When this idea about writing my preferred type of comedy, I had a
strong opener that was guaranteed to keep your reading until the end, but when
I came to sit down and write it, I realised that it wasn’t the greatest line to
start off an article with because I knew that I would contradict myself, or
indeed ignore the meaning completely as I continued to write. The goes as
follows: A comedy film that makes me laugh is a good comedy film. That’s not
necessarily the case because you may be watching a comedy film that you don’t
like and there may be one or two jokes within it that made you laugh. Just
because you laughed at those jokes doesn’t make the film in its entirety, good.
Speaking from a writer’s perspective, writing comedy can be the
hardest thing to write about because you have to think of ways where you have
to set up the scene that people can relate to, then take it in a completely
unexpected direction. Taking a scene and turning it on its head is usually
where you get the most laughs as it isn’t what people generally predict is
going to happen. Our brains are wired to automatically think ahead so that we
can continue the conversation on when talking to people, and when someone says
something that your brain hadn’t predicted, it processes that unpredictability
the only way it knows how and that’s through laughter. The same thing happens
when we’re watching a film. Once we’ve been hooked, our brains think ahead, and
when something happens on screen that we simply weren’t expecting, we laugh to
process that sudden randomness.
But we all have our preferred type of comedy. Some laugh at certain
jokes when some don’t, and vice versa. I remember sitting at home, laughing my
head off at something that was genuinely very funny, and the next day when I
showed it to my friend, he didn’t laugh at it. Back then, I didn’t understand
how comedy worked and so I was confused at why he wasn’t rolling around the
floor, clutching his ribcage as I was the night before. Now I have a bit more
of an understanding of how comedy works and isn’t confused anymore when my
friend or anyone else for that matter doesn’t laugh at the same things I do. It’s
how our brains are wired, and there is that possibility that their brains could
have predicted what was going to happen making the comedy aspect of it moot.
Comedy is much more complicated than that. Can you remember
laughing at something that you did predict? I remember sitting down and
watching a film and during a particular scene, during a conversation the two
main characters were having, I predicted what the other person was going to
say, and when he said it, I laughed at how I had predicted it. In a way, I
laughed because I was expecting it not to happen, and when it did, it fell into
the category of what I didn’t predict and the usual procedure of processing that
sudden changeability happened, and I laughed. I hope that makes sense.
Going back to what I previously said about a good comedy that
makes you laugh is a good comedy film not always been the case, a good example
of this is when I was watching the film, Minions. I know some of you likes that
movie and I can hear you saying, ‘but how can you not like that movie? It has
everything a comedy film needs to be funny,’ and I’m not saying it doesn’t, but
for me, I didn’t find it that funny. To be honest, and I know that some of you
may not like it, but I didn’t find it a great film overall, but I did find
myself laughing at certain parts of the film because they caught me off guard.
They did and said what my brain had predicted, therefore I laughed. After the
film had finished, I was told that if I didn’t like it, then why did I laugh?
Well, see above.
Then we move on to those types of comedy films that don’t make
people laugh at all. Even though most of the jokes were not what people were
expecting at all, they were unfortunately too far in the other direction that
we process that not by laughing, but by being confused instead, and, I don’t
know about you, but if there are too many of those, they can ruin the movie for
me. A couple of films that comes to mind when I’m talking about this are Disaster
Movie and Epic Movie. A common phrase that has been used by many of the user
submitted reviews on IMDB is stating that Disaster Movie is indeed a disaster.
Both films fall into the category that only three films have fallen into, and
that is ‘films that I have not been able to finish.’ The third movie is the
Butterfly Effect 2 and the reason behind why I couldn’t finish it is because it
just got too boring because nothing happens to keep me interested, but that’s a
review for another day. The point that I’m trying to make here, is that there
is a fine line between making people laugh and making people confused, and for
me, those two films makes me confused.
It’s funny because it’s true. Most stand-up comedians talk about how
absurd reality is on a day to day bases. They highlight the obvious, and we laugh
at that because we know it to be true and we can be guilty of committing that
act every day. My favourite comedian is Lee Evans, who is famous for his very
energetic routines. One of my favourite jokes by him is:
‘We park the car in the carpark;
it’s got a sign in the carpark: Car thieves operate in this area. Where else
will they operate? It’s a carpark. All the times I’ve been driving through the
countryside, seeing a couple of car thieves in a field saying, ‘you said they’ll
be cars’.’
For me, it’s funny because it’s obvious (and in a way, true). The
sign is there to warn you of the threat of car thieves and to remind you that
not to leave any belongings in the car and make sure all the doors a lock. It’s
as innocent as that, but this joke takes that innocence and pulls it apart
until all of the layers are exposed, and it’s seeing all of those layers, your
brain processes that the only way it knows how and that is through laughter.
But sometimes, some comedians accidentally steps over the line.
They say a joke that is too true and people’s brains doesn’t vent that unpredictability
via laughter, but through shock instead. Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle are two
popular names within the comedy circuit that have made the audience disapprove
of what they have said, and just sat there in silence not know how to react
properly. Sometimes, that innocence isn’t just dived into, but is completely
forgotten altogether. And that brings me to a relatable point about throwing
away the innocence. South Park does everything it possibly can to offend
people. They stop at nothing and doesn’t apologise for it. And yet it is widely
accepted among people and is classed as funny. I believe that is because we are
expecting it to be offensive. We are shocked by some of the things that
comedians say because we genuinely aren’t expecting to say that, but with South
Park, we knew right from the very beginning exactly what is was it wanted to say
and as well as that, it sometimes goes so far over the line, that it doesn’t
just become too true, but it becomes just plain ridiculously offensive that it circumnavigates
the entire spectrum of comedy until it falls back into just plain funny again.
Laurel and Hardy are considered as one of the many kings of slapstick
comedy. But why do we enjoy watching people get hit in the face with a piano or
poked in the eye by another character? Well, because we relish the fact that we
are not in that position. Because we’re not the ones being hit in the face with
a piano and poked in the eye, it becomes funny. Also, because we know that they
aren’t actually getting hurt. If we knew that they were actually getting hurt,
then it wouldn’t become funny.
There are so many different styles of comedy that it is hard to
talk about them all in one article, but I hope that I have covered enough to
get what I want to say out there.
Now, to round off the article, I’m going to talk about my preferred
type of comedy. Well, before I understood more about how comedy works, it used
to be anything that made me laugh, but as I dived into the mechanism that makes
up everything comedy, I realised that I actually laugh more at the subtle
jokes. Those jokes that are set up, but just happen. An example of this is in the
film, The Man From UNCLE. At the beginning of the film, the main character
meets with this woman to have a conversation about her dad. When doing so, he
opens his briefcase, realise that he opened it upside down, closes it, turns it
the right way up and then opens it again to pull out the picture of her dad. It
didn’t need to be set up in anyway. There was no dialogue that helped the joke
grow stronger, it was subtle enough to be funny in its own right.
I hope that I have said enough in this article to help you see
what comedy is all about. Again, I really would like to sit down and talk about
every type of comedy out there, but there just simply isn’t the time and you
would get bored with a never-ending article. In conclusion, we like a laugh
because we know it’s true, and we laugh because we like to know that it is true,
and simply because we just weren’t expecting what happened.
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns
My book, Sector 22: Zoey, is now available on Amazon, eBay, and
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