Humor

The humor is a concept which is complex only for those which do not have any. Its contents, more than its definition, are variously appreciated from one culture to another, of an area with another, a point of view with another, so much so that what is regarded by certain as humor, can be regarded by the others as a malicious mockery or an insult. The English Humor or the Jewish Humor, is two typical examples of European cultural humors. One could define humor as a form of expression allowing to release certain aspects cocasses or strange of reality, destiny to generally cause the Rire, either while making fun of the others or while making fun of his similar or oneself (autodérision).

Humor makes it possible the Man to take retreat on what he saw, as raises it Joseph Klatzmann in his work Jewish Humor while wishing “to laugh not to cry”. More pessimistic, Nietzsche affirms “the man suffers so deeply that it had to invent the Rire”, approaching the Cynisme.

Humor is distinguished by several concepts: it is a language, but also a means of expression. It is carrying messages. Its objectives are numerous. He plays a crucial role in the balance of the person, he releases the tensions and preserves our health. Humor is also employed to study, even if the methods of use are not very persuasive. This weapon makes it possible to criticize well defined targets, for example, against the totalitarian states and the ideology which founds them. It is thus a language which aims at the truth without naming it, as well as an excellent means of being expressed when it is impossible to do it differently. Indeed, one can laugh at all, but not anyhow. Lastly, humor is the best drug for our Esprit, but let us not forget that, sometimes and even often, our humor causes the degradation of others.

One can say from the start which humor is social intelligence, it is thus one of the demonstrations, of the expressions. With the accesses of humor, one can distinguish from the lie, humility, loneliness, but also an unbearable and tended tenderness, a refusal of appearances, the safeguarding of a secrecy, the taste of an infinite distance… One can agree to study humor in a form of Esprit which is dissimulated under a serious air, full with irony and unforeseen, and which consists in releasing the pleasant and strange aspects of reality with a certain detachment.

Analyzes

Humor, in first analysis, is supposed to give birth to, if not the Rire, sometimes vulgar, at least the smile in complicity. In practice, the reaction of each one will go from the pleasant smile to frank hilarity.

One named black Humor a form of humor which is pressed on elements sad or unpleasant and turns them in derision (humors Jew and British, in this respect, is often black: a work of Thomas de Quincey names assassination considered as one of the fine arts ) and to force laugh a forced and bitter laughter. In fact, humor is not necessarily related to the joy. “humor is the courtesy of despair” (quotation allotted according to the authors to Achille Chavée, Oscar Wilde, Georges Duhamel, Boris Vian, and sometimes even, although it is not at all of its style, Pierre Dac) )

Nowadays, these classifications grow blurred: the humor of Pierre Desproges, for example, is not without analogy with that of a Woody Allen. The old borders disappear and a certain humor becomes international, exclusion made of the word games and the play on the words (see Raymond Devos).

For Paul Reboux ( With the manner of… ), humor quite simply consists with to treat with light the serious things, and seriously the light things . Typical example (Woody Allen, therefore posterior): does there Exist an objective reality, or all it is only illusion, in which case I would have paid my apartment too much expensive? .

Humor must be distinguished by other concepts which are close for him:

  • the comic one, additional or optional effect of humor;
  • the laughter, which can be the mechanism that humor brings into play;
  • the joke;
  • the irony, which adds this nuance of mockery;
  • the Impertinence, arrogant form of humor;
  • the euphoria (cheerfulness);
  • and finally the pleasure, which is born from the unforeseen one, of the originality, of the richness of the message, expression of a humor which achieved its goal.

Raison d'être

The origins and the functions of the laughter generated by humor are difficult to encircle; the popular proverb “a good laughter is worth a steak” shows that it has a cathartic function in any case: one feels well after having laughed ; it is in the sense that the Anciens conceived it in their Comédie S; it makes it possible, moreover, to denounce in a more or less hidden way what indicates the devoted formula castigat ridendo mores (“It corrects manners while laughing”) applied to the comedy. For some ethologists, the laughter, which one seems to note at certain races of Singe S, is before all the grin, i.e. a rising of the Lèvre S in order to show the Dent S; it could thus be a form of diverted violence, an inclination with the aggression summarized in a Mimique. Seen under this angle, humor would make it possible to evacuate this Violence, born from frustration and the suffering (especially in black humor); the cathartic function there was joined. The bond with a feeling of faintness can be easily checked if one considers the embarrassment felt by the audience and the speaker when this one misses a Flash of wit and does not manage to make smile.

