Monday, January 08, 2007
Infant jokes
Some suggest that laughter is a kind of nervous response, bubbling out of us when we experience fear despite being in no actual danger. The things we fear in social settings are the perfect catalysts for this, which is why most of our humor is about sex, racism, politics, bodily functions or stupidity—all the things we are anxious about blundering over in social situations.
Even such thin jokes as puns can be explained by this anxiety theory, because puns reveal instabilities in our language. Any joke that depends on shift, imbalance or incongruity is covered, since our brains must be wired to scan for these as possible indications of a threat.
This fear theory of laughter also explains the jokes infants enjoy. My boy is eight now, but I remember the two jokes he liked as an infant, and I am sure they will be familiar to anyone reading this. One of them might be thought of as crude and the other sophisticated, but they both play on situations so primal that we already fear them just weeks from birth.
Both jokes are, of necessity, physical comedy. The crude one goes like this: with baby lying on back, adult nuzzles belly while making growling sounds. "Oh shit," baby thinks, "I'm being eaten by a wolf! Oh, no, it's just Daddy."
My dad kept this joke up until I was ten years old, by which time the basis for the humor had shifted. By then it rested solely on our mutual awareness of the absurd incongruity between my soft, delicate skin and the coarse sandpaper of his unshaven face. He even had a name for this: a schwattermoggle. This, I gather, is German for, "Ha! Watch as I torment a helpless child."
The sophisticated joke also has a name, one you will effortlessly supply as soon as I describe the joke. Adult makes eye contact with baby. Adult suddenly secludes eyes behind hands or natural barrier. Adult reveals eyes again and simultaneously rejoins eye contact.
Baby thinks, "I am joined in the world by others of like consciousness to mine. Oops, no I'm not! I'm alone—alone in a world empty of consciousness other than mine! Oh, wait—the eyes are back again." ¶ 11:22 AM
Even such thin jokes as puns can be explained by this anxiety theory, because puns reveal instabilities in our language. Any joke that depends on shift, imbalance or incongruity is covered, since our brains must be wired to scan for these as possible indications of a threat.
This fear theory of laughter also explains the jokes infants enjoy. My boy is eight now, but I remember the two jokes he liked as an infant, and I am sure they will be familiar to anyone reading this. One of them might be thought of as crude and the other sophisticated, but they both play on situations so primal that we already fear them just weeks from birth.
Both jokes are, of necessity, physical comedy. The crude one goes like this: with baby lying on back, adult nuzzles belly while making growling sounds. "Oh shit," baby thinks, "I'm being eaten by a wolf! Oh, no, it's just Daddy."
My dad kept this joke up until I was ten years old, by which time the basis for the humor had shifted. By then it rested solely on our mutual awareness of the absurd incongruity between my soft, delicate skin and the coarse sandpaper of his unshaven face. He even had a name for this: a schwattermoggle. This, I gather, is German for, "Ha! Watch as I torment a helpless child."
The sophisticated joke also has a name, one you will effortlessly supply as soon as I describe the joke. Adult makes eye contact with baby. Adult suddenly secludes eyes behind hands or natural barrier. Adult reveals eyes again and simultaneously rejoins eye contact.
Baby thinks, "I am joined in the world by others of like consciousness to mine. Oops, no I'm not! I'm alone—alone in a world empty of consciousness other than mine! Oh, wait—the eyes are back again." ¶ 11:22 AM
