Self-referential humor

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox joke Self-referential humor, also known as self-reflexive humor, self-aware humor, or meta humor, is a type of comedic expression[1] that—either directed toward some other subject, or openly directed toward itself—is self-referential in some way, intentionally alluding to the very person who is expressing the humor in a comedic fashion, or to some specific aspect of that same comedic expression. Here, meta is used to describe that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the words metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play as in Hamlet) and metafiction. Self-referential humor expressed discreetly and surrealistically is a form of bathos. In general, self-referential humor often uses hypocrisy, oxymoron, or paradox to create a contradictory or otherwise absurd situation that is humorous to the audience.

History

Old Comedy of Classical Athens is held to be the first—in the extant sources—form of self-referential comedy. Aristophanes, whose plays form the only remaining fragments of Old Comedy, used fantastical plots, grotesque and inhuman masks and status reversals of characters to slander prominent politicians and court his audience's approval.[2]

Douglas Hofstadter wrote several books on the subject of self-reference;[3][4] the term meta has come to be used, particularly in art, to refer to something that is self-referential.[5]

Meta-jokes

Meta-jokes are a popular form of humor. They contain several somewhat different, but related categories: joke templates, class-referential jokes, self-referential jokes and jokes about jokes.[citation needed]

Joke template

This form of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the endless refitting of joke forms (often by professional comedians) to different circumstances or characters without a significant innovation in the humor.[6] Template:Quote Template:Quote Template:Quote

Class-referential jokes

This form of meta-joke contains a familiar class of jokes as part of the joke. For example, here are a few subversions of the standard bar joke format: Template:Quote Template:Quote Template:Quote Template:Quote

Self-referential jokes

Self-referential jokes refer to themselves rather than to larger classes of previous jokes.[citation needed]

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What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?[7]

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Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative.[8]

— Bill Bailey

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I'm a self-deprecating comedian...though I'm not very good at it.

— Stewart Francis

Jokes about jokes

Marc Galanter, in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture, cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:

I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes.[9]

Stand-up comedian Mitch Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."[10]

The process of being a humorist is also the subject of meta-jokes; for example, on an episode of QI, Jimmy Carr made the comment, "When I told them I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed. Well, they're not laughing now!"— a joke previously associated with Bob Monkhouse.[11]

Other examples

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graffiti art on a wall stating "SORRY ABOUT YOUR WALL"
A self-referencing work of graffiti apologizing for its own existence

Fumblerules

Fumblerules are stylistic guidelines, presented such that the phrasing of the rule itself constitutes an infraction.[12] For example, "Don't use no double negatives".

Limericks

A limerick referring to the anti-humor of limericks: Template:Quote W. S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": Template:Quote Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: Template:Quote

A limerick about limericks: Template:Quote

Metaparody

Metaparody is a form of humor or literary technique consisting "parodying the parody of the original", sometimes to the degree that the viewer is unclear as to which subtext is genuine and which subtext parodic.[13][14][15][<span title="Script error: No such module "decodeEncode".">example needed] An example of a Metaparody would be the film "Scary Movie" which parodies the film "Scream" which is itself a parody.

RAS Syndrome

RAS syndrome is the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself, thus in effect repeating one or more words. "RAS" stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome and so RAS syndrome is self-referencing.[16][17][18]

See also

References

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  1. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Sentences about Self-Reference and Recurrence". .vo.lu. Retrieved 2012-08-21.
  2. ^ Alan Hughes; Performing Greek Comedy (Cambridge, 2012)
  3. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979), Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-026850
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1985), Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04566-9
  5. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Origin and meaning of prefix meta-". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  6. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"[dead link]
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."30 Jokes Only Intellectuals Will Understand". Fact-inator. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bill Bailey (2004). Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll (DVD). Universal Pictures UK. ASIN B0002SDY1M.
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Galanter, Marc (1 September 2005). Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-299-21350-1.
  10. ^ "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Deacon, Michael (3 June 2015). "Modern comedy's unlikely hero: Bob Monkhouse". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  12. ^ Safire, William. "Fumblerules: a lighthearted guide to grammar and good usage." (1990).
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Morson, Gary Saul; Emerson, Caryl (1989). Rethinking Bakhtin: extensions and challenges. Northwestern University Press. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-0-8101-0810-3. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
  14. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Marina Terkourafi (23 September 2010). The Languages of Global Hip Hop. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 234–. ISBN 978-0-8264-3160-8. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Peter I. Barta (2001). Carnivalizing Difference: Bakhtin and the Other. Routledge. pp. 110–. ISBN 978-0-415-26991-9. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Clothier, Gary (8 November 2006). "Ask Mr. Know-It-All". The York Dispatch.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Newman, Stanley (December 20, 2008). "Sushi by any other name". Windsor Star. p. G4. Archived from the original on May 3, 2012.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Feedback" (fee required). New Scientist. No. 2285. 2001-04-07. p. 108. Retrieved 2006-12-08.

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