Four Types of Humor
I grew up on 90s slapstick comedy. “How could any genre compete with such comedic glory?,” one might think. From Happy Gilmore to Lloyd Christmas, these stories hold a special place in my memory. But something happened.
I did not know what laughter meant as a new Christian.
A chasm existed between the utter seriousness of my newfound belief in Jesus (which has its roots in thousands of years of tradition) and joy. My newborn-again infancy only proved to exasperate my ongoing struggle with depression. Glimpses of what I can only call true delight moved me onward. Still, the battle to flea from sin was real. It still is, of course.
“How can one sit on Calvary’s hill and continue to laugh at degrading things?” I wondered. “If that sermon isn’t causing either sorrow for my sin OR fixes of joy, then something is wrong!”
What are we to make of the role of play and humor as Christians?
Leave it up to mister C.S. Lewis to help us out!
Lewis’ Four Categories of Humor
Reading Lewis’ Screwtape Letters struck me recently. In chapter 11, Lewis depicts Screwtape, the senior demon, classifying laughter into four types—Joy, Fun, Joke Proper, and Flippancy—for Wormwood, a younger demon intern. Let’s look at how he unpacks these four.
Joy
Screwtape says he does not know the real cause of joy. It is expressed in “much of that detestable art which the humans call Music.” He encourages Wormwood to do all he can to discourage his patient—a Christian—from it. He says joy “is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell.”
Fun
Fun, says Screwtape, relates to joy. It is “a sort of emotional froth arising from the play instinct.” He recognizes it is sometimes useful to distract humans from the “Enemy’ (God). Fun “promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils.”
Lewis makes the case through Screwtape that joy and fun are mostly kingdom characteristics for believers.
The Joke Proper
This category on jokes and humor was, for me, the most surprising. “Humour,” says Screwtape, “is invaluable as a means of destroying shame.” Screwtape calls second-rate tempters those who primarily go after “indecent or bawdy humour.” Here, I believe Lewis is referring to the tactic of vulgar humor.
“Bawdy humour will not help” young Wormwood is he targets those who use find no lust in it. I believe Lewis is saying that if a joke is funny, it is just funny (even if it is vulgar). If one laughs and that is the end of it, Screwtape indicates this is wasted hours of tempting-work for demons.
However, if the laughter is intermingled with lust, then there are problems. Wormwood ought to find out which type of person is engaging with such humor. The same vulgar joke, Lewis seems to indicate, can intersect with two types of people. Applying this to 90s SNL humor, it seems to really depend on the individual themself then. What jokes can they handle?
Lewis spends a greater deal talking about this but I’ll move on.
Flippancy
Screwtape says when virtues are made comical, therein lies “success” for Wormwood.
“Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.”
Flippancy is so destructive because it is in the cultural air of a group of people. Flippant jokes are “a thousand miles away from joy: it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it.”
For the Lewis scholar out there, my apologies if I veer from his original intent in outlining these four roles of laughter. I engage this more as a launching pad rather than a landing one.
To my excitement, I just came across an entire book on Lewis’ view of laughter based on these four. Reach out to me if you’d like to read it along with me: Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis (Terry Lindvall)
