I know I need to have a post by 5 p.m. today, and, because it's Friday, I'm feeling cheerfully disconnected with academia and productivity. This happens to me every Friday, which means I have my own "Case of the Fridays." Of course, I make this self-diagnosis based on an allusion to Office Space, a film that satirizes the drudgery of the 9-5 workplace. Every Monday, the protagonist Peter arrives in a grumpy mood, and his co-workers say in a baby voice, "Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!"
I know I tend to bring in popular culture references too often, but my appropriation of Office Space's dialogue to describe my own mentality has me asking these questions: When does appropriating humorous allusions from popular media no longer become humorous? At what point does it become lame? At what point do people forget that the humor even originated elsewhere since it's so commonplace? I listed some examples below with potential explanations for their waning popularity:
Napoleon Dynamite--Everyone in my generation was saying "Flippin' sweet," "Gosssh," and "Can you bring me some Chapstick," etc. This lasted for MONTHS. Now, the only line I hear is "Gossssh." Did people forget that that line came from Napoleon Dynamite because it was used so often?
Clueless--Alicia Silverstone coined the phrase "As if!" And the phrase became popular among teen/preteen girls for awhile. Being a teen at the time, the phrase suddenly became "uncool" when my mom used it. She said "Uh, as if!" It was at this point--when someone out of the target audience appropriated the words--that it became (to me, at the time) lame.
Austin Powers--"Yeah, baby, yeah" echoed through the halls of my high school. Now, no one says it. Are people getting tired of all the re-runs on basic cable? Or does the phrase still have a place, but, since I'm no longer in that place, I can't hear it?
Wayne's World--"Schwing!" and "We're not worthy!" still make appearances--but rarely, and people are usually intoxicated. Does inebriation help us recall the phrases that aren't necessarily appropriate in daily conversation?
The Big Lebowski--I said "but it really tied the room together" recently. No one got the allusion...but I don't think there were any "dudes" in the room.
Extras--Ricky Gervais seems to contemplate this issue when he coins the phrase "Are you havin' a laugh" and everywhere he goes, people scream "I'm havin' a laugh!" at him...pointing out how annoying the quoting phenomenon can be.
Curb Your Enthusiasm--"Pretty...pretty...pretty good." I use that one all the time. It seems to work even if no one has seen the show.
Seinfeld--"Man hands." This one works well among most people. I think it's because Seinfeld appeals to a variety of generations and the re-runs are on constantly. Some phrases are just timeless.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Internet Scams/Audience Scams
All of the attention on what makes something "funny" has me viewing my usual leisure activites with a more critical eye. On Sunday nights, HBO often has a great line up, and, for the last two weeks, part of the schedule includes Flight of the Conchords--a comedy that weaves the lives of two struggling musicians fom New Zealand (now living in New York) with samples of their music.
Last night's episode involves the duo's lack of finances; in order to pay bills, one sells his guitar. The band manager, often falling for scams, tells the pair not to worry: he has received an email from a kind Nigerian offering to take his money, invest it, and share the profits. (I think we've all had emails like this, and there are numerous articles/warnings/Dateline specials reminding internet users to consider these "spam.") The band, echoing what most audience members also likely think, says it's a scam.
Without relying too heavily on plot summary, I'll get to the point. I realized, after considering what we discussed in class about superiority and Davis's ideas on incongruity, that the "funny" aspect of the manager's internet escapade is twofold: 1) The common theme of someone getting duped by an internet scam makes the audience feel superior. I, while watching, thought, "Ha, I would NEVER do that." 2) The even funnier aspect, however, exists in the results of the internet investment: a few scenes later, the internet investor arrives at the manager's office, and his money (at least temporarily) saves the group financially. Here, the creators/actors of Flight of the Conchords are able to invert expected elements of laughter and superiority, and the audience feels (or at least I felt) duped instead!
For more on Flight of the Conchords: http://www.hbo.com/conchords/episode/index.html
Last night's episode involves the duo's lack of finances; in order to pay bills, one sells his guitar. The band manager, often falling for scams, tells the pair not to worry: he has received an email from a kind Nigerian offering to take his money, invest it, and share the profits. (I think we've all had emails like this, and there are numerous articles/warnings/Dateline specials reminding internet users to consider these "spam.") The band, echoing what most audience members also likely think, says it's a scam.
