who talk in the theater. Would a single person seriously suggest outside of comedy that people who talk in the theater are as morally reprehensible as child molesters? Of course not. That’s why it’s funny. But we need to have the same set of generalizations in place for it all to work.

Doesn’t matter if you know a pro-sex minister or that Captain Reynolds actually didn’t sleep with space sluts (well, only one, but that was later), or if you don’t believe in hell. The specifics don’t make it funny. The stereotypes do.

So, whaddaya think? Is comedy possible without stereotypes?

2

Not if one has as broad a definition of “stereotypes” as you do.

3

Don’t watch much Star Trek: TNG, do you? :slight_smile:

I had never thought of Picard as a rake before.

4

I agree, to a point. There are broad areas of comedy that don’t involve stereotypes or generalizations, but there are broad areas that do. I am loathe to abandon 60% of “Things That Are Funny” just because some people have an atrophied sense of humor.

5

Some of the Marx Brothers? shrugs There is probably a litany of jokes and humor that doesn’t involve stereotypes.

Oh, um, I don’t think Clerks has very many stereotypes… except the scene where they’re talking about sterotypes. I guess you could also look at things like some of the Pixar et al movies… I can’t think of a stereotype in Monsters Inc, for example… unless talking salamanders have a sterotype…

6

Riker more than made up for Picard’s reserve. :smiley:

7

What are the stereotypes in physical comedy?

Guy getting hit in the nuts = funny. I don’t see any stereotypes in that. Men have testicles? Testicles hurt when struck? These are simple facts.

8

Except when it doesn’t. In real life, getting hit in the nuts, or by the nuts, doesn’t cause excrucuating pain every single time. I’ve inadvertantly hit my husband in the nuts to no reaction. Not all men have testicles - some have lost them to surgery or illness.

Yet, we all know why getting hit in the nuts is funny. Because it *always *hurts - in comedy.

It’s not whether or not a specific character has pain or even has testicles - it’s the generalization that “testicles + hit = pain” that makes the bit funny.

It’s the stereotype that “black neighborhood + white man = not safe” that makes Eddie Murphy’s bit about Santa Claus not existing funny.

I thought most of the observational humor in *Clerks *was based on stereotypes - but maybe that because I was both a cineophile and a clerk, so it all rang really true for me on that level. When you see and partake in the same behavior day in and day out, it feels like a stereotype.

pizzabrat, give me a better sense of “generalization” or “stereotype”, then. I’m not sure how I’m using it in any broader a sense than the poster who was upset with gender generalizations.

9

But you would always know that the girl would die in an unlikely accident…

10

I think you’re really reaching here. What if the specific character says, “My balls are really sensitive. Any time they’re so much as touched, it really hurts. Boy, the last thing I would like is for that baseball over there to hit me in the nuts.” Then he gets hit in the nuts by the baseball, and doubles over moaning. Still a generalization?

11

“My car broke down. The tow truck arrived and towed me away!”
–Rodney Dangerfield

Other examples: Steve Martin’s “Wild and crazy guy” routine, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams.

12

Well, Webster’s gives us:

If you’re asking if comedy is possible without something being involved that conforms to/breaks with a fixed or general pattern, I guess not. Communication itself requires some kind of general pattern. But, as pizzabrat says, that’s a pretty broad use of the term.

The bit after “especially” above is how most people use the word “stereotype”, and comedy certainly is possible without stereotypes in this sense.

13

Irony and puns seem to me to be stereotype-free humor.

14

Wasn’t that based on some Eastern European caricature? It’s been a while, so I could be confusing that with some SCTV sketch…

Still:

So a person, a person, and another person walked into a bar…Just doesn’t work.

15

Q: What did the ‘0’ say to the ‘8’?

A: “Nice belt.”

If you can find me a stereotype in that joke, then you’re looking too hard.

16

Not necessarily. I’ve seen movies where a character might, for example, kick an adversary in the nuts. The adversary doesn’t even blink, and we cut to a shot of the character with a pained look on his own face. The point being that, while it should hurt, it doesn’t, which surprises our character. Generally this will elicit a chuckle or two. Therefore funny, but not in the usual way.

17

A stereotype is merely a fixed pattern, something that can be repeated without change, a definition informed by its original meaning of a molded template used in printing. So the definition is extremely broad at the outset. That said, WhyNot, (and hello and good to meet you, by the way), I think it’s a stretch to call any idea stereotypical just because communicating it depends on a common understanding of the words used to express it. The patterns and commonalities you’re describing are inherent in all communication, comedic or not. If you tell someone “It took hours to get home on the 110,” they’re not going to laugh and they’re not going to anxiously press you for details. They’re going to rely on the stereotype of slow freeway traffic and accept your statement, ideally with a little sympathy.

I’ll agree that comedy depends on surprise: laughter is a frequent reaction to being startled or shocked, and comedy attempts to evoke that physical response (this is one reason why jokes tend to become less funny with repitition, whereas you might listen to the same piece of music often with no less enjoyment). It can do this in a number of ways, one of which is the juxtaposition of ideas or images the receiver has not previously associated. Slapstick, as mentioned by Barqalounger and others, depends on a much more visceral shock-reaction, and relies as well on our charming, innate willingness to laugh at the misfortune of others. To be fair, you could argue that sometimes the humor is enhanced by the victim’s being An Important Person, about whom stereotypes exist implying that these things *don’t happen * to them, but that isn’t always the case. Puns are a good example, I think, of a comedic form almost completely divorced from any stereotype other than depending on the audience knowing the meanings and sound of certain words: “What did the fish say when he bumped into a wall? Dam!” Where’s the stereotype? That fish are clumsy? Another example is irony. Emo Philips tells this joke: “I waited four hours to meet someone at the employment office. The lady who finally saw me said, 'You’ll have to forgive us, but we’re extremely short-handed right now.” There is a stereotype about slow bureaucratic institutions, but the joke doesn’t rely on it. In fact, it would play as well or even better without it. Then there’s more ephemeral comedy like that of Stephen Wright, who like any comedian makes a living by jamming together disparate ideas, but who largely avoids stereotypes by dropping all context: “The other day I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and I almost went back in time.” Then there’s the comedy of frustration, which depends on the audience knowing something (one of) the comics doesn’t. Where’s the stereotype in “Who’s on First?”

I’ve gone on too long, and haven’t even brought up the subject of comedy as dependent on breaking, instead of merely using, stereotypes. Someone else may.

This is fun to talk about. Thanks,** WhyNot**, for bringing it up.

18

That was my first thought. My second thought was “Chico.” :smack: :wink:

Comedy is impossible without things we all understand. Usually it has to be a language everybody understands, or more basically it can be social situations and such. I think calling these “generalizations” is a stretch, and “stereotypes” even more so. They’re norms.

19

I already did, although it was a “blink and you’ll miss it” thing. :wink:

20

Agree with pizzabrat; you seem to be defining ‘stereotype’ as ‘knowledge of some aspect of reality’ Is it possible to understand humour without knowledge of some aspect of reality? Probably not.