{"id":254,"date":"2010-06-18T12:45:28","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T12:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/?p=254"},"modified":"2010-06-18T12:45:41","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T12:45:41","slug":"not-like-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/2010\/06\/18\/not-like-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Not like that!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just read a very good book called On Humour<\/em> by Simon Critchley. It came out in 2002, and it\u2019s been reprinted numerous times, so it doesn\u2019t need any help from me. It\u2019s an erudite account of the philosophical questions raised by humour, and if that sounds a bit dull, it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s engagingly written and even witty in places.<\/p>\n

But the book does have a problem which lurks under the facade of erudition and wit \u2013 it has much more to say about theories of humour than about humour itself. Perhaps that\u2019s forgivable given that it\u2019s a philosophy book, but as Critchley himself argues, \u2018Any study of humour…requires fieldwork and detailed contextualization. Finally, it is only as good as its examples.\u2019[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

So what examples does Critchley draw on?<\/p>\n

The truth is they\u2019re all rather highbrow. The comic literature of the past gets a fair amount of attention, with Sterne and Swift getting a fair few mentions. As for more recent examples, he seems to be a big fan of that well-known contemporary comic novelist, er, Will Self. To be fair, I\u2019ve only read one of Self\u2019s novels, but although I thoroughly enjoyed it, I don\u2019t remember laughing much. I reckon if you asked pretty much anyone for their top ten examples of contemporary laughtermakers, they\u2019d be pretty unlikely to mention Will Self, except at a stretch possibly in the context of his former role as a panellist on Vic and Bob\u2019s Shooting Stars<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I might also add that the examples \u2013 which the study is only as good as after all \u2013 seem to be outnumbered by the references to theory. Hobbes, Freud, and Mary Douglas are much bigger characters than Sterne, Swift or, er, Will Self.<\/p>\n

What slightly annoys me is that the theory and the highbrow sources get treated with respect, whereas the few examples of popular comedy are treated fairly shoddily. On p.21, for example, Critchley cites seven gags. Whereas Freud\u2019s and Sterne\u2019s work are worthy of a proper citation, with full publication details being given in an endnote, here the only information we\u2019re given is that the gags are \u2018From various Marx Brothers\u2019 scripts, Peter Chelsom\u2019s wonderful 1994 film Funny Bones<\/em>, and Samuel Beckett\u2019s Endgame<\/em> (Faber, London, 1958).\u2019<\/p>\n

So apparently, Beckett\u2019s worthy of full publication details (although oddly, not a page reference), Chelsom\u2019s film at least gets named, but the poor old Marx Brothers aren\u2019t worth bothering with \u2013 in spite of being some of the few professional comedians mentioned in the book. Tommy Cooper fares worse than this later in the book, where a gag of his described as \u2018great\u2019 is quoted without so much as an endnote.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to single Simon Critchley out for particular criticism here, because it seems to me that these choices are fairly typical in an academic context. Theory and accepted canonical works are treated with respect, but popular culture is treated casually or often simply ignored. I have found that criticism of my own work is often along the lines of, \u2018This is all very well, but how can you possibly write about this without mentioning Barthes\/ Schechner\/ semiotics\/ whoever\/ whatever?\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if the theory \u2013 which only exists to help us understand things \u2013 is more important than the subject it\u2019s applied to. Of course, the opposite will almost always be true. Shakespeare will always be more significant and brilliant than Shakespearean scholars. By the same token, I\u2019m quite proud of the books and papers I\u2019ve written about comic performance, but I won\u2019t make the mistake of thinking that they\u2019re more important than the performers whose work I analyse. I\u2019ll never be more significant and brilliant than Richard Pryor, Ross Noble, or Gracie Fields.<\/p>\n

If you pay close attention to the examples you\u2019re looking at, you\u2019d be surprised what comes out. For example, one of the jokes cited on p.19 goes like this:<\/p>\n

\u2018Have you lived in Blackpool all your life?\u2019, \u2018Not yet.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great gag, and my guess is that it\u2019s the one he took from Funny Bones<\/em>. However, it\u2019s actually a much older gag than that. It often cropped up in the variety theatres of the early 20th<\/sup> Century, in sketches and routines by the likes of Albert Burdon, Collinson and Dean, and Sandy Powell.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that these three comedy acts are given a proper endnote, giving full publication details.<\/p>\n

Respect!<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Simon Critchley, On Humour<\/em>, Abingdon: Routledge, 2002, p.66<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> See sketches and routines cited in Roger Wilmut, Kindly Leave the Stage! The Story of Variety 1919-1960<\/em>, London: Methuen, 1985, p.41 (Albert Burdon), p.56 (Collinson and Dean), and p.103 (Sandy Powell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just read a very good book called On Humour by Simon Critchley. It came out in 2002, and it\u2019s been reprinted numerous times, so it doesn\u2019t need any help from me. It\u2019s an erudite account of the philosophical questions raised by humour, and if that sounds a bit dull, it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s engagingly written … Continue reading “Not like that!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1187,1150,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions\/257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pandora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}