SWA #2

Throughout the reading, I have found many topics that I feel strongly about, but the one idea that I feel the strongest about is the fine line between making people laugh, and pissing them off, or making them sad. “What most of us consider tragic is fairly static, though something tragic can be made funny by comic techniques such as repetition.” The main point I have chosen is that there is a fine line between humor and tragedy. One situation could be tragic, but change a few of the details around and that same story could be funny. This interests me because it is so true. When you think about it, a tragedy is something that makes a person sad or cry. Humor is something that also, in a way, can make a person sad or cry. People need to be able to understand what this fine line is, in order to be funny. Other people are in charge of what is funny, the person telling the joke has no control over what other people will think until he or she tells it. One must understand other people and how they could feel about a certain event. This text exemplifies my point perfectly. Cholesterol is the subject of this text. A lower cholesterol is better but down 280 points is extremely absurd. This same picture could be tragic if it said 280 points higher or something like that, but the author knows it is impossible for cholesterol to go down 280 points, so it is funny. I could use this comic to back-up my opinion about the fine line between humor and tragedy that is introduced in Laughing Matters on page 50-62.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2008-10-24-cartoonmorty.jpg