The first chapter in the Laughing Matters book is important because it gives us a little introduction as to how comedy affects the readers perception. Henri Bergson wrote a book called Laughter, and he is, supposedly, one of the most important persons in the comedy genre. I guess you could say that he opened people up to this broad field and paved the way for more people to do the kind of work that he was doing. He also thought that comedy allowed a sense of relief, or an absence of feeling, to entertain the reader.
In the first chapter of Comedy Writing, I found that one of the points of the chapter is the three MAP elements: material, audience, and performer. Also it was said that some of the benefits of writing humor are respect, remembrance, and rewards. There comes a point where some humor is more shocking than it is funny so it is important to stay within some reasonable boundaries.
In response to the Laughing Matters section, I thought that one of the main points was that comedy is used as kind of a relief to the audience. It is a tactic that can be used to relieve stress and allow someone to cheer there spirits. I, personally believe that….. it is important to read funny things because US Americans tend to not read things that are funny. They also talk about the expansion of comedy and it is amazing as to how extremely huge the field of comedy has gotten. Think about it, pretty much every single newspaper has some kind of comic strip or comic relief section. The number of comedians is ridiculous and they are able to make great careers doing it. Who would have though that Chuck Norris jokes would have gotten blown this much out of proportion? Who would have thought that every one in middle school would be telling “yo mama” jokes? The effect that comedy has on everyday life is tremendous. To change gears for a little bit, you can even enjoy comedy during tough times. I know that there has been at least one point in everyone’s life where they have been extremely upset and someone has either read, told, or acted out something so funny that even though you may be crying, or really mad at the world, you are still able to crack at least a little smirk.
In response to the Comedy writing section, I think that material, audience, and performer all have a substantial amount of influence when it comes to acquiring a successful piece of comedy. It is obviously important to keep your material appropriate for the age range that will be receiving the humor. It is common sense that infants and young kids don’t need to be hearing sexual jokes or profane language in the piece. The audience is extremely important to consider because a certain type of humor may appeal to a different audience. Again, it is not likely that a stand up comedian, on a world tour, would meander his way into Israel and start telling a bunch of Jewish jokes. And again the performer can also be a key element in the success of humor since chances the one performing the act of humor or writing it needs to have a little bit of charisma because if not he will not be successful and probably be either booed off the stage or his book will not sell. Maybe if he writes a comic strip then he would be that person that people make fun of because the joke was so dumb. As far as the three R’s, respect, remembrance, and rewards, go it is extremely important to realize that these are some of perks of comedy. People are more likely to remember something that they tie emotion to; and if something is funny then they will laugh and remember it. Respect comes along with success for the most part as long as they do not cross the line. And of course there are rewards to comedy because people will receive considerable recognition if they create a nice piece of comedy. Everyone loves them just a little bit of comedy.
