BUI301F2022/Humor Theory

Theories of humor

• Superiority theories
• Relief or release theories
• Incongruity theories

• 

  Our Hospitality

• 

  Always Be My Maybe

• 

  Disorder in the Court

• 

  Curb Your Enthusiasm

"Summarizing provisionally one version of the incongruity theory, then, someone is comically amused if and only if

• (i) the object of their mental state is a perceived incongruity, which
• (ii) they regard as neither threatening or anxiety producing nor
• (iii) annoying and which
• (iv) they do not approach with a genuine, puzzle-solving attitude, but which, rather,
• (v) they enjoy precisely for their perception of incongruity." (Carroll, p. 37)

Texts & resources

• Noël Carroll, Humour: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • Our Hospitality (pp. 12-13, 17)
  • Curb Your Enthusiasm (pp. 25-26)
  • The Three Stooges (p. 30)
  • South Park (p. 33)
• Modern Family