Non-cringing humour

2015-03-31T14:45:59Z

My tolerance for embarrassment humour has fallen quite a lot. I'm not especially fond of it even in when it's done very well (eg. Fawlty Towers??) And I was questioning why Home (nee The True Meaning of Smeckday) worked for me when many films don't.

I think it might be that it felt compassionate to both sides. Early on in the film there's characterisation of Oh, who is constantly trying to make friends with the other aliens, who are constantly avoiding him. Which is the sort of thing that's usually just painful to watch, and was the point that came closed to cringe-worthy-ness (and may have exceeded it for some of my cinema companions).

But partly, it wasn't doubling down on how awful it was: it was sad, but it didn't get MORE and MORE humiliating. And partly, I empathised with Oh (who was genuinely trying to be nice to people) and also the people he knew (who were being forced into a social situation they didn't want).

That's just a guess, but I find it hard to explain what I want in humour (lots of it but not excruciating) and I keep introspecting about it...

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Home

2015-03-30T11:42:33Z

Home is an animated film about a teenage black girl who got an A in geometry and a hapless well-meaning alien.

I really enjoyed it! It managed to be really quite funny a lot of the time while never (for me) veering into cringeworthy and embarrassement. I'd like to drill down into exactly what makes that work for me, but at any rate, it did.

And the information security, while cartoon-y, was considerably more accurate than almost any other film I've seen :)

It was also, for me, a good example of a film I had almost no pitpicks about. Like, it had gravity control, and cars that run on slushies, and a magic chip that embeds alien technology in something which are not actually consistent if you look at the physics closely. But THAT'S COMPLETELY FINE because major plot points depended on what we already knew all those things COULD and COULDN'T do and DIDN'T depend on examining them closely. This is what I mean when I worry about films with plot holes -- the worldbuilding should be at a CONSISTENT level of worldbuilding, not necessarily a HIGH level of worldbuilding.

And, similarly, the morality was surprisingly good, while completely implicit. "Conquering a planet with good intentions = BAD" is clearly conveyed without being on the gritty parts. "Running away all the time = ENDEARING, SENSIBLE BUT FLAWED". Etc.

I realised about half way through that Oh was played by the same actor as Sheldon from the big bang theory, and Oh was endearing in some of the same ways but (importantly for me) didn't seem to have some of the problematic aspects.

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jack

Non-cringing humour

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