Why Can't you be normal looking?

Why Can’t You Be Normal Looking?

Anchorman. Zoolander. Two and a Half Men. Seinfeld. The Simpsons. King of Queens. Entourage. Wedding Crashers. Old School. Billy Madison. If anyone were to catch me watching the television, at any given point in time, they would most likely find me watching one of these shows or movies. Each of these comedies depict a humorous way that these characters live their everyday lives which happens to appeal to me. I never thought to think of why I found these kinds of comedies funny until I took this Rhetoric of Humor and Satire class. As class went on, I slowly began to realize which type of humor causes me to laugh on a consistent basis. Of the three mains theories, Superiority Theory, Incongruity Theory and Release Theory, I think the most evident reason why something amuses me is the Superiority theory. I realized I found comedians like Mitch Hedberg or Dave Chappelle amusing because I was laughing more at them than with them. I think this relates to Professor Katz’s point that generally most comedians are less than average looking.
The other day I was watching Mitch Hedberg after having watched and discussed him in class, and I strongly believe that he was a classic example of how a member of the audience could relate to the Superiority Theory. Hedberg was much less than the average looking with his long hair and grungy look. However his approach to telling his jokes the more interesting part. He is extremely nervous when on stage, he has this sort of stutter that effects the delivery of his speech, along with the fact that he struggles making eye contact with the audience. I find Hedberg hilarious because of the fact that he jokes about simple every day struggles. He is able to look at these daily routines in a third person, and find the humor within something so simple. He once made a joke after watching a commercial for a tool to water your hard-to-reach plants, but “who the fuck would want to make their plants hard to reach?” When watching these infomercials, we always hear the generic payment process. This tool was available for four easy payments of $19.95, and we hear this saying in so many infomercials but do not think much of it. Of course Hedberg would much rather make joke about this. He mocked the infomercial saying, “I rather have three easy payments and one complicated payment.” After watching these videos in class, it caused me to want to watch them more often on my own in my free time as well.
I have noticed that many of the humorous shows and movies that I find appealing happen to follow many of the comedic rules we discussed in class. In all of these shows and movies, there is a great deal of embarrassment or physical harm. All the humor from my favorite movies of all time like Anchorman and Billy Madison is due to the pure embarrassment presented by each character. In Anchorman, all of the humor relates to the character of Ron Burgandy, played by Will Ferrell, and his stupidity and common sense. Throughout the movie, Ron’s dog, Baxter, was literally his best friend. He would dress his dog up in the same pajamas as he wore at night while having the dog wear a similar retainer. Ron convinced himself that he was able to speak with Baxter. After nights out on the town he would go home and have a conversation with his dog just to relive the night. One of my favorite lines and one of my most quoted lines from the movie when Ron came home from a date and Ron began talking with the dog. The dog barked at Ron and Ron interpreted it as “you ate the whole wheel of cheese?!?!? I’m not even mad…that’s just amazing”. It appears to be funny when you see the miniscule dog in the movie and you are able to picture the dog attempting to eat the wheel of cheese. The movie goes downhill for Ron when he throws a burrito out of his car window and accidentally hits a motorcyclist. Once both vehicles come to a stop, the motorcyclist grabs the dog out of his car and dropkicks Baxter off the Coranado Bridge. Many of these movies deal with extreme absurdity as well.
My other favorite movie of all time is Billy Madison. Billy, played by Adam Sandler, is a son of a multi-millionaire hotel owner. Everything in life came too easy to Billy. He was given anything and everything he wanted from his father. Billy barely made it through elementary and high school because he never thought he would need to learn anything with the kind of money he had. Billy did nothing with his life after high school. He and a few of his friends would live in his guest-house drinking and partying all day and all night long. The boys would do absurd things like go around lighting bags of human disposal on fire, ringing the door bell and watching from a distance. The opening scene from the movie was one of my favorite parts because it opens up with Billy lying in a floating pool toy as he realizes that he has not put sun screen on while in the sun. Getting distracted he thought we would make a smiley face by putting sunscreen on his nipples for eyes and creating a smile under his belly button for the mouth. Once he finished his artwork he said “smiley” in a hysterical manner that could only be understood if seen the movie. His foolish idiotic actions are so ludicrous one can only laugh hysterically.
Humor is a lot more complicated that I thought before I took this class. I never thought it would be as hard as it is to talk about, describe, or explain humor. I have found that I agree with the Superiority Theory the most. This is due to the fact that in the shows and movies that I watch, I am usually laughing at the actor or speaker for his or her embarrassment or absurdity. This is the kind of humor I have found that I am most attracted to throughout taking this course.