The Humor unit is a short project that consisted of analyzing works like Rhinoceros, a play by Eugène Ionesco, Slaughter House 5, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, numerous stand-ups and sketch comedy like Key and Peele.
The next step was to analyze comedic devices used by comedians that we admired. Below is mine.
Humor Proposal
One of the comedians I analyzed was Chris D’elia. Chris’s subject matter consists of girls, drunk girls, race, religion, and people. He uses techniques like caricature, anecdotal humor and exaggerism. I will be analyzing some of his act for Gotham Comedy Live, which happens to be non scripted but still very funny. There were a few people that are already recording the show from the phones. (The show was being pre recorded) He impersonates the people’s friends that are supposedly asking for proof being at the show. In doing this, he does a caricature. He goes on to make fun of a man in the audience who is sitting right in front of him. (He has very short hair with a really long beard.) Chris tells him he doesn’t like guys like him and that is because their face hair is longer than their “hair hair” which means they have an “ upside down head”. He then makes a gesture of that man flipping his head upside down in the morning to look the way he does now which creates an exaggerated twist (no pun intended). In the audience, he spots a guy that has the opposite of hair cut: long hair, short beard. Chris finds this dude’s expression very funny so Chris says that the way he is looking at him makes him think he is a painting (his worst fear as a comedian). Chris squints his eyes, impersonating the man and exaggerates “I see what they were trying to do… I see what they were trying to do”. From this, he begins a sort of anecdotal and situational joke about museums. He continues to use the line I previously stated to make a stronger point about art in museums. The anecdotal/ situational humor consists of him going to art museums and only glancing at the art that people stare at for forty minutes. He says, “Cool, cool, cool, cool”. Chris uses more exaggerations, caricature, and anecdotes as the show goes on. Next, I will be analyzing Trevor Noah in his act “Son of Patricia”. Trevor Noah’s subject consists of insightful life experiences and politics. He also uses techniques of caricature, absurd humor, anecdotal humor, wit, and unspoken truth. He smoothly glides into his skit by talking about being in Los Angeles’s traffic retrospective to being in New York, where you do not need to be in a car. Trevor exaggerates popular trap music sounding the same by comparing it to the sound of a toddler complaining, and uses absurd humor in comparing the two seemingly unrelated topics. He also uses caricature of the toddler. By doing these two, he uses exaggeration in saying all trap songs sound the same when in reality they are somewhat distinct. Trevor then talks about camping. He used to be really poor so he had to do a lot of cramping when he was younger. He uses anecdotal humor to bring us into the situation by doing impersonations of his grandmother. In this joke, he lightly adds a political twist by saying (if his grandmother found out about Trevor camping) “Oh trevor I thought you were successful. It must be the crack”. And this represents the truth about the spread of crack in black neighborhoods. Next, Trevor talks about his trip to Bali with his white friends, and warns the audience that white people’s fun is different than black people’s fun which is again, some sort of absurd humor. He shares an anecdotal story that leads to many caricatures of the characters in the act like the tour guide, the white tourists, and Trevor at the scene of the event. And in this, he uses exaggeration of the way the event took place by dramatizing the main characters. The second anecdotal story in the trip to Bali consists of a few of the characters from his first story, and he introduces two new characters which is a french dad and his son. He does a really amazing job to building their interactions towards him through body language, and accents. Fast forwarding to the end of this forty minute act, Trevor Noah beautifully ties in the whole thing by creating a final anecdote.
The subjects and themes I find the most inspirational and valuable are caricature, exaggerism, anecdotal, and absurd humor because they seem to be the most consistent way of producing humor. My humor project is going to be a parody video of a makeup commercial, Glossier. I want to do this specific brand because they use very little pigment in all of their products. What I find really funny about the advertisement is that the models tap their faces a lot with the makeup but it doesn’t look like they are wearing any makeup. The brand is surrounded around natural beauty which is nice but I find their commercials really funny because the models don’t look like they are wearing anything. I will use caricature in my Humor Project by having people pretend are models putting on makeup nothing on their eyes, cheeks and lips to mimic the style of the make-up brand. The people will have an air about them that will exaggerate their body movements and facial expressions to mimic the ones in the original Glossier commercial videos. The commercials the girls doing cute stuff like playing their hair, and looking really cute in front of the camera. To exaggerate this even furthur, I will be using the technique absurd humor by adding movements like picking their nose and rubbing their eyes…things that are not so cute.
Script
Final Project: A Glossier Parody
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Live Presentation
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Everybody loves to laugh and this project, I realized the types of techniques that does make something funny. I had a lot of fun making this and I hope to create other projects that will help express truth and pain.
