This is my project: What is comedy? The philosophy of funny, if you will.
Like many ideas of mine, it first came to me in the dead of night, during one of my usual bouts with insomnia. Curiously, one of the very first parts of it to leap to mind was the title. In my attempt to avoid waking my girlfriend I got up quietly and penned a note. This reads:
Comedy - a Philosophical Treatise
What is? Who?
How? Ref? Phys?
Intention - reverse
Failure - Success
The next day I, unusually, still felt very inspired by the idea, and decided to get a notebook to write something more coherent. As we were vacationing in Portugal it took me a while, but I finally got to put some more words down on paper. I'll rewrite them here:
What is comedy? What does it mean that a person has a sense of humour? What are the criteria determining what is funny? Is it merely a question of aesthetics - i.e. funny lies purely in the mind of the beholder? Or is it, perhaps more importantly, a social phenomenon - a way of avoiding conflict while addressing controversial issues/taboos?
Of course, it's both; comedy is obviously a social phenomenon, but equally obvious is the individual nature of the sense of humour. Most of the time we laugh at the same things, indeed even more so, in the company of others. We find ourselves heartily enjoying jokes told in a social setting, laughing uproariously, when the exact same joke wouldn't even provoke a slight smile if one were to hear it alone, listening to the radio. But the opposite is also possible: jokes that we might enjoy in a private context, with close friends, may very well prove utterly useless in different company.
We feel, possibly rightly, that a failed attempt at comedy is one of the most embarrasssing mistakes one can make. Almost as bad is laughing at someone who is not trying to be funny. This is because comedy is a two-way street - both parties involved, joker and audience, are active participants in the social game, and failure to act appropriately in a given situation will prove disastrous for anyone.
This is, of course, the case when comedy is intentional, i.e. an agent, joker, is trying to be funny. What then happens when comedy is unintentional; when someone (something) is perceived as funny without actually trying to be, or indeed isn't aware of the comedic situation at all? Some would protest that this sort of situation isn't comedic at all, or at least that it shouldn't be; that people who find humour in unintentional sources are at best misguided, and at worst cynical, misanthropic sociopaths.
Right, that's all I have for now. Obviously, it needs more. I'll be back.
