British humor
The term British or English humor denotes, on the one hand, the comedy in radio programs, films and books from Great Britain and, on the other hand, serves as a generalizing description of the dry humor that is particularly attributed to the British. This dry humor can also be found outside of England, for example Loriot is also associated with it.
main features
In addition to the dryness mentioned, the main characteristics of British humor are black humor , blunt directness, absurdity and understatement . It is precisely the tension-filled contrast between understatement and (sometimes cruel) directness that defines the basic characteristic of British humor: one could say that monstrosities are always presented as if they were something everyday.
Personalities and reception abroad
People who are often associated with British humor include the comedian group Monty Python , the actors Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson ( Mr. Bean ) or the science fiction writer Douglas Adams . However, the humor of many Irish authors ( Oscar Wilde , Flann O'Brien ) is also considered "typically English". Many British television programs and sitcoms ( Britcoms ) that work with typical characteristics of English humor also achieved a high level of awareness outside the UK, so that British humor is understood at home and abroad as a kind of trademark of English culture. Abroad, however, it is difficult to understand when British colloquial language or dialects ( e.g. Cockney ) are used, or when reference is made to public figures who are little known outside the UK .
Sociological explanations
In Germany, the literary scholar Hans-Dieter Gelfert in particular tried to link features of English humor with British cultural history - primarily the relationship between the British population and the authorities. Cornelia Neumann writes in the summary of her master's thesis that English humor is
- evil, sadistic, anarchic (that is, fundamentally uncomfortable), disrespectful and with his mockery does not place himself at the rulers, whom he mocks. Self-irony dominates.
In connection with Gelfert's theses, she traces these characteristics back to different political bases of the cultural nations:
- So English humor can be interpreted as an expression of an egalitarian, democratic society, and German humor as an expression of a society that is uncertain of its political and cultural identity.
Further characteristics
There is no fixed definition of British humor. In the following, some of its features are elaborated on and demonstrated with examples from literary and media history.
dryness
Funny effects are presented without showing a lot of emotion in order to cause surprised or shocked reactions in the other person. Like ironic expressions, dry humor can therefore often only be recognized indirectly. An example of this was the British comedian group Monty Python , in whose sketches and films John Cleese in particular used intense dry humor.
blackness
The basics of black humor (English: black or dark comedy ) - the treatment of macabre, morbid, sexual or otherwise taboo subjects in a satirical, emotionless and / or deliberately trivializing way - can already be found in Elizabethan tragedy . Later, among others, Jonathan Swift made use of it. The British film Dr. Strangelove culminates in the scene in which Major Kong jubilantly rides an atom bomb into doom. The black humor resembles the grotesque . (Weird) bad taste ( sick comedy ) are often associated with black humor.
Understatement
Understatement means that dramatic situations (especially in conversation) are presented in an unagitated manner. When, in a scene from The Meaning of Life, the Grim Reaper appears at a dinner party to get all the guests, one of the guests comments: "Well, that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?" Well, that spoiled the evening a bit, didn't it? ”).
nonsense
Nonsense is regularly operated "non-sense", which does not mix incongruent elements randomly, but installs or simulates a new reality that works according to its own laws and is coherent in itself. British nonsense has its origins in Victorian writers such as Edward Lear , considered the master of Limerick , and Lewis Carroll , creator of the children's books Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark . Carroll's poem Jabberwocky, for example, which achieves its effect through onomatopoeia, suitcase words and associations, begins with the verses:
- 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
- Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
- All mimsy were the borogoves,
- And the mome raths dig out.
Gobbledygook
The expression gobbledygook ( to be translated in German with Galimathias or also technical Chinese ) denotes particularly jargon-heavy, confused or otherwise incomprehensible English. The following example is provided by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan :
"It is a tricky problem to find the particular calibration in timing that would be appropriate to stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling incomes without prematurely aborting the decline in the inflation-generated risk premiums."
Gobbledygook is also often used in British comedies or television series: In Carry On Regardless , part of the popular Carry-on… film series , Stanley Unwin plays a customer who cannot make his wishes understandable because he speaks gobbledygook.
Cringe comedy
Cringe comedy (dt .: wince) looks for comedy where embarrassing or shameful behavior causes pleasurable pain to the spectator, a comic variety for which the term foreign shame has become fashionable in Germany . The Office with Ricky Gervais (after whose model the German series Stromberg was modeled) and actors such as Rowan Atkinson , Harry Enfield and Steve Coogan are considered to be the most important British productions of cringe comedy .
Spoof comedy
Spoof comedy (dt .: swindle / parody) refers to comical television programs that take the form of an established television program in order to parody it and comically break with non-formal content. So in will Look Around You , the school television of the 1980s took on the arm. Popular templates are also TV news ( The Day Today ), talk shows ( Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge ) and documentaries (see: Mockumentary ).
Similar forms of humor
literature
- John Bourke: English humor . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1965.
- Hans-Dieter Gelfert : Max and Monty. A short history of German and English humor . Beck, Munich 1998
- Hans-Dieter Gelfert: Madam I'm Adam: A cultural history of English humor . Beck, Munich 2007
- Dietmar Marhenke: British humor in an intercultural context . Dissertation 2003 (PDF, 1.4 MB)
- Wolfgang Schmidt-Hidding : Seven masters of literary humor in England and America. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1959