Honors Essay
(A rough, rough, draft)
The Spread of Things that Should Not be Spread
Free will seems like a given, but it indefinitely is an uncertain aspect of life. In Rhinoceros, Berenger the protagonist does not succumb to conformity, analytically, the danger of the spread of Nazism as well as other forms of mass- cultural conformity or ideologies that threat to become the dominant narrative. In Slaughterhouse-F five, Kurt Vonnegut tells an anti-war story using the narrative of Billy Pilgrim that unfolds the dangers of glorifying war and heroic narratives which morally justify war. Berenger and Billy Pilgrim are absurd protagonists who fail to conform to social norms; their complicated and comical relationship with free will produces a mid 20th century satire.
In Rhinoceros, Inoscio uses blunder, caricature, and exaggeration to portray racial superiority in the 20th century during the rise of Nazism. At Scene 1 Act 1, Berenger is late and Jean inquires him. “Jean: Last as usual, of course. Our appointment was for 11:30. And oh it’s practically mid day. Berenger: Im sorry. Have you been waiting long? Jean: No, I’ve only just arrived myself, as you saw. Berenger: In that case I don’t feel so bad, if you’ve only just…
Jean: It’s different with me. I don’t like waiting; I’ve got no time to waste. And as you’re never
on time, I come late on purpose- at a time when i presume you’ll be there.” (Ionesco, 4). In this act, Inoscio uses irony in this passage by defying Jean’s perception of why he would be mad. Jean knew he Berenger would be late, so his action has wit, but growing angry for a reason that is not of him waiting in the first place is satirical irony. Another part that is funny is when it has been 30 minutes from the initial meet time- not a very long time to be waiting- and Jean brings in exaggeration to overstate his impatience “it’s practically midday”. We get a sense of Jean’s character being represented as the Nazi ideology through his air of superiority “I’ve got no time to waste”. In page 68, When Jean begins to transform into a rRhinoceros in front ofand Berenger, he says,is with him. “Jean: “Keep your ears open. I said what’s wrong with being a rhinoceros? I’m all for change……. […] [Berenger responds,]Berenger: Calm down, Jean, you’re being ridiculous! Oh, your horn’s getting longer and longer– you’re a rhinoceros! [Jean replies,]Jean: I’ll trample you, I’ll trample you down!” (Ionesco, 68). This bit of blunder reveals the the Rhinocerousim of Jean, along with many others who have also transformed to Rhinoserouses to the ideology of Nazism, superior people have a right to dominate other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Those who develops into a rhinoceros has a transformation of human behavior that fits a Darwinian way of thinking by trampling down inferior groups of people. In the next scene, Berenger and Daisy, are the only humans left. Berenger was madly in love with Daisy in the beginning of their short relationship, but soon they get headed over an argument over love. Daisy calls it “this morbid feeling” called love to which Berenger lashes out. “Energy! You want some energy, do you? I can let you have some energy! [He slaps her face]” (105). The transition of Daisy and Berenger’s quirky relationship reveals the nature of the crave of power indefinitely a part of social conformity, maybe even human nature, within relationships and society.
SlaughterhHouse-Ffive uses satire to express the distress of post war era. Before Vonnegut begins his narrative, he tells the readers of an event regarding his novel about Dresden. His friend’s wife, Mary O’Hare gave him a piece of her mind. “You were just babies in the war—like the ones upstairs! […] But you’re not going to write it that way, are you […] You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.” (1.10.13-18) Her using this absurd image about the babies symbolizes the truth and pain about war; it was fought by children who were not yet developed, which caused pain to them during and after having faced war. She highlights Vonnegut’s goal for Slaughterhouse- Five which is obtained in a satirical manner. When the Americans were transported into Dresden many died of the unsanitary conditions in the vehicle. The Germans given the Americans the clothings of ones who had died. Billy Pilgrim receives a coat far too small for him. In page (90, Vonnagen) “Billy Pilgrim dressed himself. He put on the little overcoat, too. It split up the back, and, at the shoulders, the sleeves came entirely free. So the coat became a fur-collared vest. It was meant to flare at its owner’s waist, but the flaring took place at Billy’s armpits. The Germans found him to be one of the most screamingly funny things they had seen in all of World War II. They laughed and laughed.” Vonnegut uses caricature to exaggerate the humiliating features acquired by Billy Pilgrim which shoos the readers from thinking war is all fun and manly. In page, ___, we see that Billy is not one to brag. “Billy Pilgrim got onto a chartered airplane in Ilium twenty-five years after [going to Slaughterhouse-Five]. He knew it was going to crash, but he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by saying so.” This symbolizes that Billy Pilgrim not only is anti- war, he is anti- hero. Thus, Billy Pilgrim is the anti-war protagonist battling the the heroic novels that further glorify war.
The works of Vonnegut and Inoscio are similar because they are both post war stories told through symbolism and satire. The Rhinoceros symbolizes the act of dominance, thoroughly justified by nature. Billy Pilgrim’s abduction via Tralfamadorians represents the circumstance opposite of a post war hero. Both works have protagonists that are supposedly inferior from the other characters. In conclusion, these works put use the truth and pain about humankind, one about the rise of nazzism and other about the influx of un realistic war- heros.