Types of Humour (and HP examples)

[Hillman, Lee]

No: HPFGUIDX 34405

Hi, ho, it's Gwenny-the-pedant here, bringing you another of my fascinating
treatises on something that has nothing to do with what I should be doing
right now!
 
Cindy asked: "So here's the question: what are the types of humor? Does
anyone know, and
are there examples of these categories in canon?"
 
Fret not, Cindy, I have decided to procrastinate while answering your
questions! This is all out of my cagey memory, so I hope others will chime
in with further breakdowns if this email sparks them. Also, I'll be
supplying examples from HP as I can think of them, but pardon me if this
explanation uses performance as its framework. As an actor, this is how I
learned this stuff.
 
First off, there are of course two main branches of comedy: High and Low.
 
High comedy is generally more cerebral in nature. That is, the humour comes
from shared intelligence and an assumption that the audience is paying close
attention to the words being spoken. Low comedy is generally more physical
in nature, and often plays to, interestingly enough, the lowest common
denominators of human frailty.
 
So, within these two categories, there are different "types" of humour. I'll
start with the Low Comic Humour classifications first. And note, these
aren't necessarily "official," just convenient labels:
 
1. Physical humour. This is often confused with slapstick, since they're
very similar. But purely physical humour is still *realistic* humour. The
best example I can think of in general is an episode of "Frasier" that aired
last season, featuring Niles trying to iron a pair of pants. If you've seen
it, you know what I'm talking about--unfortunately, I can't describe it well
enough and it would take too long. Suffice to say that physical humour sets
up situations where the audience sees something in the physical world (or is
clued in to that object or person) and the joke builds on how that object
affects the people interacting with it. There aren't many instances of
physical humour in HP, probably because it is so visual in nature. I suppose
the Canary Cream would count here.
 
2. Slapstick. Slapstick is different from physical humour, because by its
nature it involved the interactions of people with each other or with things
in a non-realistic way. It is exaggerated, and it is generally violent
(physical humour alone need not be violent). Slapstick is a good way to
categorize things like Snape blasting Lockhart across the room with his
spell, or perhaps a better example is when the kids curse each other. This
is Three Stooges stuff. Pies in the face, things like that. Non-realistic. 
 
3. Scatological humour. Scatological humour is about the lowest most comedy
gets. It's any joke based on a bodily function, the more embarrassing, the
better. So Ron's line about "Uranus" is a scatological joke, but flatulence,
dungbombs, Wormtail's insult to Snape on the map, etc.--these are all based
on scatological sources as well. A great example is when Harry's wand gets
stuck in the troll's nose in PS/SS. (Troll bogies!) HP is actually peppered
with this stuff, which is probably not an accident, because kids at that age
think scatological humour is the best stuff going. Scatological humour can
be either physical or verbal, but it's usually classified as low.
 
4. Low sexual humour. Sex, being such a central part of life, actually gets
a place in both High and Low comedy. It's how it's handled that's the
difference. Ron's "Uranus" line could get itself a double entry here,
because it's also a proposition of sorts. Generally, we haven't seen too
much low sexual humour in the books. An outside example would be any
instance of a man winding up with his nose inside a buxom woman's cleavage
(something I've had to do in no less than 4 shows in 2 years!), because it's
both clearly sexual in nature and completely obvious. The kids speculating
about Hagrid and Maxime might apply as low sexual humour, but I'm not sure
about that.
 
 
High Comedy
 
1. While we're on the subject of sex, high sexual comedy generally involves
romantic tension. So the entire chapter "The Unexpected Task" in GoF would
count, especially his conversation with Cho. It's not the crude sort of
nudge, nudge, wink, wink humour of low sexual comedy. It's lighter. It has
more to do with the knowledge of the audience that they know something the
characters don't, or that the characters do know but are trying to work
around. 
 
2. One-upmanship. This can slip into low comedy pretty quickly, especially
as insults become less about wit and more about "Yo' Mamma." But one-upping
a rival is generally a high form of comedy. Draco's snappy comments and
Harry's comment about Dudley learning the days of the week generally fall
into this category. Again, it's verbal in nature, for the most part, and
it's about establishing a pecking order. See again the insults on the
Marauder's Map.
 
3. Timing. This is a hard one to qualify, since physical routines, by
definition a low comic form, rely on timing or they don't work. But in high
comedy, timing refers to the drawing-room comedy complications such as
"who's behind the curtain" and one character leaving a room just as the
other one enters. Timing humour occurs when characters know things other
characters don't, or when by accident of entrance/exit/getting caught, a
character is either present or absent while important/funny stuff is going
on. Technically Snape's getting knocked out in the shack might qualify, but
not really, since it's an example of timing for tension. Neville's meeting
with Harry by the humpbacked witch is sort of an example. Snape popping up
behind the kids every time they're insulting him is another.
 
4. Farce. This is one of the most famous forms of comedy, especially in the
form of mistaken identity. Twins who look nothing alike, but whom no one can
tell apart. Long lost family members. Extraordinary circumstances. Farce
operates on the confusion and contrast of appearance with reality. Much of
Rowling's descriptive humour involves farce. The Dursleys, for example.
Vernon's outspoken opinions are very much to be taken as a farce, as is
Dudley's tyrannical example of a spoiled brat. Farce is over-the-top,
melodramatic humour. Farce also moves up and down the scale from high to
low, but generally the audience has to be paying attention for the payoff,
so I'm including it as a high form. Quibble away, it's my essay.
 
5. Abstract or off-beat humour. This type of high comedy takes advantage of
the non-sequitur, or the bizarre twist. Dumbledore is the personification of
off-beat humour. From the scar shaped like a map of the Underground to the
school alma mater to the socks in the mirror to the room filled with really
excellent chamber pots, Dumbledore is always a little unbalanced. But funny.
 
6. High-reference. "It's not obscure, it's high-reference." Like abstract
humour, this is only going to appeal to the people who get it. It's humour
based on a common frame of reference, and depending on how mainstream the
reference, the more people will get it. An HP example would be the "Salem
Witches' Institute," which is a joke on a couple levels. Another is the
reference to Cockroach Cluster, which as someone recently pointed out, is a
Monty Python reference. Those who think that Lockhart is based on that poncy
designer fellow (Laurence ???) are crediting Rowling with a high-reference
caricature (not saying they're wrong, just who knows?).
 
7. Puns and wordplay. This is perhaps the highest of high comedy. Witty and
quick comments or elabourately set up shaggy dogs, when high comedy is based
on the cerebral, there can be nothing higher than jokes that rely on a
facility for language. Rowling liberally sprinkles puns all through the
books (and we use them around here a lot, too). Anything ending in "Alley"
is a pun on the adverbial form of the word used. Her puns come out less in
dialogue than in description, however. Wordplay by itself is different than
the aforementioned one-upmanship, because one-upping is by definition
insulting; wordplay need not be. Snape likes to play with words, and so does
McGonagall, actually. Fred and George look for loopholes in language, but
that's not quite the same thing. Here's another one. "I'm taking Sirius
Black seriously. Seriously."
 
 
And that's it. I think I hit all the major forms, or that at least, anything
I missed sorta falls into one category or another. Now, it's important to
remember that not everyone likes every kind of comedy, and that even people
who generally claim, for example, not to like slapstick may still find a
particular instance of it to be humourous. But JKR seems to represent most
of the types pretty interchangeably, as appropriate, which I think is
another explanation for her widespread appeal.
 
Any thoughts? Additions? Refutations?
 
Gwen