In light of our recent spring
break, I experienced many excessive laughter scenarios. During my break my,
seven friends and I went to Crested Butte, Colorado for seven days. We
experienced many times of laughter and happiness both while in our house and on
the ski slopes.
For my second laughter situation I
am going to focus on a certain conversation with all of my friends when we were
talking about the hypothetical situation of a fight. A sticky situation of
fight for a male is something that is not only undesirable but can also be
nerve wracking especially when the opponent is bigger than yourself. We spoke
about what we do if we were to come in contact with someone who is
substantially bigger. At first we talked about the generic kicking and
punching, but then we moved to more comical moves such as a swift kick to the
happy place or a head butt.
As we walk down the main public
road to our house, we continue on with the same conversation. Then all of a
sudden one of the bigger guys of group, Addison, standing at 6’ 5” and weighing
around three hundred pounds steps on some ice and slips. He lands straight on
his back with his feet all the way up in the air. This was one of the funniest
moments for me because that is probably the fastest I have seen him move in
awhile. Lucky for us, we got the whole thing on tape.
The fact that we got the whole fall
on tape makes the fall just that more memorable because now we can visit it whenever
we wish. But this situation also highlights an example of the superiority
theory of comedy; as we were specifically
laughing at Addison because it was not happening to us. As we have studied,
context also means a lot to comedy. In this situation, it was the most
unexpected things that could have happened. What started out as a conversation
surrounding fighting switched to complete laughter. The fact that he was so
big, I believe, also had something to do with why it was so funny. In American
culture, stereotypically, we seem to think that if the person is bigger, it may
come off more funny. When looking at the global YouTube searches, “Fat Fails”
receives almost twice the searches than that of regular “Fail” videos. It begs
the question, why are we attracted to comedy with larger people incorporated in
the joke? I believe this can also be an important aspect of the superiority
theory. With most people surrounding me at TCU not being overweight, we seem to
be laughing because we may not be as large as that specific person, which may
make it more comical for us to watch. Overall, this situation that occurred on
spring break is one that will forever be embedded in my memory, but it also offers
insight into the superiority theory and what makes us truly burst out in
laughter.
First of all, this kinda sounds like an "America's Funniest Home Videos" video. I think we are all guilty of laughing at times like this, and that's why there are so many fail videos on YouTube that exhibit people falling in various situations. I too have noticed that larger people seem to attract even more attention when they fall. It personally makes me feel terrible when I laugh at a person falling, but it makes me feel even worse when I laugh at a larger person falling, as I don't want to come off as laughing at that person because of their size in any regard. Regardless, it is a good observation to notice that larger people gain more attention for the same unfortunate circumstance. It is as though the superiority theory is acting twice as much due to the circumstance and the person's physical condition.
ReplyDeleteI just posted my second uncontrollable laughter blog, which was about a situation exactly like your spring break experience. My cousin slipped on the freshly waxed floors of his room, then repeated it again for me to catch on tape. Instead of awkwardly acting out the situation the second time, he full-on busted it! I still have the video and enjoy it maybe a little too much!
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