reflection 2

Elizabeth Spivey
January 22, 2009
Reflection 2
English 102


Since I am a pre-med psychology major I was very interested in tonight’s reading. Everyone knows what laughing is, but I liked reading about the actual science behind a laugh. The paragraph in Laughing Matters that discussed the limbic system and the neurological process of a laugh was very informative. Also something that I had never heard before was the laughter is caused by the release of tension. In other words laughter is figuring out that something that you thought could be potentially harmful is not harmful at all. The example of the baby seeing a big, dark, hairy creature standing over them rings true to my heart. When I was a little girl I was deathly afraid of tall men with dark hair. That was unfortunate because almost every man in my family is tall with dark hair. I would cry and hide in my bedroom during family functions. Finally the men rallied together and found out that I had a love of M&Ms and tickle fights. Once the men were able to make me laugh with candy bribes and tickle fights I realized that they posed absolutely no threat.
I loved the section in Laughing Matters about Patch Adams. I’ve seen the movie a hundred times and even though the book makes fun of it I think it’s a wonderful movie (a little sad at the end though). “Comic relief is a major way for happy folk to dissipate pain. In a healthier world, humor would be a way of life. People would be funny as a rule, not an exception. One of the best aids in the transition from a ‘heavy’ to a ‘light’ existence is to open up the comedian in oneself” is a quote from Patch Adams. I agree with this theory one hundred percent. I think that the world would be a much happier place if people just let go and made fun of life. Too often our society is so completely wound up in the seriousness of life that no one can enjoy it. Everyone should be able to make a joke but it seems to be a trying task for way too many people.
The first reason for laughter that Comedy Writing Secrets gives is surprise. After reading through some to the examples in the book I realized that that reason is completely true. No one wants to know the end of a joke because it just is not as funny. This happens with funny movies too. Take Knocked Up for example. If you watched Knocked Up once a week for a year the jokes would become mundane and it would be hard to get a chuckle out of you let alone a full blown laugh. Leading the audience off track right before the punch line is genius. Because then not only do they think the joke was funny but they also laugh at their own stupidity for thinking they knew what was coming.

Question to the class:
-Do you think that all laughter is a release of tension after finding out that something is not threatening?