Okay so Humiliation Humor is the type of humor I
cringe at seeing examples of on television or elsewhere. First let’s
talk about what I mean by humiliation humor. Some would say most
humor is humiliation of either people, places, situations or things.
That’s a pretty broad definition but they’re possibly right –
watch the French film “Ridicule” to see some of the examples of
classic types of “wit” which is critical to the characters in the
film for their success or failure at the 17thcentury royal
court.
For me the humiliation has to be of
people and usually they are being humiliated by the fact that they
are being seen inadvertently embarrassing themselves. A classic
example can be found in the British television show “Coupling”
where one of the characters unaware that there is a bunch of people
about to jump out and wish him a happy birthday, proceeds to do a
strip tease for the attractive coworker who had lured him into the
room for the surprise party. It was especially bad because as a
viewer we are in on the surprise and are made to feel even more
culpable when we see the luring Co-worker say absolutely the perfect
set of lines to put the hapless victim at ease and ready to strip.
It feels like deliberate bait –though it’s just that she was his
current crush.
This scene in coupling is possibly an
extreme example; however, my empathy for him was over developed by
being teased as a child in front of groups of other people. This has
probably made me more sensitive to the humiliation one would
obviously feel in such a situation. This type of humor is common in
British comedy (there’s another example in “A Fish called Wanda”)
and that makes me wonder what is it like to grow up and go to school
in Britain? Bullying there may possibly be even worse than my own
experiences. Then again, in “A Fish Called Wanda” John Cleese’s
character hangs a lantern on his characters incipient nude
humiliation scene by talking about how English people walk around
petrified that they’re going to say the wrong thing and embarrass
themselves. *shrug* - perhaps this was to prepare his audience? Or
was it the influence of the Americans in the cast and on staff?
So why does this humiliation type of
bullying happen? And why does it happen in front of other people?
It’s probably just another facet of our social behavior. In the
movie “Ridicule” the skillful display of wit evoking humor
increases people’s reputation and speeds them to that so coveted
personal meeting with the king. In the more humdrum world of school,
well it’s used to impress other people there too, and to deflect
attention away from the would be comedian. Yes, there is a fine line
between comedian and bully.
Still don’t believe in the fine line
I’m talking about here? Well I have a personal example. When my
husband and I were on our honeymoon he decided it would be neat for
us to go to a comedy club. The opening act, or warm up guy for the
audience, was one of those comedians who drew his comedy from
interactions with the audience. He asked questions such as “who
here is married?” Then – “how long?” My husband, sweet
fellow that he is, innocently volunteered answers for us to this warm
up guy who found ready meat, in his opinion, of our newlywed status.
This supposed professional not only wanted to make fun of our
newlywed status but when he picked up on the fact that I was not cool
with it, and was trying to discourage my husband from giving him any
more material, I then became the focus of his speculative brand of
humor. Then my feelings became the subject of laughter and
disrespect.
Now you may think, just suck it up!,
who cares? And sure I don’t sweat it that much, and my husband and
I are both children of divorced parents, so we know very well that
most marriages end in divorce. We know ridiculing the institution
seems natural, but I submit to you, no one entering into marriage
goes into it wanting it to end, even if they happen to have a
prenuptial agreement. Otherwise, why would anyone get married in the
first place?!
Interesting thing to note, Comedians
start their routines this way often, asking questions of the
audience, even if they don’t wait for the answers. Is this
because they want to show that they’re good at improvising? Do they
think it shows more talent? They obviously think their audience
will forget that they are still directing the way the show goes by
the questions they choose to ask. I challenge these comedians to
try it the other way around, try true improv and ask their audience
to ask them questions or ask the audience to direct their act in some
other way instead. On our way out of the comedy club we had an
opportunity to ask a question of the guy who was the main act, and
well I wasn’t particularly surprised that his response was kind of
testy. Comedians seem to be a rather defensive lot to me.
So what were my unfortunate and
humiliating experiences that caused me to distrust comedians and in
particular dislike humiliation humor? There’s a certain age among
girls where they know just enough about sex to be curious but not
enough about people to understand motivations. At that tween age I
was approached by some girls who were mostly strangers, so I didn’t
know what they were about. Their leader asked me to tell them about
sex, like it was a big mystery and I was the only person who could
explain it to them. It was done in some ways to try and make me look
impressive, but it was also presented as if it was a test that if I
passed, would impress them.
Except the thing about frank
discussions of sex and sexual things at that age is you know that
it’s a naughty topic, so if you profess not to know or worse not to
want to know in answer to the questions, then you’re a prude and if
you actually answer the questions or show that you do know about sex,
then you may have some initial signs of respect but ultimately you
will only be asked more questions as an “expert” then when you
don’t know an answer as invariably you won’t, then you become an
ignorant idiot and a slut.
This sophisticated ploy by the bully is
to seem to pass the torch or center of attention to their unwitting
victim and to set them up for a fall by being the interviewer. Since
the leader is the one asking the questions, they hold all the power
in the situation, and this is something most kids take a while to
figure out. Then the bully commentates on the answers to their
questions and the victim finally realizes what the game is about.
Still don’t think interviewing
someone can be used to bully? Watch Bill O’Reilly interview
someone, and you’ll see it’s clear he knows how to do it. You’ll
see especially what I mean if the issues in the discussion are
controversial and he disagrees with his guest’s stance on the
issues. And of course that is one of the reasons why the comedian
Stephen Colbert has chosen to profess admiration of “Papa Bear”
and emulate O’Reilly with his character on the Colbert Report.
Colbert in his parody does a good impression of O’Reilly’s
interview style for our amusement. It’s one of the most genius
aspects of his act because every time he does an interview the
subject of his humorous parody isn’t even on screen, and yet
everyone who’s seen both shows, knows exactly what Colbert is
doing.
O'Reilly Show - check this and many other interesting clips out on youtube: http://youtu.be/2IwIRNM5noY
Some other good articles about humiliation humor:
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