Defining Different Types of Comedy and Humor

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Have you ever noticed how some things can seem very simple, but in fact, are quite complex under further analysis. A great example of this is music. What do you think of when you hear the word music? Do you think of that hot new hit by your favorite artists such as Fall Out Boy, Lil Wayne, or Katy Perry? On the other hand, maybe you think of some old geezers playing violins and actual instruments in an orchestra. Maybe music isn’t as simple as you thought? There is rhythm, tempo, meter, sound, dynamics, harmonies, keys, time, and a whole lot more. In a more general sense, music has various genres, but what exactly makes certain artists part of a genre. What is the difference between Alternative and Indie, or Hip-Hop and Rap, or Blues and Jazz? To answer your questions you have to look deeper and find out how things are categorized.

Just like music, Comedy has many different genres. But, what is comedy? Is it that funny looking kid getting made fun of at school? Is it complete absurdity? Is it the humiliation of others building your own self-righteousness? Comedy is “the humorous or amusing aspects of something” as defined by my dictionary widget. While I do like this definition of comedy, in general, I do not like how the definition uses the root-word humor in the definition. Humor is very similar to comedy in the sense that it is a word that cannot be easily explained or defined. The widget defines humor as “the ability to perceive…or to appreciate a joke.” Again, another good definition, but again, I do not agree with it fully. This definition implies that humor only comes from jokes, which is certainly not the case. In a search to find out what comedy truly entails, we need to identify and understand where...

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...ve power over others/situations, or bringing unexpected circumstances your way. Maybe it’s just one, or maybe it’s a combination of the three. Nevertheless, the humor we find in things is what enables us to understand why we think things are funny. The humorous aspects that we can identify from the three categories, is what can be considered the comedy of the situation. Next time you find something funny, think about what humor is used, and why it is funny for you. It may just be in one of the categories after taking a deeper look.

Works Cited

Aaron Smuts. “Humor.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. 14 September 2008.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm.

“Comedy.” American Oxford Dictionaries Widget. 2008

“Humor.” American Oxford Dictionaries Widget. 2008

Music. Wikipedia. 15 September 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music.

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