Funny or Ouch - What's Your Honest Reaction?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around participants' reactions to modern slapstick clips featuring people getting hurt in various comedic scenarios. It explores the emotional responses elicited by these clips, including humor and discomfort, and touches on the implications of age and maturity in perceiving such content.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants find the clips hilarious, especially when the individuals involved appear to be acting foolishly, while others express discomfort or find them painful to watch.
  • Several participants report a mix of reactions, indicating that their responses depend on the severity of the incidents depicted in the clips.
  • One participant notes that they can laugh at their own misfortunes, suggesting a complex relationship between humor and personal experience of pain.
  • Another participant questions whether the differing reactions to slapstick humor are related to maturity or age, suggesting that younger viewers may find it funnier.
  • Some express guilt over finding humor in situations where people are hurt, indicating a moral conflict between enjoying the comedy and recognizing the potential for real injury.
  • There are mentions of specific clips that elicited strong reactions, with some participants highlighting clips that involve less severe injuries as more humorous.
  • One participant argues that actual injury detracts from the humor, suggesting that the essence of slapstick lies in the clumsiness rather than the pain itself.
  • Concerns are raised about the implications of such humor on societal views of pain and injury, particularly regarding health and insurance costs.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally do not reach a consensus, with multiple competing views on the appropriateness and humor of slapstick clips. Reactions vary widely, indicating a lack of agreement on whether such content is funny or distressing.

Contextual Notes

Some participants express discomfort with the clips, indicating that their reactions may be influenced by personal experiences or societal norms regarding humor and pain. The discussion reflects a range of emotional responses that are not easily categorized.

Slapstick, hilarious or ouch

  • Hilarious

    Votes: 8 38.1%

  • Ouch

    Votes: 10 47.6%

  • Huh??

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Total voters
    21
Andre
Messages
4,294
Reaction score
73
Funny or ouch??

So you come across some modern slapstick clips like this:
for instance.

You see bloopers, people crashing in various forms into solid objects. What's your honest first reaction?

I went for 'ouch'. Can't see any humor into people getting hurt. Thoughts?
 
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I went for hilarious, especially if the people in the clip are being idiots, bit of ouch sometimes but mostly hilarious.
 


Ouch!
 


Comedy is when you fall down a flight of stairs. Tragedy is when I stub my toe.
 


A combination of OMG! and What?
 


I could watch these all days lol. Too hilarious. The longboarding one was the best.
 


Ouch!

I can't even watch these clips. Although I will admit they DO make me laugh if I see them, I hate myself for laughing as I know someone was in pain.

And for the record, I also laughed at myself when I fell off a horse because it was pure stupidity on my part, but I WAS in pain. Laughing at myself made the pain worth while.
 


I couldn't watch more than a few of the clips. Makes me too uncomfortable - I either cringe or just shake my head. Not funny, to me.
 


lisab said:
I couldn't watch more than a few of the clips. Makes me too uncomfortable - I either cringe or just shake my head. Not funny, to me.
I wonder if it is a maturity / age thing? My finding this continually funny is probably just an illumination of my immaturity.
 
  • #10


It really depends on the severity of what I'm watching. Like some girl getting thrown off a merry-go-round is funny, because the most that happens to her is she maybe gets a bruise or two. But when that girl falls off the motorcycle (especially considering it wasn't her who initiated the wheelie), I recognize that she was more than likely seriously injured, and am incapable of finding too much humor in it.

I didn't vote since there wasn't an "inbetween" option.
 
  • #11


lisab said:
I couldn't watch more than a few of the clips. Makes me too uncomfortable - I either cringe or just shake my head. Not funny, to me.

yes same here. This stuff is awful. I couldn't even make it to 30 seconds.
 
  • #12


All three answers apply, depending on the clip. I'm only about halfway through, but my favorite so far is at about 1:50, when the snowmobile starts driving itself after the crash.
 
  • #13


lisab said:
I couldn't watch more than a few of the clips. Makes me too uncomfortable - I either cringe or just shake my head. Not funny, to me.

Well, I can watch them. Makes me uncomfortable too - I cringe and curse out loud.

WannabeNewton said:
I wonder if it is a maturity / age thing? My finding this continually funny is probably just an illumination of my immaturity.

Age does enter it. Even though I cringe and curse now, I can see myself doing some of those things if I were your age.
 
  • #14


lisab said:
I couldn't watch more than a few of the clips. Makes me too uncomfortable - I either cringe or just shake my head. Not funny, to me.

The bad ones yeah, especially when people slam their face into concrete or something.
 
  • #15


I won't be dishonest, I laughed hard at a lot of those, though not without some guilt. I might add that I laughed mostly at the ones in which nobody appeared to get seriously injured, just so no one thinks I'm sick. The funniest clip was the one with the guy doing maintenance on his car's engine, only to have much of the front of his car collapse.
 
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  • #16


Humor capitalizing on human suffering doesn't appeal to me. My opinion is real life slapstick is one of the lower tiers of comedy.
 
  • #17


dlgoff said:
Age does enter it. Even though I cringe and curse now, I can see myself doing some of those things if I were your age.
I mean it's no Charlie Chaplin slapstick but it'll do eh? :biggrin: Maybe when I'm not a teenager anymore my proclivity towards such comedy will die off.
 
  • #18


WoW This Stuff is SOOOO funny. Just can't stop laughing.
 
  • #19


OMG :smile: The motorcycle one :smile::cry::smile:
It's an ouch followed by a laughter for those who appeared to be ok, but there were moments of 'what happened to the lady/guy?'

Edit: I can't vote, it's a mix of three. :biggrin:
 
  • #20


I don't mind most of it except for the parts when people are getting seriously injured. BTW, more than one of those brought back memories of my younger days. :rolleyes:
 
  • #21


WannabeNewton said:
Maybe when I'm not a teenager anymore my proclivity towards such comedy will die off.

:approve:

However :rolleyes: Immordino-Yang et al 2009 note that Compassion for Physical Pain (CPP) "is evolutionarily well established (see ref. 29) and develops earlier in children (see ref. 30)".
 
  • #22


Most are hilarious.

The "ouch" ones are the ones that surely involve head injuries (the snow mobiler nearly being decapitated by a road sign, for example). Those make me cringe.

Or the ones involving car wrecks. Something like this that involves car parts airborne at over 150 mph is never good.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJzHqNsUvMs
 
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  • #23


AnTiFreeze3 said:
It really depends on the severity of what I'm watching. Like some girl getting thrown off a merry-go-round is funny, because the most that happens to her is she maybe gets a bruise or two.
Right. I only watched for a minute or two and I doubt anyone got seriously hurt, most not at all. Most of these (as someone else said) are funny because they are people doing stupid or clumsy things - that's what slapstick is. Actually getting hurt isn't even part of what makes it funny, it is incidental and tends to degrade the humor, it does not enhance it.
 
  • #24


WannabeNewton said:
I wonder if it is a maturity / age thing? My finding this continually funny is probably just an illumination of my immaturity.
Gawd, I hope not!
 
  • #25


Andre said:
You see bloopers, people crashing in various forms into solid objects. What's your honest first reaction?

I went for 'ouch'. Can't see any humor into people getting hurt. Thoughts?
Some are amusing, e.g., where a child stumbles without getting hurt seriously. The others, where folks do get injured, are just sad. It's hard to judge how seriously some of those people get injured, but I wonder how many need medical attention, which drives up the cost of health (and/or property) insurance for those of us who are more sensible.
 

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