Three Things to Remember from Morreall's "Comic Relief"

In Comic Relief, Morreall discusses the theory of humor and attempts to explain and analyze humor’s presence in society. After reading the book, three take-home messages I gathered were: 

1. Humor disengages.

A continuous theme throughout Comic Relief is that humor is disengaging. Morreall offers explanations to how humor is disengaging on different levels. Firstly, Morreall suggests that humor disengages us from “conceptual and practical concerns.” (ch.3) This is based on the idea that humor is built upon incongruous ideas and cognitive shifts. Basically, humor creates a mental jolt, disengaging us from our mental concepts. Furthermore, he suggests that a story can be humorous over the passage of time, from a distance or if one has no role in the situations; in other words, a comic situation is humorous if we is disengaged from the situation.

Additionally, in the discussion of Tragedy vs. Comedy, Morreall suggests that comedy disengages one from emotion, as it “fosters a non-emotional, playful attitude.” (ch. 4)  It disengages us from now “negative emotions” such as stress and anger, allowing us to rationally analyze a situation. Moreover, as part of the discussion of the Negative Ethics of Humor, one of the claims was that humor is irresponsible. In this, it was argued that humor disengages us from our responsibilities because it can distract us from the things happening around them. And it can divert us from taking appropriate action when given a task of concern. Also, as humor results in laughter, it can be physically disengaging due to laughter's physiological effects on the body. These are just a few examples showing how Morreall supports his argument that humor is disengaging. Throughout the rest of the book, he explains the positive and negative effects of humor based on this ongoing theme.

2. Humor is play and laughter is its play signal.

Laughter is a sign of security. This is in the context of his discussion of the evolution of humor. He suggests that play is a disengaging activity, occurring in the “absence of urgent physiological needs.” (ch. 2) In this, he claims that humor is a form a play and that laughter is a result of humor. It evolved as a “false alarm” signal, signifying safety and security. It signals others of this, causing them to laugh too, contributing to laughter’s contagiousness. This is probably why humor is more enjoyable when in groups, rather than when alone. As humor is a mode of play, it suggests that it occurs when danger is not around, furthermore giving that overall sense of security. It sends the message “We’re safe. We can enjoy this.” (ch. 2) I feel that this is why when we see a group of people laughing, it can be welcoming. However, laughter can be unwelcoming as well, when it is associated with the negative effects of humor as noted in Chapter 5.

3. Humor is not emotion. 

One argument that Morreall makes is that, though anciently believed to be an emotion, humor is not an emotion and is actually a mode of amusement. He describes amusement to be the “playful enjoyment of cognitive shift that naturally leads to laughter” (ch. 4.) He suggests that humor is not an emotion because it does not have all of the following four qualities that emotions have:

1. Beliefs and desires cause

2. physiological changes, which together motivate

3. adaptive actions. The person’s

4. sensations of those physiological changes are the “feelings” in emotions. (ch.2)

Here, Morreall suggests that emotions are an adaptive trait. Contrarily, humor may inhibit adaptive responses since it causes laughter, which may physically prevent us from taking adaptive action. Moreover, emotions tend to engage us in situations like how fear can put us in a “flight-or-fight” mode, whereas amusement disengages us from situations.

These are three ideas in Comic Relief that I wanted to highlight because they were ideas that I had never thought about before. They gave me something to ponder upon and brought to light different aspects of humor that showed me that humor isn’t as simple as I thought it was to be.

Bad Day? Laugh it off! (Response to The 50 Funniest American Writers, Twain, 3-5; O. Henry, 11-26; Loos, 49-51; Mencken, 56-62; Barry, 323-334)

Yesterday was just one of those days when things were just not going for me. It started first thing in the morning. In my first class, I got a pop quiz for which I did not study the correct material. I didn’t feel so good about it. And usually, on one of those days, a cup of coffee would be the perfect fix to make my day better. So, even though I thought I might be late for work, I thought it would be worth the five minutes to get myself a cup of coffee. Bad idea. The minute I got my coffee, I walked right into a chair but everything was still fine because nothing spilled. I took a sip and was content. Then, with just two minutes until my shift, I power-walked to my bike. It was only then when I actually spilled my coffee, all over my bike. I didn’t have time to clean it up so I just hopped on and cycled quickly to work. However, I had salvaged half the cup so I drank it up and felt a little better but I was still irritated at how things were just not going my way. I just wanted the day to be over, and it was only noon.

It didn’t help that I had a lot of homework to do. So, I decided to just start with my Lit & Civ 2 reading of “The 50 Funniest American Writers according to Andy Borowitz.” I opened the book and read the first few passages. Some of them amused me, but one that actually got me giggling was Dave Barry’s “Tips for Women: How to Have a Relationship with a Guy.” And just for those few minutes, I forgot about all those little things that happened earlier, my pop quiz, my coffee spilling, racing to work. After the reading, I felt better, less irritated and my day started to turn around. I thought about Morreall’s ideas from Comic Relief, the positive effects of humor and disengagement due to humor. Perhaps, the amusement I got from the amusement I got from the reading disengaged me from all my negative emotions and allowed me to think more rationally. I decided that I could either sulk about how my day was going or I could just laugh about it and move on. I went with the latter because I realized the former would just be silly. 

