Carnival I: Simple Inversion
It’s fairly common, when talking about humor, to use the word carnivalesque (see for instance Fiske; Gilbert; Miller). The concept was most famously used...
Tag: Tension Release
Iliza Shlesinger and Jokes About Vaginas
Controversy I’m a fan of Iliza Shlesinger; seen her live, watched all her specials. So when, on Monday (6/12/2017), Deadline’s Matt Grobar posted an...
Five Popular Ideas About Audiences
Betsy Borns begins her book, Comic Lives, with a chapter on audience, yet while the motive for audience attendance is clear (tension release, in her opinion), w...
Dick Jokes Vs. Sexual Jokes
Betsy Borns differentiates the dick joke from sexual jokes as based on “what makes the joke funny: if people laugh because the word ‘fuck’ is used, that’s a dic...
Relief Theory
Sometimes called the “Tension Release Theory,” this is Freud’s (and others’) view that humor is derived from a release of pent up energy. More about the theory:...