In a FoxTrot comic strip a while back Jason Fox referred to himself as the mad literalist. Since I am often very literal in my humor, I have gotten in the habit of calling myself a mad literalist. In the past I had noticed that people who laugh at literalisms tend to be logical thinkers. Because of this I have been pretty comfortable with this part of my personality.
This weekend Golden and I watched The Ringer with Johnny Knoxville. It is not the most brainy movie out there, but it was entertaining. The idea is that the main character is put in a position where he has no choice but to act like he is a highly functioning, developmentally disabled person to win the pentathalon in the Special Olympics. When I first heard about the movie I thought it would be in poor taste. It may have been, but it was created with the assistance and under the endorsement of the Special Olympics, so it was actually a rather positive movie.
In one scene, though, the main character is made the fool when he asks if he can have the ketchup. "Yes, you can," replies one of the special olympians and everyone at the table laughs as the ketchup is not passed. This got me to thinking. That is a line I have used. I guess literalistic humor is also appreciated by special olympians. It must be a right brain, left brain thing.
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6 comments:
This is now the 2nd time you've brought Right brain/Left brain up in your blog. Do I feel another blog in the process?!
Well, I did ask him to do a right brain/left brain blog after his color blindness...but then I thought he was waiting for me to do it...lol!
I get into trouble with Grace a lot because she will preface something with "Can I...?" And my snide reply is "That really is an ontological question and I do not foresee anything preventing you from being able to do that." At which Grace say "Oh, your such a peach to live with aren't you."
I've thought about one, but haven't put together enough in my mind to do a good one. If Jadee wants to cover it she is welcome. :)
I am so glad you put a link to Special Olympics, because I had no idea what that was. (Sorry, I just learned about King Sarc form SNL.)
I don't know where I fall in the whole realm of humor, I guess I pick and choose. But literalists, need to learn to "let it be" sometimes or else the can be downright annonying. I believe that everybody understands literalist humor, because we all have given that "yes, you can" response. But that was in third grade and that jokes not funny anymore. (the smiths)
From my observation a literalist humorist also tends to interput a lot in conversation because they see something funny in a literal word that was meant to be figuritive. They see this as a good time to be funny (only to themselves as everyone just stops and rolls there eyes at the annoying literalist math geek.)
I am not saying that literalist humor is not funny, it just that if that is ones only brand of humor, discretion should be used and timing is everything.
I am so not funny.
So, you're not literal in what you just said? You're kidding right?
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