Persuasive Passages

From all of the passages that I’ve read so far, I found Monro’s “Theories of Humor” to be the most persuasive. It was persuasive to me because it didn’t exactly show a bias against any of the three main theories of comedy, but rather defined them and stated the pros and cons associated with each. This was persuasive to me in an almost round-a-bout sense. It forced me to read the facts on each theory and formulate my own opinion on which theory I thought encompassed comedy as a whole. It essentially persuaded me to persuade myself. I found myself leaning towards the theory of superiority and the idea that humor ultimately stems from the degradation of some person, thing, or ideal. A piece of comedy that comes to mind when I think of the theory of superiority is a scene from the FX show Archer. Archer and his team of spies are sent to the Vatican in an attempt to rescue the Pope from an assassination attempt. Pam and Archer, two of the most vulgar characters on the show, are disguised as a nun and a Catholic priest. (Spoiler Alert) In the end of the episode, it is discovered that the assassination attempt was set up by a Cardinal in order to propel himself into the papacy. This scene relates to the theory of superiority because it negatively depicts and brings down the Catholic Church. It’s ironic that two of the least holy characters on Archer are sent to represent the most holy figures in the Catholic religion. Catholicism and the papal court are also degraded when the instigator of the assassination turn out to be none other than the Pope’s right hand man. I have attached a scene from the episode below. I think that the three theories combined are able to accurately describe comedy better than one of the theories alone. It’s difficult for me to place all types of comedy in just the incongruity theory or just the relief theory. I definitely think that the superiority theory is able to describe a lot of the comedy that we see in modern times, but that may not have been the case a century ago. Twenty-first century comedy (if I’m allowed to refer to it as such) seems to be a lot more vulgar and raunchy as opposed to comedy from just fifty years ago. In my head, I am comparing older shows like Andy Griffith and I Love Lucy to modern shows like Family Guy and American Dad. It would be hard to convince me that a single theory of humor would be able to describe the essence of comedy, but I think that the combination of the superiority theory, incongruity theory, and the relief theory is pretty much makes up the majority of the comedy seen today.