Humor: Society's Double Edge Sword

Humor is part of everyone's daily life and in fact some of us require it. We tend to say to people, "lighten up," when we find someone a little too overwhelmed by life's many difficulties. We rather see the world in a more humorous way than to be dragged down by it. The movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), does exactly that, they take the old mythical search for the Holy Grail and lighten it up. The Holy Grail represents the truth of Christianity because it is a religious artifact that helps prove Jesus' existence. So then why do we find humor in an artifact that, if found could transcend humanity as a whole?

In order to fully appreciate what is going on during a joke, we as an audience must understand a couple of social constructs that are actually true in society. Because if someone tells a joke about something that no one knows than how is it funny? Simon Critchley, author of Did you Hear the One About the Philosopher writing a Book on Humour?, believes that first there has to be an overall consensus about what constitutes a joke. Critcley says, "most jokes work through the experience of a felt incongruity between what we expect to be the case and what actually takes place in the joke." In the movie, King Arthur and his knights are riding imaginary horses and their squires are knocking coconuts together to make the sounds of the horses' feet. This is funny because we have socially constructed the idea that knights are always on big armor-plated horses and when we hear the sound of the horses stomping we also associate it with a horse not a squire knocking coconuts together. We find it funny when our expectation is not met or when we know it did not actually happen like that.

Knights being followed by their squires knocking coconuts together

Furthermore, Critcley says that in order for a joke like this one to actually be successful we as a society need to know the socially constructed context of the horses, knights, the Holy Grail and the coconuts; since there are no coconuts in England. This is also another joke the movie plays and there is a scene where King Arthur rides up (with an imaginary horse) to a castle requesting knights to accompany him in search for the Holy Grail. There are two guards on top of the castle wall that begin to question King Arthur how he has those coconuts that his squire is knocking together since there are no coconuts in England. The movie takes it a step further when the guards actually have a philosophical debate about how the coconuts got to England. They debate over which bird carried the coconut and how heavy the coconut is and how heavy the bird that carried the coconut had to have been. There are two incongruities that are lying underneath this joke. First, we as a society picture guards as stupid and at the bottom of the hierarchy, so why are these two guards having a really good philosophical debate on the transportation of this coconut? The second one, is the fact that King Arthur is suppose to be a king and this guards are actually questioning him and taking up him time. It is clearly understood that the king had complete power and could do away with someone if he wanted to. It is also understood that King Arthur is on a quest to find the Holy Grail and he is being caught up by these two guards, when he should be on his way. The urgency causes us to laugh because of his frustration.

As seen Humor is a social construct. What one member of a particular society might consider funny another  might not. It is crucial for everyone to know what is going on in order for the joke to be successful. I believe this is why stand up comedy is funny. They know and the audience knows they are there to make you laugh and they do this by picking at society. In a sense, stand up comedians make fun of the very thing that created them and we love it! On the other hand, parodies like this movie do the same thing and are funny because they take a serious situation and turn it into a comical one by distorting what we have constructed.