Humour and cultural barriers
Humor is about a complex tangle of perception and interpretation, knowledge and emotion, external and internal; individual ability, attitude, emotion, or prevailing mood permeated by community values and norms.
As an attitude, humor is marked by the enjoyment of contradictions that, randomly or too radically, can lead to confusion or even to horror. Controversies define much more general social themes, such as social power relations or the legitimacy of individuals. The power of humor lies in the social, moral, and political value, which people themselves ideologically load into it.
Identifying humor often relies on our knowledge of facts, culture, customs, values, etc. It arises from the the reader’s contextual knowledge and the situation, person, or thing perceived to be comic.
1. Incongruence
A surprising connection is built between two or more things.
Question: Why did the elephant paint its fingernails red?
Answer: So it could hide in the strawberry patch.
2. Breaking expectations, surprise
A surprising combination of things, a surprising punchline - the tip of a joke.
I believe in world peace and - Santa Claus.
3. Playing with words and their meanings (linguistic humor)
Illustrative metaphors, new meaning for old expression, new words, etc.
4. Confrontation, e.g. the wise is revealed as foolish, holy as lewd, great as small, living as machine.
5. Situational humor, e.g. misunderstandings or other fun situations
6. Repetition and mechanics, e.g., slavish adherence to a custom or rule in any situation.
7. Punching up
Amusement results from a sudden decrease in the value of an object and thus a sudden increase in an individual's sense of self-worth. Let's laugh at the stupidity of a president / teacher / police / doctor, for example.
8. Exaggeration, for example caricatures.
Example 1: humour among foreigners living in Helsinki (in finnish):
https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-2000008349686.html?share=1e9825a6ba7928f63abd1f2eeb3a55f6 (paywall)
Example 2: Finnish humour and memes: https://yle.fi/a/3-10120020
Example 3: various accents by a false translator
Example 4: Britains Got Talent finalist, Malawian comedian Daliso Chaponda talks about prejudices about African countries.
Consider cultural barriers through humor. Analyze humor about your own cultural or ethnic group with an example of your own choice (add a link / image, etc. according to the example. Mention the source!).
What is the example about? What does that example culturally reflect? What kind of target group is the humor of the example intended for?
Why did you choose this example? What does this mean for you personally?
How does that example look to other cultures and how would you explain this “joke” to someone from other culture? What cultural barriers do you recognize from the example?
When answering, start a new discussion and design a headline to your answer.
This exercise is graded as passed / not passed. Words will be counted, use 300-600 words. Notice that answer has to be long enough and answer to the given questions.