Ｑ38.What is essential for humor?

Ａ. A trick is essential for humor.<br>
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　　In comedy acts or comedic skits, if a person guesses the end, the laughter decreases by half. If you can predict the end, the humor also decreases. Why is this?<br>
　　The people who can predict the outcome of a trick are the trick's performer and the person watching. Spectators feel guilty which suppresses the humor because they knew the outcome but didn't stop the performer. Being able to predict the outcome makes you stand in the performer's position.<br>
　　I don't know whether it is done deliberately or unconsciously, but we can use complicated techniques to make others laugh such as making boring jokes in succession to temporarily subduing the audience and then the audience laughs at the comedian's awkwardness.<br>
　　Making a retort after a bad joke can make people laugh because the comedian making the bad joke becomes the trick's recipient. Comedians such as Matsumura Kunihiko or Murakami Shoji use this technique.<br>
　　Most funny things are in some way an act of failure, but we do not laugh unless we understand why it failed. If you see someone slip and fall on a snow-packed road you may feel it is funny, but if you see someone float as if weightless and tumble on the asphalt road it would look like a supernatural phenomenon and surprise you so you would not laugh.<br>
　　 In order to feel something is funny we must understand the cause of the failure, therefore if we don't know why a failure occurred we won't feel it is funny.<br>
　　This is because not knowing places the person on the trick's recipient side. The recipients don't understand what is happening at the time. They feel that they are taken in by the trick.<br>
　　We would not laugh if the person who falls down is covered in a blood and stops moving. We do not laugh for something serious. This is because in cases like these the strength of different emotions such as fear or surprise drive away humor.<br>
　　Also, we do not laugh if we stand on the same side as the recipient of the laughter. It is nearly impossible to laugh if it is your child that is being laughed at. The reason for this is because we feel we are taken in by the trick too.<br>
　　However, we can laugh with the trickster if we are in relax situation in which we don't need to take responsibility even if we are laughed at. Of course, we do not laugh in situations which make us responsible for the failure.<br>
　　If we are laughed at but free of responsibility we are able to laugh because we are able to see the trick from the spectator's viewpoint.<br>
　　With this we can explain the logic of puns.<br>
　　Puns can be divided into two groups. The first group is puns that everyone admires, says, "wow!", and then laughs after hearing it. The second one is puns that everyone corrects with laughter and say, "That's not right!"<br>
　　The first type of puns are an intentionally mistaken remark. An intentionally mistaken remark is a kind of trick. This type of pun shows what the recipient says as being caught in the trick.<br>
　　The second type of puns express the response of the trick's recipient. The recipient is shown as still misunderstanding, in other words, this type of pun expresses the confusion and shock after a trick is received.<br>
　　Puns can be called tricks with words.<br>
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■What is the structure of humor? <br>
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Humor is constructed of three parts: a performer, recipient, and audience.<br>
　　There are some interesting phenomena derived from the complexity of humor. We can nonchalantly say something offensive about a lover or friend, but if others say something offensive about them we become angry. This is because your lover and friends are on the same side as you. Therefore, saying something offensive about your own lover to someone else is the same as making others laugh by telling them about your own failure.<br>
　　These are both tricks with words and false attacks, so they are usually spoken with a smile and never with an unpleasant expression. If the person's expression is really unpleasant it is a real attack, something actually offensive.<br>
　　However, if someone agrees with something offensive you say about yourself, it is the same as that person saying something offensive about you so it makes you feel unpleasant.<br>
　　Saying something offensive about ourselves or those close to us is humor to make others laugh. We don't ask for the other person's confirmation or opinion.<br>
　　This type of humor appears in a lot of situations. For example, a nickname sounds humorous. This is because a nickname is a weak attack.<br>
　　Group specific jargon sometimes includes weak attacks. Taxi drivers call long distance customers, "ghosts", because they are very rare, but this word, "ghost" includes a slight attack.<br>
　　A false attack which makes humor is difficult to distinguish from a real attack. We must judge by taking the other person's feelings into account. Otherwise you would end up sexually harassing a woman though you intended to make a joke. This is because even if an attack is a false one, the recipient won't be happy.<br>
