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We're all aware that there are stereotypes. The British are sharply sarcastic, the Americans are great at physical comedy, and the Japanese love puns. But is humour actually driven by culture to any meaningful extent? Couldn't it be more universal – or depend largely on the individual?
There are some good reasons to believe that there is such a thing as a national sense of humour. But let's start with what we actually have in common, by looking at the kinds of humour that most easily transcend borders.
Certain kinds of humour are more commonly used in circumstances that are international and multicultural in nature – such as airports. When it comes to onoard entertainment, airlines, in particular, are fond of humour that transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries for obvious reasons. Slapstick humour and the bland but almost universally tolerable social transgressions and faux pas of Mr Bean permit a safe, gentle humour that we can all relate to. Also, the silent situational dilemmas of the Canadian Just for Laughs hidden camera reality television show has been a staple option for airlines for many years.
These have a broad reach and are probably unlikely to offend most people. Of course, an important component in their broad appeal is that they are not really based on language.
Humor is no laughing matter. Levity can kill. But can it also bind us together?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 05 2017, @06:43PM (1 child)
particularly the type of which Mr Bean is an extreme case.
See, to each his (or her) own, but I don't know what Mr. Bean is getting all the hate here. I live in and grew up in the U.S. I first encountered Mr. Bean when my blue-collar non-Anglophile forklift-mechanic neighbor told me he had randomly happened upon "the funniest show ever" on PBS one day. (He was not a frequent viewer of PBS; he was just channel surfing.) We watched the next episode together and laughed our asses off.
Mr. Bean is very basic at its root -- absurdist physical comedy. He's also an adult who acts like a child. I showed some episodes to my 6-year-old a while back, and he laughed more than just about any comedy he's ever watched -- because Mr. Bean looks like a grown-up but behaves like all the "bad" things kids are warned about, as well as failing to recognize basic social norms (again, things kids struggle with). Back in the days when physical comedy and slapstick was more prevalent in American comedy (which it was for generations), I think Mr. Bean would have fared better.
And Americans are afraid of embarrassment too. If anything, I think Mr. Bean fails for some Americans because it's often too quiet and slow. American physical comedy often tends to be raucous and crazed. Fawlty Towers probably does better with more Americans when it escalates too; Basil Fawlty is certainly everything but reserved.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 05 2017, @08:10PM
Agree about Mr. Bean.
His near Chaplin/Marceau level of silence serves to emphasize the physicality of his situations, versus their social setting. This creates universality.
The show's opening is a dead giveaway: He's literally dropped onto the Earth, "born yesterday", without the graces or experience to function with niceties required by the environment or society of our world. Bean's misanthropy is a situational response prompted by his utter cluelessness. He is otherwise so solipsistic, that the very idea of other people's existence cannot be presumed to ever cross his mind. Other people are no more or less obstacles between him and his intentions, then are steering wheels or Novocaine!
It's my guess that this is funny to people in rural China.
Producing such a character is probably a very British thing, and it's hard to imagine an American Rowan Atkinson - instead there is Steve Carell.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...