Anthony Jeselnik
For his lead blog post, Walker talked about a comedian named Anthony Jeselnik as an example of dark humor. It is true that many people find dark humor to be unpleasant, usually due to the heavy subject matter, and this clip of some of Anthony Jeselnik's jokes are a great example why.
Especially for someone who does not really watch dark humor, laughs in this clip come from incongruity theory. Because the subjects such as abortion or domestic violence are usually taboo and not joked about, it is unexpected to hear comedy centered around them.
I agree that the jokes are only landing because of the cocky "whatever" attitude that Jeselnik uses. When a comedian decides to tell a joke that they know is going to upset people, its probably true that they need the cocky attitude to both tell the unsure audience members its okay to laugh, and also to become less of an easy target for backlash from critics.
Superiority theory is used heavily with the confident attitude. Many of his jokes arise from him believing he knows better than the people that are the butts of his joke. For example, when he is talking about his brother's reaction to the set, he uses a tone that conveys "listen to how dumb my brother is" which leads to him actually saying that his brother is an idiot. (this can also be incongruity because most comedians usually do not outright insult close family members, leaving any insult to the underline of the joke).
Relief theory can be used to argue that dark humor is appealing because of its use of off-limits material. Relief theory says laughter comes from release of tension after defeating the sensor, and yes, these jokes are about things that people usually are not casually chatty about.
All in all, I will say that I did not find this all that funny, but it is still a great example of what dark humor is and does.
Especially for someone who does not really watch dark humor, laughs in this clip come from incongruity theory. Because the subjects such as abortion or domestic violence are usually taboo and not joked about, it is unexpected to hear comedy centered around them.
I agree that the jokes are only landing because of the cocky "whatever" attitude that Jeselnik uses. When a comedian decides to tell a joke that they know is going to upset people, its probably true that they need the cocky attitude to both tell the unsure audience members its okay to laugh, and also to become less of an easy target for backlash from critics.
Superiority theory is used heavily with the confident attitude. Many of his jokes arise from him believing he knows better than the people that are the butts of his joke. For example, when he is talking about his brother's reaction to the set, he uses a tone that conveys "listen to how dumb my brother is" which leads to him actually saying that his brother is an idiot. (this can also be incongruity because most comedians usually do not outright insult close family members, leaving any insult to the underline of the joke).
Relief theory can be used to argue that dark humor is appealing because of its use of off-limits material. Relief theory says laughter comes from release of tension after defeating the sensor, and yes, these jokes are about things that people usually are not casually chatty about.
All in all, I will say that I did not find this all that funny, but it is still a great example of what dark humor is and does.
I definitely agree that Jeselnik's attitude and delivery of his jokes makes a huge difference in the way in which they are perceived. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that relief theory is present in this clip. There is more tensions involved in controversial topics and relief theory states that laughter results from released tensions.
ReplyDelete