In response to YouTube Channel NerdWriter1, the video titled “Mr Bean Is A Master Of Physical Comedy”, which deals with the actor (sir) Rowan Atkinson’s short, “Laughing Matters”.
NerdWriter1 often uploads intriguing and fascinating videos, but sometimes dull and uninformed. I do still watch him though. Learning is ever-present.
Which leads us straight to the matter at hand;
Dealing with laughter, comedy and humour, why was the abovementioned review bad, and how at the same time, Atkinson’s explanation could serve a better purpose?
I want to pause first, to make an establishing argument.
What is laughter? Why Do we laugh? {Correct me if I am wrong, please}
Laughter is a response in the human organism, in which the brain commands the body to release stored air.
{Breathed-in air is what allows oxygen. Most of the oxygen goes into the brain for proper functioning. This is why we rush to save a suffocating person. A suffocation, even one that doesn’t seem too serious, can leave parts of the brain in irreversible damage and sometimes fully dysfunctional.}
This command is, again, a reaction. It occurs whenever a brain had started a complex (or a seemingly complex) logical structure to comprehend certain phenomena. But sometimes, when completion is due, a sudden trauma (that is, insertion of a foreign object, so to speak) reveals the processing as completely unnecessary, or partially so.
This is why tickling one another works, because of an inherent safe-system against bugs and such. While you can’t tickle yourself to get a laughter response.
Laughter resembles the first trauma every human person is receiving- Their first breath of air, at birth. The lungs are encountering the outer world for the first time, starting a chain reaction that we simply learn to live with. Further philosophical discussion may apply.
1. Adoration of technology. What is clear from how Atkins delivers the message is his ‘obligation’ to use film. He ties the concept of laughter and humour to media or medium, therefore relating it to some authority.
He also manages to eliminate all comedy preceding the invention of moving film.
This authority can be described as technocracy in the sense that it glorifies technology and instruments. Why is it bad? Because first, it is symptomatic and untrue, and further because this adoration is of the one who uses the tools.
Human civilization, quite sadly, was built on knowledge. Knowledge at the hands of those who know how to light a fire, what gathers people around a campfire, what those people would trade for it. This is why education is crucial.
No proper comprehension of comedy/humour is possible without the trivium methodology or some kind of initiation.
What makes a joke work is the (available) context.
Part of it is a character study, and facing the matter of psychopathy in people around you.
This is the training of royalty, to immediately judge aspects of the person at hand to deliver a sentence or a verdict.
It is the reason you are forbidden to stay in a hat while presenting yourself to a king.
Also the reason for masquerade balls given in the palace.
(P.S.- Perhaps this is how court clowns came to be)
Watching comedy is education. It helps with scenarios which we could do better in, or simply were unaware of. Here the television actually helped humanity, in broadcasting teachings to others.
Every time you watch a comic (let’s say George Carlin) acting, remember that it is only him sharing with you a side of character he usually keeps to himself due to social environment oppression while sharing his experiences for you to logically argue with.
The intensity is what’s funny. Your subconscious knows this all to be true and tries to motivate your conscious to act accordingly.
Like football players and voice actors, these are the next on the scale of overpriced professions that don’t always help society.
Ignorance is bliss. Or in the words of Ecclesiastes:
“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.“
At one point in history, when the school systems changed, comedy became entertainment, since commoners could no longer get information from it, or use logic to process this information. Why do you think Royal families kept their subjects unalphabetic?
“Laughing Matters” is, pardon the calambour, a joke. The joke’s on the uninitiated and uninformed. British TV once more kept their subjects as slaves. Making comedy into An Instrument to substitute real studies.
He actually ends it with “you can ignore everything I’ve said”.
and they always say; “Do what you love and you never need to work a day in your life”.
Rewatch the series one more time and see how it only deals with the eternal, moral struggle between good and evil, and teaching consequentialism.
Especially, I think, in the chapter on satire. Satire(as portrayed) is the mocking of authority. Authority is a psychopathological construct, existing to coerce and enslave others.
When Atkins states that an archetypal comic hero is invincible, unconsciously meaning rebels, he is absolutely correct.
We’re talking about the catalyst for change, and how it expresses in our physiology.
So comedy reflects on the not-so-obvious, secondary manners of a psychopath ruling the world: He may be secluded, to try and work on his own, not in a group of friends.
Thus he will act as alienated from a normal person.
He is lazy, and therefore we will see his misfortune in what is considered “absurdity”.
He tries to masquerade, but leaves his house in a mess, proving his hypocrisy.
He is committing a crime, big or small, against the world with his carelessness.
He is mimicking humanity or godhood, and therefore the comic plot is always to retrieve or restore the balance of goodness. See traditional American comic books.
Obsession with comedy, as opposed to being funny and witty, is a sign of mental instability. Atkins would not mention Rablae, of course.
We may encounter the perverted feminine who giggles as a personality trait…
The reason British humour is deadpan serious, or ‘poker-faced’
“deliberately impassive or expressionless”:
To reveal you are impressed with a comic situation in daily life would show your group that you are incompetent in your studies and understanding.
In a “dog eat dog” society, divided into classes, this is how you try to promote yourself.
With no “Social Elevators”.
Children make the older generation laugh, too.
Imagine a scene where a kid’s naivety is causing some little trouble, and everyone laughs at the situation. Simple. If they educate him on how he should act in stressful situations, he will grow properly. But if they convey that wrongdoings are to be kept secret, they will drive the community into a rut.
SHUT-EYE CINEMA 