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 to the theory in future cases, without making people read the previous case. – N
The “with/at” question
There’s a problem with laughter that I call the “with/at” question. Are we laughing with someone? Or are we laughing at someone? Or both? And who/what is the object of each? I’ve already written about how John C. Meyer characterizes the function of laughing with vs. laughing at: when we laugh with people, we draw them closer, when we laugh at people, we push them away.
Victims & Butts
Joanne Gilbert offers a distinction between the victim of the humor, the person or group who receives negative treatment within the narrative of the joke, and the butt of the humor, the person or group who is at fault and therefore worthy of ridicule.
We should note that this distinction comes from a model of superiority. In a frame of tension release, we could imagine a distinction among stressors and triggers; what is creating the tension and what triggers that release. We would always laugh at stressors in light of the release, but even this relationship can be complicated when one delves deeper.
This would seem to solve the “with/at” problem: we always laugh with the victim, at the perceived butt (to the extent that these are different). This distinction is crucial because, as Samuel Janus states, “The ability to make a person laugh with [a minority group], not at them, is a vital one” (as cited in Horowitz, 7). However, this distinction makes things more complicated as we now have to navigate new potential sources of humor.
Because humor could be found in many different parts of the joke or performance, it is difficult to pin it all down. Further, laughter, particularly when expressed by a group, does not necessarily reveal any of the particularities. For an example, see my discussion of the difference between Silverman and Maher.
Gilbert notes there is no guarantee that even members of preexisting groups – groups that would seem to share the same backgrounds, values, etc. – will laugh for the same reasons. Despite the common interpretations of laughter, Laughter is not a uniform sign that the author’s intent was received. Further, though laughing is a performance, this performance does not have to be unconscious and therefore trivializing; it can be feigned. While there are many reasons for feigning laughter, I will discuss begin with two: fake laughter and guffaws.
References:
Gilbert, Joanne. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 2004.
Horowitz, Susan. Queens of Comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the New Generation of Funny Women. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1997.
Meyer, John C. “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication.” Communication Theory 10.3 (2000): 310-331.
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