Without relying too heavily on plot summary, I'll get to the point. I realized, after considering what we discussed in class about superiority and Davis's ideas on incongruity, that the "funny" aspect of the manager's internet escapade is twofold: 1) The common theme of someone getting duped by an internet scam makes the audience feel superior. I, while watching, thought, "Ha, I would NEVER do that." 2) The even funnier aspect, however, exists in the results of the internet investment: a few scenes later, the internet investor arrives at the manager's office, and his money (at least temporarily) saves the group financially. Here, the creators/actors of Flight of the Conchords are able to invert expected elements of laughter and superiority, and the audience feels (or at least I felt) duped instead!
For more on Flight of the Conchords: http://www.hbo.com/conchords/episode/index.html
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Silence, Organization, and _Modern Times_
Last semester in Dr. Walsh's course on oral and literate cultures, we spent a great deal of time discussing Walter J. Ong's assertion in Orality and Literacy that as cultures gain literacy, the emphasis on textual organization (via labeling, indexes, alphabetizing, etc.) becomes much more visual--and much more spatially structured--than in texts that come from primarily oral cultures, which rely heavily on mnemonic devices such as rhyming.
The silent film Modern Times, as its name reflects, represents a literate American culture (we see this through writing on Chaplin's cuff and through his girlfriend's "wanted" sign, for example) and a culture that is highly reliant on the organization of workers and machines for function; this pervasive organization seems to be part of the film's ironic humor.
What makes this film "funny," then, is its use of both silence, satire, and irony (often all at once)to point out inherent contradictions in "modern" American culture. Specifically, the notion of a "silent" film, wherein silence is interrupted only rarely for characters' moments of stomach growling and music vocals, appears to show how such a tightened world--via social, literary, and mechanical hyper-organization--dehumanizes and, by extension, silences its participants' ability to speak for themselves. However, audiences also participate in this struggle; they must rely only on visual cues such as scene labels and characters' physically exaggerated movements to understand the film's plot since vocal dialogue is absent. The film also points out how these visual cues sometimes fail: for example, as Chaplin walks among a crowd carrying signs reading "unidad" ("unity" in Spanish) and "unite," the crowd immediately splits up and de-unifies.
I should point out, as a concluding thought, that although I appreciate the irony and social commentary of this film, I wasn't particularly amused by it. It's almost as if, as the silent film has lost popularity, some viewers in my generation--who are used to dialogue and enhanced soundtracks when watching movies--have become less literate (at least in the Ongian sense) when engaging with this type of media. I expect, when playing a film, to hear the joke; visual slapstick and labels can enhance it, but I dislike relying too heavily on just one sense when watching (or listening to) a movie.
The silent film Modern Times, as its name reflects, represents a literate American culture (we see this through writing on Chaplin's cuff and through his girlfriend's "wanted" sign, for example) and a culture that is highly reliant on the organization of workers and machines for function; this pervasive organization seems to be part of the film's ironic humor.
What makes this film "funny," then, is its use of both silence, satire, and irony (often all at once)to point out inherent contradictions in "modern" American culture. Specifically, the notion of a "silent" film, wherein silence is interrupted only rarely for characters' moments of stomach growling and music vocals, appears to show how such a tightened world--via social, literary, and mechanical hyper-organization--dehumanizes and, by extension, silences its participants' ability to speak for themselves. However, audiences also participate in this struggle; they must rely only on visual cues such as scene labels and characters' physically exaggerated movements to understand the film's plot since vocal dialogue is absent. The film also points out how these visual cues sometimes fail: for example, as Chaplin walks among a crowd carrying signs reading "unidad" ("unity" in Spanish) and "unite," the crowd immediately splits up and de-unifies.
I should point out, as a concluding thought, that although I appreciate the irony and social commentary of this film, I wasn't particularly amused by it. It's almost as if, as the silent film has lost popularity, some viewers in my generation--who are used to dialogue and enhanced soundtracks when watching movies--have become less literate (at least in the Ongian sense) when engaging with this type of media. I expect, when playing a film, to hear the joke; visual slapstick and labels can enhance it, but I dislike relying too heavily on just one sense when watching (or listening to) a movie.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Theories of Laughter...and Jimmy Buffett
While reading the first assignment, "Traditional Theories of Laughter and Humor," Jimmy Buffett's "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" kept echoing in the back of my head--especially while perusing Freud and Bergson's theories of humor. Ironically, this particular song isn't really funny, which is unusual for the singer-songwriter; Buffett often contemplates issues of sexuality and general debauchery under clever and humorous island metaphors (i.e., "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Fins") or in more blatant narrative ballads (i.e., "Why Don't We Get Drunk" and "Pencil Thin Mustache"). At any rate, the reason "Changes in Latitudes" sticks out in the context of our readings is because of its final chorus line: "If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane" (12).