Now, how did a few words on a few pages amuse me? Barry's piece was about a couple between a woman, Elaine, and a man, Roger. He wrote from both perspectives, describing what was going on in Elaine’s mind, as opposed to what was going on in Roger’s mind. Their thoughts completely contrasted, as Elaine was worried, trying to interpret Roger’s silent response. Meanwhile he was simply thinking about his overdue oil change. I found that the situation was incongruous on multiple levels. Their thoughts completely contrasted. Their reactions contrasted, as she overthought about it for months after and he didn’t even think anything of it. Moreover, the way that Barry jumped back and forth from Roger to Elaine at a quick pace made the incongruity even more noticeable.

Furthermore, I hate to admit it but I agree that Elaine’s reactions were accurate relative to the reactions of most females, given they were in the same situation. I even read bits of the passage to my roommate, who also found it to be, as she put it, “so true.” Elaine’s reaction just seemed silly with respect to Roger’s reaction. And I liked how Barry brought this realization to my attention without making me feel like I was being attacked, on behalf of all females. He did this by indirectly belittling the male, suggesting that, “He wasn’t thinking… He can’t: He doesn’t have the appropriate type of brain.” But I think that’s why it was amusing, because I could relate to it, so I was engaged. Additionally, because I found Elaine’s reaction quite realistic, I kept wondering if Roger's reaction was realistic. Would any males like to comment on this? 

First Meeting with Monique

For our first meeting, Monique and I grabbed lunch together at Market Square. Because it was our first time meeting, I didn’t know what to expect even though we had communicated with each other over email. The emails were sent primarily just to set up times to meet each other but we still used the emails to introduce ourselves. In my first email to her, I told her about myself, all the basic stuff: where I’m from, what my major is etc. And she replied, also telling me about herself, like how she is from Brazil. I was glad that I got a friendly reply and that she also took the opportunity to tell me about herself because it gave me a little bit of what I should expect. Also, it helped me mentally prepare for our first meeting. I thought about what things I could talk about with her, before we were to meet. I intended for this first meeting to just be a little get-to-know-each-other session.
        When we actually met, I didn’t know who to look out for but I had told her that I would be wearing a light blue T-shirt and that I would be waiting in front of Market Square. Fortunately, we had exchanged our phone numbers in our emails so it wasn’t much trouble finding each other. Initially, we got our food, sat down and engaged in small talk. Coming from different parts of the world, we talked about how we ended up here in Fort Worth. She told me that she had learned about TCU through a few of her friends who are at TCU for their undergraduate degree. She had visited the U.S. multiple times before but only just moved to Dallas, where most of her TCU friends live, this past summer. I continued to ask her a lot about her English course here and she told me that despite having all-morning classes every single day and a heavy workload, she found the material quite easy. This didn’t surprise me at all because her English was proficient; I didn’t have any trouble understanding her. I learned that she was planning to complete her law degree once she returns to Brazil after her English course here finishes.
        The Blake Shelton concert was that night so it just seemed even more appropriate to discuss our mutual appreciation of the presence of Texan culture in Fort Worth. She really likes country music and really wanted to go see Blake Shelton but decided she wasn't going to go because she commutes all the way from Dallas. But we still talked about our experiences in the Stockyards and of general cowboy culture. It was interesting to see that despite our different backgrounds, we really related to each other. We smiled and laughed at similar things, like about how we miss the weather of the tropics back home. Overall, I found that we both shared feelings of being homesick and feelings of excitement being away from home, simultaneously. Perhaps, it was this “incongruity” that amused the both of us.

In turn, I told her about the Literature & Civilization course I am taking this semester and strayed off to my overall experience at TCU so far. Being in Market Square at lunch hour, many of my friends saw me, came by to our table and said hello to both of us. In response, Monique noticed that I had settled into the TCU community quite well so, I told her how TCU is very welcoming and how that has helped me transition from living in Vietnam to living in Fort Worth. To this, we could both relate because even though I was born in the U.S. and was raised in an American lifestyle, I also experienced culture shock when I got here, just last year.

Before we left, I told her that South America is one continent I have yet to visit. So, she told me more about São Paulo, the city where she is from. She described it as the “New York” of Brazil. This is why she prefers to live in Dallas, which we both agreed is more happening than Fort Worth, having that big-city feel. She really encouraged me to visit Brazil some time. I told her that in fact, I do have hopes of going to Rio for the next Olympics or World Cup. We dove into a discussion about the London Olympics this past summer, reminiscing on certain events and reliving our viewing experience. This made me realize that the Olympics really does unify the world, giving us all something to relate to. Unfortunately, our meeting was cut short because Monique had to go pick up her cousin in Dallas. We planned to meet again but because we both have busy schedules, we decided we would keep in touch by text to arrange our next time to meet.