Humour as a form of entertainment

By R.S Karunaratne

Humour or humor (in American English) is “the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.” If you delve deeper, the term ‘ humour’ derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as ‘humours’, control human health and emotion.

Celebrated Greek philosopher Plato said, “Humour is simply a delightful feeling of superiority over others.” Another Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either nonsense or though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.”

Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud, two modern thinkers, said, “Joke-telling relies on building a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline.” According to this view humour is something ludicrous that evokes laughter. It is said that man is the only animal that can laugh. However, laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious and sometimes pointless. In fact, Arthur Koestler called laughter the “luxury reflex” that serves no apparent biological purpose.

According to psychologists, humour may be a luxury but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. They say that humour is the mirror of the mind. It is creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. To understand a joke you need language skills. For instance, you will not understand a joke expressed in a foreign language.

Language has helped humans to develop a complicated internal life in which they can respond to jokes.

Do you need to tell jokes to evoke laughter? Probably not. For instance,.”Mr Bean” does not crack jokes using language. In fact, he is a silent operator. But he makes us laugh. On the other hand, some local actors on television programs make desperate attempts to make us laugh without any success. Mr Bean and Charlie Chaplin put them in the shade.

Sometimes, FM radio programs come out with jokes which do not evoke laughter. So, the presenters are compelled to use “canned laughter” to give a semblance of authenticating their crude jokes. Most of the presenters do not seem to know how the mind processes humour.

Listeners and viewers are not ready to laugh at anything unless they appreciate the joke.

There is a big difference between using humour and telling jokes. Only a very few public speakers are able to tell jokes effectively. Most speakers can add humour to their speeches with well placed examples or unexpected facial and vocal expressions.

The late Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was a great orator who mixed wit and humour judiciously. Once he attended a dog show organised by the Ladies’ Kennel Association. Unusually, he was dressed in full European suit. A journalist who was covering the event asked him why he did not wear his usual national dress. Pat came the answer.

“I attend dog shows wearing the dog suit!” There were ripples of laughter in the audience.

Only seasoned public speakers know that it is very difficult to be witty before an audience until they have a certain degree of confidence about speaking in public. A speaker who uses humour judiciously will be a popular figure. Even some lecturers use humour in the classroom to attract the attention of their students. Laughter makes the audience relax and more receptive to what the speaker says.

Using the humour of everyday life is safer than trying to be too clever by coming out with mother-in-law jokes, racist jokes, and jokes directed at named people. Sometimes, a relative, friend, or an admirer might be there in the audience. Humour works especially well to build intimate relationships with an audience.

Mass-circulated newspapers always carry pocket cartoons on the first page and big cartoons in the editorial page. More often than not, newspaper cartoons lampoon politicians. Sir John Kotelawala was so thrilled by such cartoons that he used to invite the Daily News cartoonist Aubrey Collette to an egg-hopper treat at his Kandawala Walauwwa whenever he was caricatured .

Not only newspapers but also some leading magazines such as the Reader’s Digest devote their pages for humour.All these factors show that people of all ages and cultures respond to humour. They like to be amused or to laugh or smile at something funny.

The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. The extent to which an individual will find something humorous will depend on many variables such as geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and intelligence. For instance, young children are not amused by political cartoons. Similarly, adults rarely watch Punch and Judy puppet shows.

As with any form of art, acceptance will depend on social demography. Throughout history comedy has been used as a form of entertainment. So we have humorous figures such as Andare and Birbal. Both of them entertained kings in Sri Lanka and India. Today, public speakers, cartoonists and humour columnists have taken over the task of entertaining the people.