HA! The Science of When We Laugh and Why by Scott Weems (review)

Scott Weems is operating in territory that might be deemed difficult because he is attempting to bridge the gap between humor studies oriented toward physiology and “scripts” most notably, the approach by many members of ISHS (the International Society for Humor Studies) with its bent toward communication theory and science—and the AHSA (the American Humor Studies Association), with its primary orientation toward literary and other humor coming out of the historical context of American literature and popular culture. One nice feature of Weems’s approach is that it suggests that the two approaches, although often dramatically different in methodology, are really much closer than they first appear in the mutual search for the nature of humor as a cultural experience. On this point alone, the book is good news for both organizations as they go through the process of modernizing and assimilating their overlapping scholarly missions.

The question of why jokes work is basic fodder for any discussion of humor over time or in special contexts. In Weems’s case, the first resort is to what areas of the brain are stimulated by comic material. The effects of jokes are chemical, especially in the release of dopamine, so studies of this chemical activity can focus on areas such as the ventral tagmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and the amygdala—all the key areas of the dopamine circuit. Maybe even more important, so much so that it is even illustrated on page 33, is the governing anterior cingulate area, which holds back responses and allows conflicts to come to resolutions. The important point here is that Weems makes the leap rather comfortably to the idea of humor as arising out of conflict and surprise, and in doing so he opens up the way to providing a large number of jokes—not overwhelming, but maybe “just enough”—to bring the discussion around to language and what we would more informally call our laugh response to humor. In the discussion developing through this kind of interplay we get to briefly touch on varied schools of jokes: the false-expectation scripted joke, the cheating wife joke, elephant jokes, 9-11 and Challenger jokes, and various sick and attack jokes. More telling is the couple of jokes in the chapter titled “Stopover at the Empire State Building,” one of which shows a 747 flying into Mecca with the caption “Don’t get mad—get even” and another of a photoshopped picture of a huge gorilla on the Twin Towers captioned “Where was King Kong when we needed him?” Both jokes lead to larger issues of our political restraint in a world where violence often breeds only violence in response. At any rate, the discussion, like any good discussion, has the potential to stimulate ideas beyond itself; Weems is not at all pretentious-seeming about having all the answers. Most notable: the story of Capt. Gerald Venanzi, whose response to his Vietnamese captors was to invent a motorcycle and an imaginary chimp named Barney who provided gallows humor to him and his mates, helping them to withstand torture—it’s the American way, never shown up better than in this context.

Part 2 of the book moves from what humor is to why we have it at all. The reading is more like slogging as Weems tries to establish that computers are not good at writing jokes because they “lack the real-world knowledge to know what’s insightful and poignant, and what’s stupid” (126). One example of computer-generated haiku may suffice to carry the point:

Holy cowA carton of milkSeeking a church.

(122)

The point is that extraversion, neurosis, and psychosis are wrapped up in the creative process, for creativity in the positive dimension and sometimes for hidden prejudice in the negative hidden undercurrent. A conclusive answer is not something Weems thinks is probable, and some readers may find this part somewhat like a scientific shaggy dog analysis by...