Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

that they could be confronted later. We saw in chapter three that incongruity, as a
mechanism of humour, can trigger laughter. However, simply to point it out in a text is
not enough to understand the social criticism within the act of humour. The relevance of
incongruity as a language of humour is particularly important when studying films. This
is because part of the incongruity in comics comes from the idea that they are cartoons
and they are published regularly, which helps the reader to understand the genre of the
comic, and the characteristics and features of the characters. Meanwhile, films usually
have less than two hours to develop their content and the intentions of the screen
writers. Therefore, to recognise the elements of incongruity will help the audience to
understand that the film belongs to the genre of comedy, helping it to choose the most
appropriate reading mechanisms in order to grasp what the author wishes to express.
We should be clear that the presence of incongruity is not enough to label
something as humorous. In the previous chapter I discussed the case of Hermelinda
Linda, a comic whose main subject is witchcraft, arguing that the presence of witchery
as something illogical was not enough to trigger humour or to understand this comic as
part of the universe of humour. The same phenomenon occurs when analysing films.
However, I will begin by presenting examples of incongruity in some of the films, and
show how they can help readers to label the text as a comedy. During the development
of the chapter I will consider other mechanisms of humour as well, and will discuss
reasons for using humour to express certain ideas. I will also analyse the content of the
scenes (social and political criticism) through these mechanisms of humour.
As discussed earlier, incongruity is essential for humour 58 and as might seem
obvious, it is present in all the films analysed here. Nevertheless the incongruity is more
58 Paul McGhee, Humour. Its Origin and Development (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and company,
1979), p. 10.
176