Incongruity Theory Of Humor In The Movie Grown Up

• Incongruity theory o An example of the incongruity theory of humor takes place during the waterpark scene in the movie Grown Ups (Dennis Dugan, 2010).

• https://youtu.be/4K8EH0GAA9Q (0:0 – 1:34)

• The clip begins with a group of women staring at an attractive, muscular man across the waterpark. These women then try to get his attention, to which he appears to be responding by flexing his well-toned muscles in response. Next, the man walks through the water – in slow motion, while the song Goodnight Tonight (Wings) plays in the background – towards the women, who are waiting in nervous anticipation. When the man finally stops in front of the women, he begins talking and his voice is high-pitched and slightly squeaky. o The incongruity theory of humor explains “X

They talk robotically and devoid of emotion, while both unable to correctly adapt to social situations. When they do show emotion, they completely overreact, but then return to stasis at a monotone level. The audience finds this funny because we recognize their inability to adapt to social situations and their robotic mannerisms and laugh to demonstrate that we understand that these behaviors occur outside of social norms.

• The incongruity theory is also present in this clip. When Brick and Chani list of characteristics about themselves, which are not facts that seems socially appropriate to share with someone you are trying to impress, the audience finds it humorous because of the obvious mismatch present. Furthermore, this could also be considered and example of the cognitive debugging theory of humor, because we become aware of the fact that when someone says “tell us about yourself,” we typically only tell impressive