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Isn't That Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy

2019; Penn State University Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/studamerhumor.5.1.0247

2333-9934

Michael Dalebout,

Humor Studies and Applications

Steven Gimbel's Isn't That Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy attempts to wrangle the vast breadth of concerns that humor scholars and comedy audiences muse over—including definitions of humor and comedy, performance genres and styles, and theories of joke work, comedic ethics, and intellectual property. He frequently succeeds in bundling together and linking up these concerns, producing a number of expansive taxonomies and categorizations that are, for anyone who wants to begin an analysis of what's so funny about something, easy to reference. Nearly every chapter has something to offer: chapter 1 recapitulates the major theories of humor, comedy, and laughter since the Greeks (and grounds Gimbel's cleverness theory, which is introduced in chapter 2); chapter 3 digs into verbal humor, specifically jokes, and makes fine distinctions between their types and similar speech acts; chapter 4 covers techniques, effects, and genres of comedy; chapter 5 offers aesthetic vices and virtues of a gag; and chapters 6 and 7 provide a compendium of ethical stances toward and constraints on humor. It's a lot to tackle, but Gimbel gets it done in a tidy, well-organized 185 pages.The book's guiding thread is its theoretical suggestion—or provocation—that humor is to be understood as “a conspicuous display of playful cleverness” executed by an intentional actor (5). While mirth or laughter are often what is intended, Gimbel is keen to point out that many of the reasons we engage in humor aren't all that funny. Against response-side theorizations of comedy that argue that an audience makes a joke a joke when it laughs, he argues in chapter 2 that any determination of whether or not an act is humorous ought to begin on the stimulus side, with, for example, a humorist or comedian. There are four key aspects in this determination: whether the gag is intended (even if it's not very good), conspicuous (meant to be seen even if it's not overt), playful (or irreverent toward everyday designs), and clever. The fourth, cleverness, featured in the title and the one that gives Gimbel's theory its name, is “the most important” (43): the gag must show a cognitive virtue, a category for which Gimbel has a list of traits, including attention to detail, open mindedness, and the ability to find errors in one's belief structure. Throughout the text, his analysis of what makes humor humor, comedy comedy, a gag a gag, or a joke a joke is pointed toward its source (e.g., a comedian, a comic strip, etc.). Thus, while for Gimbel audience is necessary and helpful in determining the quality of a humor act of any flavor, he is explicit that the audience cannot adjudicate whether or not it was a humorous act. In this account, the joker makes the joke a joke and is responsible for all the creative, performative, and ethical risks involved.The unfortunate weakness of Gimbel's valiant effort to discipline a wily two-millennia-long conversation emerges at the juncture of stimulus- and response-side engagement. Gimbel acknowledges, of course, that “joking is a cooperative activity” (66). But only when facing hecklers and joke theft in chapter 8 is he ready to consider serious philosophical questions about how humor is formed and to whom it belongs. Refusing the idea that a listener can make something “a joke by fiat,” Gimbel maintains that the stimulus or joker “conveys the act with the status of being humorous or not and thereby determines how the audience ought to regard it” (36). This starting point keeps him from seriously engaging with certain substantive theorizations of the phenomena of humor within the field and many ethical concerns that comedy audiences have in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Some of Gimbel's language suggests that he is being intentionally provocative, especially when he disregards theories and thinkers who acknowledge their emphasis has been on the response side. He dismisses Robert Latta's account of the basic humor process that humorists effect in their audience—an account Gimbel simultaneously maintains as a bulwark against incongruity theories of laughter—as “incorrect from the get-go” (5) and a “non-starter” (28). This refusal to engage with such serious theoretical reflection, both in its explicit and implicit forms, occludes inquiries that could meaningfully enhance Gimbel's worthwhile contribution. For example, what is it about a humorous agent's intent that makes it an objective or nonsubjective phenomena? Given that perlocutionary speech goals require an audience to be achieved, is the space of possibility the audience forms an influence on the volition of a comedian? How do “cognitive virtues” arise as virtues without a shared ethical sphere in which to attain or achieve them? The recognition of playfulness and conspicuousness relies on how people perceive and conceive their world as a default—how much of what jokesters do is their own and how much is inherited and constrained by their milieu, and is an act of humor really made on one side or another? Such questions shift Isn't That Clever from an antagonistic stance toward a complementary approach, in which Gimbel's stimulus-side reflections balance out response-side overreaches. This could promote what Latta calls a “whole-process theory.”1Even if one accepts the book's unconventional definitions of humor, jokes, and comedy, it's hard to ignore certain blind spots in the theoretical account. While Gimbel is keen to say that intent is not enough to render an act humorous, he does not acknowledge that people can claim that they were joking when they weren't. “I was only joking” is, on his account, a statement indicating that what the interlocutor said “ was just an act designed to generate mirth” (as jokes do) (56).2 Fair enough, but to turn this around: who has not accidentally said something or acted in a way that others found amusing and when asked if we were joking or meant to be funny been tempted to (or perhaps even did) say, “Yes, I intended it”? While we can definitionally agree that a young child trying to be funny might earn laughs because he or she is charming and that this isn't humor (37), we might not accept that someone stating their intent after the fact is, indeed, reliable. Especially if we can perceive their act as playful, conspicuous, and clever. Is such a case as I propose an act of humor by Gimbel's definition? No. And we may have our doubts in the moment as well. But with his cleverness theory, we are left to trust only that the humorist meant to pull off the effects because she or he said so. In everyday practice, I imagine we'd accept—whether or not a person meant to exhibit cleverness and irreverence—that it was humorous, a sense (as Freud, Bergson, Critchley, and countless thinkers have said) that we share with others. Such discovery, whether it is premeditated by a volitional agent or is spontaneous among others, still happened, after all. I am not convinced, in the end, that “whodunnit” is really possible to know, or matters, if we can now see or “get” the gag.And the idea that we are able to laugh at what we can see coming is, perhaps, the finest theoretical intervention the book offers. In acknowledging that we often laugh at things we anticipate—as in inside and practical jokes and caricature—Gimbel highlights congruity as a source of humor (16-18). The quality of agreement or appropriateness is an effective source of humorous effects, a deft criticism of totalizing accounts of humor that emphasize the out of place and out of sorts, revealing a paradox of humor and inviting readers to reflect on it. In the end, beyond his zeal for objective phenomena and analytic categorization, Gimbel does offer substantive critique that promotes philosophical discovery. If you engage it, and don't merely read it, Isn't That Clever is a provocative book that has a lot to offer comedy connoisseurs and professionals alike—when it isn't too clever.