Chapter 45

This chapter deals with the ideas of William Fry, a Stanford psychiatrist who has done important work on the subject of humor. He argues that humor usually involves some sort of a frame. This frame indicates that the comedian does not really mean all of the nasty things he says in his jokes. Humor differs from many other things, as it involves a punch line. Punch lines are essential and there are no rules surrounding them. A punch line can consist of anything from words, sounds, movements, gestures, an expression, or even a situation. In fact, jokes can be defined as short stories with a punch line. Another term defined in the chapter is metacommunication, which is communication about communication. Through metacommunication, people who go to see a comedy know what to expect and not become angry over a comedians use of certain jokes. Sigmund Freud agreed with this as he argued that humor involved masked or hidden aggression. In this case, the humor prevents our superego from taking what was said seriously. On the other side of the argument, Aristotle and Hobbes believed that humor is based more on a sense of superiority and we laugh at people who have been made fun of. Berger goes on to discuss his own work on humor, which focuses on what makes people laugh and the 45 building blocks to humor.