By linking laughter and mental function, Buffett reminds listeners to take a break from "all of our running and all of our cunning" (13), and this reminder coalesces with Freud's assertion that a humorous attitude is "recognizing and smiling at the triviality of the interests and sufferings which seem...so big" (114). Freud also points out that this type of attitude often exists when the person (or the superego of the person) with this humorous attitude is taking on the role of a father-like superior--almost as if this person (or superego) has wisdom to offer (114.). This father-son role is relevant when examining "Changes in Latitudes," as Buffett's narrator (or, if we consider him to be singing to an audience at a concert, Buffett himself) relays his experiences under "I" first. In fact, the opening verse begins, "I took off for a weekend" and continues with "I didn't ponder" and "I was hungry" (1-6). The pattern of developing an "I" centered verse and then following with a "we" centered chorus persists throughout the song: the narrator's personal struggles become a collective reason to laugh, at least in its "value of demonstration" (Freud 116) for listeners or audience members.
Yet this notion of collectively in "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" extends beyond Freud's ego-superego jargon when applying it to Bergson's "Essay on the Meaning of the Comic," where Bergson suggests that "the art of the comic poet consists in making us so well acquainted with the particular vice, in introducing us, the spectators...that in the end we..get hold of some of the strings...with which he...is playing, and actually work them ourselves" (123). In fact, Bergson's main thesis seems to be that laughter is rooted in social commonality, a sense of shared humanity (121-3), that, by extension, is absurd. What makes Buffett's song special in this context is its wide geographic appeal to "all of the faces and all of the places" (3) and the way in which the final line "if we couldn't laugh we would all go insane" also becomes universally applicable. Indeed, whereas Bergson claims the comic subtly hands over the "strings," here Buffett's narrator goes beyond that traditional role--instead telling everyone how to obtain these metaphorical strings of comedy and empowering audiences to become comics themselves.
Full lyrics can be obtained here: http://www.buffettworld.com/song-lyrics/changes/
By linking laughter and mental function, Buffett reminds listeners to take a break from "all of our running and all of our cunning" (13), and this reminder coalesces with Freud's assertion that a humorous attitude is "recognizing and smiling at the triviality of the interests and sufferings which seem...so big" (114). Freud also points out that this type of attitude often exists when the person (or the superego of the person) with this humorous attitude is taking on the role of a father-like superior--almost as if this person (or superego) has wisdom to offer (114.). This father-son role is relevant when examining "Changes in Latitudes," as Buffett's narrator (or, if we consider him to be singing to an audience at a concert, Buffett himself) relays his experiences under "I" first. In fact, the opening verse begins, "I took off for a weekend" and continues with "I didn't ponder" and "I was hungry" (1-6). The pattern of developing an "I" centered verse and then following with a "we" centered chorus persists throughout the song: the narrator's personal struggles become a collective reason to laugh, at least in its "value of demonstration" (Freud 116) for listeners or audience members.
Yet this notion of collectively in "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" extends beyond Freud's ego-superego jargon when applying it to Bergson's "Essay on the Meaning of the Comic," where Bergson suggests that "the art of the comic poet consists in making us so well acquainted with the particular vice, in introducing us, the spectators...that in the end we..get hold of some of the strings...with which he...is playing, and actually work them ourselves" (123). In fact, Bergson's main thesis seems to be that laughter is rooted in social commonality, a sense of shared humanity (121-3), that, by extension, is absurd. What makes Buffett's song special in this context is its wide geographic appeal to "all of the faces and all of the places" (3) and the way in which the final line "if we couldn't laugh we would all go insane" also becomes universally applicable. Indeed, whereas Bergson claims the comic subtly hands over the "strings," here Buffett's narrator goes beyond that traditional role--instead telling everyone how to obtain these metaphorical strings of comedy and empowering audiences to become comics themselves.
Full lyrics can be obtained here: http://www.buffettworld.com/song-lyrics/changes/
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