Laugh-at and Laugh-with humor: a conversation about what's funny

Hi

I'm not quite sure whether to post this here, or in the Writer's Block forum. Mods are welcome to move my post if they think it's better suited for WB.

I don't much like comedy movies and TV shows. The few humourous novels I've read (a little early Pratchett, Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse) have entertained me well enough, but I don't seek out that kind of material in written form, and in audiovisual entertainment media, it doesn't work for me.

Except sometimes it does. And I think it's fairly identifiable why: I like laughing *with* the protagonists or POV-characters, but not *at* them.

Pratchett and Adams tend to have laugh-at type characters, whereas with Wodehouse, you laugh with Jeeves but at Wooster (and at all his silly friends, rivals and relatives).

Likewise with fictional con artists, like in Hustle or The Sting, or the Stainless Steel Rat, you laugh with the protagonists. They're highly capable and frequently exert masterful control of their surroundings.

So what is comedy? Is laugh-with not comedy? I certainly find myself chuckling a lot when I watch Hustle.

Are these two wildly different kinds of comedy, in terms of who writes/creates them (one who writes one kind tends not to write the other kind) and who enjoys them (limited fan overlap)?

Or is there a third kind of comedy I've overlooked. Or isn't laugh-with comedy at all? I'm inclined to think that maybe it isn't. But then if it isn't comedy, what is it? It has to be something.

I think laugh-with is comedy. And I also make the same distinction you do (and tilt in the same direction — I find laugh-at comedy is often too uncomfortable to be really funny to me; I find it too mean.)

But traditional comedy, which is very popular in movies and TV, *is* laugh-at, featuring laughably incompetent protagonists. So I think you've misunderstood my distinction.

No, I don't think it's a misunderstanding. I think that it's simply that we're in the minority. Lots of my friends love laugh-at comedy, and some of them truly don't see why I don't like it.

Laugh-at is also, I suspect, much easier to write. All the author has to do is do things to the character. To write Laugh-with, the author has to have a much more complete understanding of how that character thinks and feels because the humor comes from within their head. Plus, the author has to succeed at bringing the audience inside the character's head. And then to top it all off, he has to convince the audience to accept that character's view of what's funny and what isn't.

Some of my examples are from television and movies, where there is no "inside the protagonist's head".

So I think it's rather that the script writer has to create a shared sense with the viewer, of appreciation of the protagonist's superior intellect.

So maybe this is a fairly narrow genre, limited to what one might refer to as "con artists and rogues" in the broadest possible sense of the word?

That said, I think it's dangerously easy for us to snark at traditional comedy because we don't like it. In reality it is probably non-trivial to write good comedy for the page or the screen.

No, it's still somewhat inside the protagonist's head. Tv and movies both can be done so that what we see, we see in through a filter of the protagonist's viewpoint. the way shots are framed, lit, paced, and scored are subtle, but we're still being led into seeing the world the way the protagonist (or viewpoint character) does. "Shared sense of viewership" is a good way of putting it.

Laugh-at comedy stands outside the characters and say's "Look at those people. Aren't they silly?" Laugh-with stands inside one of more of them and says "This is what I see. Isn't it absurd?"

edited 14th Sep '11 11:57:37 AM by Madrugada

I think I partially agree with you on the inside/outside thing, and I'm not sure it's fruitful to quibble over details of interpretation.

But is this alternative kind of comedy limited to smart rogues and con artists? Or can you or others think of examples that fall outside of those boxes? I mean as a genre. It's possible to have instances of this in almost any kind of fiction; I'm talking about fiction that mainly does this kind of thing.

Genres that do it consistently? Hmmm. Interesting question. I'd never considered it...

I do find it interesting, which is why it puzzles me that no one but you have chimed in with opinions or suggestions.

Perhaps I chose a bad topic name?

I'll change the name to something like " "Laugh-at" humor and "Laugh-with" humor: a conversation", how about that? If that doesn't stir up some interest we can try moving it to Writer's Block.

Going back to the previous question, outside of lovable rogues and con artists, cynical characters in general can provide Laugh-with humor. But I think that the big limiter is that there's a very fine line between Laugh-with humor and cynicism and bitter self-superiority. The humor they see and share with us needs to maintain a thread of childlike delight or amusement.

Dorothy L Sayers managed flashes of it with Lord Peter Wimsey, I think, at least in Murder Must Advertise and Five Red Herrings.

This is an interesting topic, but I'm not sure what to contribute.

Just so I can get a clearer picture, would you consider Monty Python And The Holy Grail laugh-at or laugh-with? Army Of Darkness? Looney Tunes?

Madrugada, you're welcome to change the name of this thread, as per your discretion. I'm really horny for more eyes on it, simply because the subject matter is of great interest to me (and also strikes me as being well within the scope of the analysis approach that TV Tropes tends to favour).

Hm. I've never thought about this, but I think you're right in dividing the two types of comedy. Personally, I find both quite enjoyable, for different reasons. Laugh-at comedies, like Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother and anything from American Pie are a good way to relax, disengage, and watch the zany antics of the characters in front of you. I don't particularly like Cringe Comedy, though because I find the situations to be incredibly moronic, and the situations are too embarrassing to be funny. The schadenfreude is something I like to indulge in, and it can be fun to just see where everything is going and laugh. Laugh-with comedies, like South Park (only example I can really think of at the moment) on the other hand, are funny because they're cerebral; you're still laughing at the dumber characters, but the humor comes from the fact that you have a sane character around to notice it. It's almost a Lampshade Hanging, of a sort; you're supposed to identify with the Only Sane Man of the cast, and laugh at how understandable his or her reaction to the idiocy around him is.

edited 28th Sep '11 12:38:49 AM by tropetown

I haven't watched "Army of Darkness", but the trend I'm going after is highly competent protagonists (who perhaps have to be con men or rogues, although I'm not sure of this yet) that somehow fool or trick people or otherwise prevail, and so we laugh withthe protagonist at those people whom they defeat (or steamroll). Some kind of trickster military leader could also work.

"Loony Tunes" and "Monty Python" are both examples of very silly protagonists, so it seems to me that we laugh at them, even if in some cases such as Bugs Bunny, they are also tricksters, so that we also get to laugh at those they con. But still tricksters with a highly idiosyncratic and clownish style.

There's also a certain style required for highly capable con men to be funny. The "Mission Impossible" show isn't funny, for instance, even though it's in many ways very similar to "Hustle". I laugh less when watching "The Sting" than when I watch "Hustle", but there's still elements of comedy in "The Sting", whereas when they appear in "Mission Impossible" it's incidental.

And I think Madrugada is one to something with the bitter self-superiority. The Stainless Steel Rat, in those two novels I've read (I only really liked the very first one), is very superior but not bitter.