The Visual Rhetoric of Monty Python’s Flying Circus: Fulfilling Noël Carroll’s Hopes for a Classification of Sight Gags
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Giorgio Baruchello
Abstract
In his 1990s studies of visual humor, Noël Carroll left to “future researchers” the laborious task of developing a “comprehensive and rigorous classification of the phenomena” pertaining to “the sight gag.” Carroll contributed five possible items belonging to such a taxonomy, i. e., “the mutual interference gag” (e. g., a character’s perspective vs the viewer’s one), “mimed metaphors” (e. g., Chaplin’s bread rolls as dancing feet), “the object analog” (e. g., a tuba used as an umbrella), “the switch image” (i. e., reinterpretations forced by montage) and “the solution gag” (e. g., the character’s inventiveness surprises the viewer). Following the implicit reference to rhetoric built in the very names of some of these items, this article shows how the well-established tropes of classical rhetoric, indeed three hundred of them, can be employed, with a modicum of analogical creativity, in order to address the visual component of comedic sketches, as exemplified by Monty Python’s famous Flying Circus.
© 2022 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- The Excess of Moderation: Clement of Alexandria against Laughter
- Toward Moral Sublimity: Elements of a Theory of Humor
- Truth and Autobiography in Stand-up Comedy and the Genius of Doug Stanhope
- The Visual Rhetoric of Monty Python’s Flying Circus: Fulfilling Noël Carroll’s Hopes for a Classification of Sight Gags
- Framing the Ethical Boundaries of Humor
- Is Laughing at Morally Oppressive Jokes Like Being Disgusted by Phony Dog Feces? An Analysis of Belief and Alief in the Context of Questionable Humor
- What Is Wrong with Laughing? Faulty Laughter as a Case of Negligent Omission
- Discussion: Short Article for Further Debate
- Mind the Gap! On Dmitri Nikulin’s Case for the Affectionate Laughter of Agnes Heller
- Laughter’s Affect and Effects
- Aunt Eggs Chicken (E.C.) Dents
- The Robot Sol Explains Laughter to His Android Brethren
- Philosophical Satire and Criticism
- Of Coconuts and Beings: Peculiarities of a Diophantine Problem
- Humor in Philosophy Education
- Has Higher Education Fallen Down the Rabbit Hole?
- Symposium
- Critics
- An Infallible Assassin: On Lydia Amir’s The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter
- Philosophical Laughter: Divine or Annihilating?
- Reflections on Lydia Amir’s The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter
- Author’s Response
- “The Good Life” Is Not Necessarily “Good,” Nor Is Humor Always Funny
- Book Reviews
- Call for Papers, Book Reviews, Guidelines
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- The Excess of Moderation: Clement of Alexandria against Laughter
- Toward Moral Sublimity: Elements of a Theory of Humor
- Truth and Autobiography in Stand-up Comedy and the Genius of Doug Stanhope
- The Visual Rhetoric of Monty Python’s Flying Circus: Fulfilling Noël Carroll’s Hopes for a Classification of Sight Gags
- Framing the Ethical Boundaries of Humor
- Is Laughing at Morally Oppressive Jokes Like Being Disgusted by Phony Dog Feces? An Analysis of Belief and Alief in the Context of Questionable Humor
- What Is Wrong with Laughing? Faulty Laughter as a Case of Negligent Omission
- Discussion: Short Article for Further Debate
- Mind the Gap! On Dmitri Nikulin’s Case for the Affectionate Laughter of Agnes Heller
- Laughter’s Affect and Effects
- Aunt Eggs Chicken (E.C.) Dents
- The Robot Sol Explains Laughter to His Android Brethren
- Philosophical Satire and Criticism
- Of Coconuts and Beings: Peculiarities of a Diophantine Problem
- Humor in Philosophy Education
- Has Higher Education Fallen Down the Rabbit Hole?
- Symposium
- Critics
- An Infallible Assassin: On Lydia Amir’s The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter
- Philosophical Laughter: Divine or Annihilating?
- Reflections on Lydia Amir’s The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter
- Author’s Response
- “The Good Life” Is Not Necessarily “Good,” Nor Is Humor Always Funny
- Book Reviews
- Call for Papers, Book Reviews, Guidelines
