The Secret of Seinfeld's Humor: The Significance of the Insignificant
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Seinfeld and Philosophy
Here's the entry that I'd meant to put up a few days ago
------------

What determines what we find funny? Why do we cry in certain situations? That's the premise of essay 11 by Cuban Jorge E. Gracia from Seinfeld and Philophy. (The title of the essay is the title of this post)

His main point, and mine as well, is concerning what makes us laugh. He writes, "we laugh at something because we see in it the significance of the insignificant." Basically, he means that comedy points out things that we usually overlook in our daily lives as paltry details. His main example in the essay is the episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Outing". This is the episode where the four main characters are in the diner when they notice that two women behind them are listening in on their conversation. They decide to play a trick on them by pretending that Jerry and George are gay. It turns on them, however, when one of the girls turns out to be a reporter who's supposed to interview Jerry.

We laugh as we see all these homosexual stereotypes played out in their heterosexual relationships. The entire time they are trying to deny that they are gay they keep ending every sentence with "not that there's anything wrong with that!" This one phrase is what makes the show hilarious instead of just funny. The thesis of Garcia's essay is that the hypocrisy revealed in their vehement denials to being gay while saying that nothing is wrong with it draws attention to the fact that we do this in our lives and that it's not quite as trivial as we make it out to be. When the article finally comes out, even their parents are mortified while still saying, "not that there's anything wrong with that!"

I think that's what makes comedies based on stereotypes so funny. It makes us realize the significance of stereotypes and how potent these thoughts actually are. This is what makes them so funny. Additionally, the fact that everyone usually knows at least one person who actually meets the stereotype makes it funny. For example, although we all logically know that stereotypes don't hold for all people who doesn't know a black person who likes chicken, a hispanic who eats rice, beans and pork, or an anglo with a pickup truck.

(Warning movie spoilers below)
I'd now like to give some examples that have come to my mind since reading this essay. First of all, there are the movies "National Security" and "Rush Hour". What I like a lot about "National Security" is the fact that not only does it use stereotypes for humor, but it uses reverse-stereotypes. What do I mean by reverse-stereotypes? I mean purposely having a character act in the opposite way as that he should act stereotypically. For example, Lawrence is in fact the owner of the car he's trying to get into in the beginning of the movie. Also, the white character's girlfriend is black. Things like this force us to realize that the stereotypes don't always hold. I think we find them funny because we get caught by surprise. I remember once hearing that how funny a joke is depends upon how much of a surprise the punchline is. The Rush Hour movies just have tons of stereotypes in them that are used comically to further exaggerate the differences in the American and Chinese cultures.

Finally there is the following website. Again, I offer the website as an example of something that's funny because it exploits stereotypes. I don't think that the authors of the site mean any harm or anything other than using stereotypes to make us aware of how silly they can be. Here's the website: http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com

Jerry and Socrates: The Examined Life?
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Seinfeld and Philosophy
This essay whose name is the same as this post was the first essay in the Seinfeld and Philosophy book.
---

I'm not going to write too much about this essay because it wasn't that involved. Some of the others are better. Basically the whole point of the essays that Jerry and Socrates are the same since they ask questions that make us think about the everyday things in life. Things that we don't normally think about. Other than that there isn't too much to say about this one. I just wanted to mention it to get it out of the way and write about each one.