Many investigations was carried out on the topic humor to draw some from the conclusive results. Indeed, humor appears for the majority of the people like a testimony of the wellbeing and a love of life, to make it possible to decompress and to take pleasure in unspecified situations, at any moment. Humor is in general in a spontaneous way (“that comes like that”; “it is natural”) and very little in a calculated way. Very few precise facts are brought back (“the teacher of Maths which broke the mouth of the estrade as it gueulait to transfer a pal”). Humor is generally handled by the young people: 39% stressing that is carried out jointly with their parents in a duelle relation.

Humor is also often a means for a group or a person subjected to strong social pressures or strong constraints to escape from it. Thus the people under the Soviet yoke had invented many jokes to fight after a fashion against the absurdity and repression. In the same way, in the large companies or administrations, a jargon and codes develop making it possible to the individuals to resist the " système".

Recent origin

The term even of humor is recent; it comes us from the English, in the form humor , which indicates at the same time the provisions of the temperament and the fluids body (" humeurs"), which one thought that they governed the behavior and the Santé. The word English is a loan former to French mood , who had at the time the two directions described above. The word humor is attested for the first time in French at the 18th century, entered in France thanks to the bonds which the thinkers maintained the Lumières with the British philosophers.

Humor and Flash of wit

Previously, one used in the literary field the word Esprit , which one finds in expressions like “having spirit” or “Flash of wit”. The Esprit was defined more as one form of acid Ironie and deadpan, whom one easily notes in authors of the Age of Enlightenment like Voltaire, Diderot or Crébillon wire. Sigmund Freud studied the Flash of wit ( Witz ) in the flash of wit and its relation with unconscious the (1905). Humor as practiced by the British appeared however closer to a form of glance absurd and detached on the events, without inevitably leading to the ill will towards which often the Esprit French tended.

The film Ridicule of Patrice Leconte illustrates this cultural shift of time, and shows the first interrogations on the humor British, still mysterious for the French.

Humor and the comic one

The most known appearances of humor are done in the amusing stories, qualified the “funny ones”, frequently indicated under the term of Blague S. It appears very diverse manners however and is not always explicit (it is the case of the irony, the point, the remark deadpan); gestures even can be comic. If humor is always voluntary, one can be comic without wanting it. Humor, however, is indissociable the comic one, i.e. of “what is specific to make laugh”; the comic one is, among the literary tonalities, which allows humor; one distinguishes mainly seven forms from them:

  • comic of gestures;
  • comic of words, which includes the word games;
  • comic of manners;
  • comedy situation;
  • comic of character;
  • comic of repetition.
  • comic: the satire

In kind, humor uses necessarily a form of comic, but any comic demonstration is not inevitably humorous.

Lastly, if humor allows the man, by the shift and the absurdity, to become aware of itself, its disordered states or those of the company, it should not be astonished that the subjects chosen by humor known as black can be macabre or shocking: death, the wound, despair and the anguish form part of the human life indeed. One should not however only forget, to paraphrase Pierre Desproges, if one can laugh at all, one cannot do it with everyone.

Aggressive humor is presented as that which has “to be able more”. “But humor also appears as the weapon of weak or the artists against the totalitarian states and the ideology which founds them. These is a singular voice which refuses all these monstrosities. ” On the other hand, it is not necessarily funny, repeat it. It causes more the smile than the laughter, and this smile is often tinted of emotion. The humorist is, in all the cases, in theory free from satirical intention. No trace of cruelty at his place. The laughter marks a social superiority however that the laugher allots himself in some way. One laughs or one smiles of a bad orthography, of an accent, step of an animal, an awkwardness, a blunder, a thoughtlessness; in short, of all that flatters in oneself a feeling of domination or revenge. For Charles Baudelaire, which begins again on its account in “gasoline of the laughter and generally of comic in the visual arts” part of the old Christian doctrines on the character ic Satan of the laughter, and the distinction introduced by ordinary Hoffmann between comic and comic innocent , “one will find at the bottom of the thought of the laugher a certain unconscious pride”, so that the laughter, “consequence the man of the idea of his own superiority (…) is at the same time sign of an infinite size and an infinite misery”.

The moral question put in connection with the laughter is very old. One can thus read in the Summa Theologica of saint Thomas d' Aquin “Thus a word to laugh is a venial sin if it is known as without utility, but it is not any more one oiseuse word nor a sin if it is known as for a reasonable reason. Although the venial sin does not remove the grace which gets the safety of the man, however, in so far as it lays out with the mortal sin, it becomes harmful with the hello”.

For Tertullien, “It is also advisable for the truth to laugh, because it is merry, and to be played of its enemies, because it is trustful in its force. Only it should be prevented that its laughter does not excite in its turn the mocking remark, if it were moved. But moreover everywhere where the laughter is suitable, it fills a duty”.

Humor with the cinema

The humorous films are generally for base clean of the characters. The scenarios are written in order to cause a situation mild nutter or which would oblige a character to reveal his humorous character.

