At an on-campus performance yesterday, I was able to experience several performances of African and African American culture sprinkled in between what I had to assume was the main act: the MCs' performance. Sharing one mike, the two boys had a field day with clearly rehearsed, rather lengthy, and not to mention really lame, transition sequences. The dialogues received some polite laughter from the audience, but it was during one particular dialogue, which actually turned out to be a monologue, that all onlookers burst into genuine laughter that lasted for more than just a few seconds. After positioning themselves on the stage and awaiting attention, one MC started,
“Well, that was a wonderful performance. Anyway, now let us…”
I really didn’t hear anything after that; his words were drowned in laughter.
After the fact, someone commented that it was the funniest part of the show, which said a lot considering that one of the performances was a stand-up comedy sequence. That caused me to reflect a bit, wondering why the laughter during that event was the most genuine at a point in time when it was really unwarranted; the sentence was in no way a joke, and the MC was not trying to be funny at all, unlike all the other times. Using the relief theory of laughter, which explains to us that laughter occurs as a result of the relief of tension, we can understand why everyone laughed at this serious part of the performance.
The MC caught us by surprise, and so we laughed. Throughout the entire performance, the two MCs put on their highly rehearsed “witty” banter, which even seemed a bit over acted. But it was as if this MC forgot his role at this point, leading him to deliver the layman sentence. The audience was geared up, anticipating another two minute long exchange. So, when they were presented with a fifteen second statement, though it was not necessarily funny, laughter occurred as a release of the buildup of anticipation.
Furthermore, the slightly offensive nature of the statement explains the occurrence of laughter. It is quite likely that the MC did not intend to offend the previous performer, but that one word “anyway” translated in our minds to say,
“I had to say it was a good performance, but it really wasn’t. Now that we’re finally done with that one, now we can move on to this, hopefully more intriguing, act.”
Whether or not he meant it, that’s what it sounded like, and in order to release the tense environment that arrived with the "diss", the audience had to laugh.
This double tension release allowed laughter to occur in this seemingly unfunny environment. We weren’t laughing at the lame joke (there was none), nor were we laughing at the MCs antics (he was acting totally serious at the time). The laughter occurred due to unfulfilled expectation and a probable case of human offence. It is ironic, though, that laughter did not occur due to the irony of the situation; surely the audience did not realize at the time that the least attempt at funniness was indeed the most funny!
