Comic Intent II: Getting it
My problem with a number of different theories is that they assume certain elements of intentionality, which I’ve discussed before as assuming the comic&#...
Category: Theories About Laughter
These are theories about how and what happens when we laugh.
Conscious Laughter: Fake Laughs and Guffaws
As I’ve noted, John C. Meyer draws a useful distinction between laughing with and laughing at – when we laugh with people, we draw them closer, when...
Laughing With Victims At Butts
Apologies for reposting, but in trying to organize the site I think it will be more useful to break the theory out from the cases. This enables me to just link ...
John C. Meyer’s Four Functions of Humor
John C. Meyer was interested in how people use humor – what their purpose is. Meyer’s first conception is that people can use humor to unite us or t...
Common Interpretations of Laughter
I have previously discussed John Limon’s theory of absolute stand-up. This theory states that the audience “[makes the comic’s] jokes into jokes, or refuse[s] t...
John Limon on Laughter: Is It Crucial?
I’ve talked a bit about how John Limon defines a genre of “absolute stand-up,” as marked, in part, by authorial intent. Yet he also distinguishes his abs...