　　Therefore, comedians such as Down-town, and Akashiya Sanma sometimes make women in the TV program with them cry. They make the audience laugh with abnormally aggressive attacks which are only permitted due to TV's virtual world effect. Viewers recognize that these are false attacks because it is a TV program. However, some young celebrities which aren't used to it don't feel that it is a false attack, so they sometimes cry because they aren't watching but in the place.<br>
　　Superiors shouldn't use attack style humor to their subordinates. Since humor can only deepen the trust between people when they can both tease each other, so if you use attack style humor towards subordinates who cannot return it, it will become harassment. You should use humor with friends where social position is not a factor. A false attack to superiors is satire, to friends is humor, and to subordinates is harassment.<br>
　　Satire is similar to humor but does not have the effect of enhancing the relationship with the superior who is the recipient, and superiors don't return humor to subordinates. Satire's function and effect is different from humor.<br>
　　If you want to become a humorous person, you should make false or weak attacks about a third party, or act like you are perplexed as a recipient. Furthermore, it should be an unpredictable yet understandable act for audiences.<br>
　　Humor needs three elements; a performer, recipient, and audience.<br>
　　If you feel that a person slipping on the frozen road is funny, the performer is weather, the recipient is the person who falls, and the audience is you.<br>
　　If you make people laugh by telling them about your failure, you are the performer and also the recipient. In social satire the recipient is society.<br>
　　There is a pattern in some TV shows where the main character that looks like a common person is actually very competent but his or her friends and acquaintances don't know this. One example is Nakamura Mondo in "Revenge-assassins" (Hissatsu-Shigotonin in Japanese). The reason why this is interesting is that this fulfills humor's conditions; the performer is the main character or author, the recipient is his enemies and those around him, and the audience is the viewers.<br>
　　In manzai, a kind of comedy act famous in Japan, there are usually two comedians, one's role is boke (the fool) and the other's role is tsukkomi (the retorter), in order to fulfill humor's three elements. The performer is tsukkomi, the recipient is boke, and the audience is the people in the audience.<br>
　　 Therefore, if you want to be a humorous person, you should first be aware these three elements, and practice to find the right intensity for false attacks. The most critical point is that the performer and the recipient, the comedians on the stage, don't laugh during the performance. The only people who laugh are the audiences. Many people mistakenly make the person they want to make laugh become the recipient, so you should be very careful of this.<br>
　　Humor appears when you are aware that you are a coincidental eyewitness, not the trick's performer or recipient. Here trick means children's pranks and adult's jokes.<br>
　　Adults have a triangular framework for recognizing humor, which consists of a performer, recipient, and audience. You feel something is funny when you recognize the situation and realize you are part of the audience.<br>
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■What is humor's value in evolution? <br>
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Humor is a technique to avoid conflict through making people equal.<br>
　　Humor is a branch of interest. Humor is the emotion that appears when interest's interpersonal actions are appraised. However, that it excludes the part that causes guilt is a point of complexity.<br>
　　Only animals that require highly social relationships have humor.<br>
　　Animals which live in groups have to share their territory with each other, hence a dominance hierarchy in which the alpha resolves conflicts. Human beings added humor into this. Humor allows territories to overlap without a hierarchy through false attacks on each other. Humor means equality.<br>
　　If someone is so sensitive about being attacked that they interpret weak or false attacks as real attacks, that person's relationships will not go smoothly. If someone cannot make a close relationship with others, cannot trust others thoroughly, that person may not have experienced enough pranks during his or her childhood.<br>
　　Only human beings have humor, but some apes may have humor.<br>
　　When a gorilla, which was taught sign language, was asked the color of a white towel it answered that the towel was red. It gave the same answer even when asked many times. However, when the researchers looked more closely they found a red thread on the towel. This behavior might be humor as a false attack if this is considered an assertion of the researcher's oversight.