Don’t Let Anyone Know You’re Working at Being Funny

Don’t Let Anyone Know You’re Working at Being Funny

            Any answer to the question, what makes someone funny?, can never hope of approaching a glimmer of being comprehensive or objective.  The criteria for humor seems to be quiet esoteric and subjective.  At best we can speak about humor in vague generalities that often are observed to be true, for instance, very attractive people are rarely critically thought of as being funny.  Another generality observed to be true is that people that are seen as trying really hard are not funny. Simply put, one cannot be seen as trying to be funny.  It must been seen as being effortless.  We want our comedy to be natural, to be a natural evolution derived from life, as it is in conversation.  Every person is funny to varying degrees.  Humor is part of daily life.  People living their daily lives are funny.  They may not be telling jokes, but they are funny, whether through incidental awkwardness, comments during conversation, momentary stupidity, etc., people are organically funny.  We like our comedians to be like people in conversations, to be spontaneously funny.  Even though a great deal of work goes into comedians routines on stage, they can’t seem to be trying to too hard.  Comedy is almost like a timeless characteristic that we appreciate aesthetically, like beauty.  We admire natural beauty more than someone who works out a lot and has plastic surgery, we appreciate natural beauty more, like a higher art form.  Which is why we don’t like our comedians to be seen as working hard, they have to appear to organically think of something and say it. 

People who are funny during conversations comment on the topics and points of the conversation organically, as they come up.  Their funny comments or jokes derivative from the central points or story line of the conversation, their comments are not the central story line.  Their jokes arise organically from the story line, which also holds true in standup comedy.  A standup comic will tell a story and their jokes will originate from the story.  If one takes away the central story of a bit, then the comedians jokes are devoid of meaning and thus are not funny.  Again, their jokes require a story line as in conversations.  Even when a comedian is making a joke about observations in life, a story line is still central since the course of daily life is the central story line.  Jokes are viewed as secondary to the story line, as arising organically from the storyline.  This is an important distinction because when something arises organically it is viewed as requiring little work in contrast to a storyline created to connect different jokes together, which would have taken a great deal of work. 

This same premise holds up in movies as well.  A common theme that most funny movies have is a strong story line of which jokes are derived.  The jokes are secondary to the story line and the best comedies make the jokes seem to arise organically from the story line.  The comedians are viewed as making the events funny, not deliberately constructing events to fit jokes, which happens very skillfully in the best comedies.  Comedians are viewed as reacting to external stimuli and thus not doing really hard work, especially not the really hard work of contriving the situation to fit their jokes.  One can see this premise in the movie ‘Scary Movie.’  ‘Scary Movie’ employed a central story line in which many jokes were derived.  While many of the jokes where cliché references to other movies, at its core, there was a central story that could have stood alone on its own, albeit with many teen movie references ingrained.  The subsequent movies that followed ‘Scary Movie’ that sought to replicate its success missed the primary feature of ‘Scary Movie,’ a central standalone story.  The story lines in these movies were constructed as secondary instruments to the jokes.  Each story line could not stand on its own.  These movies were scene as trying too hard to be funny instead of letting jokes organically originate from the plot.  If examines every universally funny movie, they will find a standalone storyline from which the movies jokes radiate from but do not take precedence over. 

An interesting point in this entire analysis is the willing suspension of disbelief perpetrated by audiences of comedy.  They know the comedian has written and practiced their routine, and most often has done that particular routine to other crowds before, but all that seems to matter is the appearance of spontaneity.  Crowds are willing to overlook strict objective logic, if the comedian plays along with the format they want to hear and see. 

I’m not sure exactly where this deconstruction is going or if it even has a point.  All I have arrived at and think is that one cannot be seen as trying to be funny.  Once an audience thinks you’re trying too hard, you will not be funny.  Don’t be seen as trying to be funny.