Several examples are to be taken into account like the film Rush Hour . This film puts in scene a police officer American black, not very gifted and talkative and the elite of the Chinese forces. The shock between two cultures often has a comic effect founded on incomprehension. Certain counterparts in scenes of shooting are unexpected and one passes from an environment mortal to a released environment, all that with an aim of diverting the public with amusing scenes of action.

Another kind of humor, black humor, makes it possible to emphasize characters - keys (like the malicious ones) and to show their cruel side. Mafia Blues is an good example. Paul Vitti is supposed being a cruel gangster but its counterparts cause a feeling which one can describe as Syndrome of Stockholm , which attaches to the character in spite of the cruelty of this one. Example: Doc.: “  Say to me, one you forever known as non ?   ” Vitti: “  If, but it were " kind; Not! Pity! Do not kill me…   " ”

Humor and the joke

The joke is a dramatic kind intended to make think its spectators of the outranciées situations which it describes, by the means laughing it.

Many televised series exploited the seam of the laughter. In 1994, very known American series renews the kind: Friends. The comic one develops between six characters having anything else to make only cause misunderstandings, launch jokes sophisticated and chamailler on alleviating things in their preferred coffee. Less than of humor, it acts contrary to a return to the joke of the Moyen-âge (joke of Pathelin Master, joke of the vat…), precisely founded on the misunderstandings and comedy situation. The joke supposes a mystifying and one mystified. The message of humor is on the contrary that we all of are mystified the .

Humor and health

Who says humor, known as laughter. According to studies which were led to the medical center of the Université of Maryland to Baltimore by Cardiologue S, the fact of laughing and to have a direction of sharpened humor would be a frightening weapon against the heart attacks. After having questioned more than 300 people of which the half had suffered from heart attacks or had undergone a cardiovascular intervention and the other half did not have any cardiac disorder; the results show us that the cardiac ones too serious and are stressed too much.

To laugh should thus belong to measurements employed to prevent and treat the cardiac diseases and the stress.

The smile or the laughter releases the tensions and preserves our health. Humor facilitates the self-confidence and harmonizes it with others, increases our charisma. Humor is not a gift: it is a frame of mind, a whole of mental mechanisms, methods pleasant to put into practice.

Humor to study

Many research were led on teenagers and students by using simple methods rather far away from the educational conditions even when they were made as a classroom or a classroom with the Université. The majority of the experiments were short durations (going from 8 minutes to one hour). In general, the pupils were divided into two groups to which one presented the same conference. For a group, one introduced humorous elements, for the other not. The results were measured by the quantity of learned material. The majority of the results were not encouraging in the use of humor to study.

The teachers of the American Universities seem to rather frequently use humor in their courses. In an experiment with pupils of secondary education, four films Vidéo were prepared. It was about a course of biology given by a professional actor (he had learned the course prepared by a Professor). Four versions of the same course were filmed: the first, without humor; the second, with humorous illustrations, of an aggressive humor; the third with a humor where the teacher was itself the target (standard of humor “car derision”); and finally the fourth combined version the humor of the second and third version. The results then showed that the teacher who used mixed humor (fourth version) was perceived by the pupils like more “attractive” and more “original” that the others. Whereas the Teacher which uses aggressive humor, was perceived like having “to be able more”. Lastly, that which did not make humor was perceived like more “systematic”. In addition, other results showed that the pupils who have humor appreciate more the teacher which uses humor, that the pupils whose direction of humor is little developed.

Amusing stories

Literally of Jerome Peignot

Humoriste S famous

It is necessary to mention here the dialogist Michel Audiard who, without being strictly speaking humorist , created some of the most memorable counterparts of the cinema (thus in the film the Uncles flingueurs ).

Belgium

  • See also: The list of the Belgian humorists.

the United States

France

Ireland

  • Oscar Wilde

Quebec

  • See also: The list of the Québécois humorists.

the United Kingdom

  • See also: The list of the British humorists.

Swiss

  • See also: the list of the Swiss humorists.

  • See also: the character of Oin-Oin.

See too

To have the direction of humor

To have the direction of humor, it is to like to joke and accept the jokes which aim us in first.

Humor on Internet

Since the development of the Internet high banc, many sites with humorous vocation were born. The contents are often appeared in the form of vidéos (parody, gags, sketch), but also as audio files (rarer in particular because of the royalties), of images, plays (animation flash), of PS or Pt (diaporamas Powerpoint), of texts or software.

Humor on Wikipédia

Certain members of Wikipédia referred and placed at the disposal of the Net surfers a certain number of pastiches of articles, as well as a collection of howlers of errors made on Wikipédia.
  • Wikipédia:Pastiches
  • * Wikipédia: Collection of howlers

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