Mary Douglas describes both definitions of the joke, be it Bergson’s or Freud’s, as an attack on the formal by the informal—here, the only difference… Read More »Shoot For The Stars, Aim for The Punchline (Parthiv Chhabria)
In Crazy Machines in the Garden of Forking Paths, Tom Gunning defines a “mischief gag” as a humorous physical prank consisting of a set-up and… Read More »Mischief Gags and the Disruption of Narrative in I Think You Should Leave’s “Prank Show”
https://youtu.be/n188Cp8rzlA?si=5oeUWYdlEaF8GjZj Among other theories, Henri Bergson’s essay on the comic refers to the connection between the human and the mechanic. He points to one of… Read More »An inconvenient tooth – Rebeca Ravara
In his book, Machine-Age Comedy, Michael North claims that comedy has traditionally been associated with spontaneity and that comic styles which arise from repetitive movements… Read More »The Simpsons’ Sense of Humour and Rebellion
In his work, North writes: “Many early film comedies were developed entirely out of the workings of a single machine, manufactured, as it were, as… Read More »The sausage machine or Phoebe’s handbag?
In his essay entitled “Laughter,” Henri Bergson utilizes the specific example of societal ceremonies as a fertile comical phenomenon. These occurrences fall under his… Read More »Ceremonial Ridiculousness in Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan”
In “Machine-age comedy”, Michael North explains how formulaic and repetitive comedic artforms can be perceived as a machine, exemplified by Charlie Chaplin’s unchanging character mannerisms… Read More »Phoebe Waller Bridge’s control of “the machine” – Elouisa Cairns
“It came from the fact that the living body became rigid, like a machine.” (Bergson, 49) The 2016 film Swiss Army Man takes Bergson’s proposition… Read More »Swiss Army Thinking (this title works if you think hard enough)
Many children’s animated films derive their comedy from anthropomorphizing objects, machines, or animals. From robots to toys to airplanes, these films ascribe human traits to… Read More »(Car)toon Comedy of Machines
Henri Bergson’s first point in ‘Laughter’ focuses on how ‘the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human’. An animal is… Read More »Henri Bergson vs Li’l Sebastian