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Objects of humour: the puppet as comic performer
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The authors argue that there is amusement to be found in seeing the inanimate animated, which is similar to the pleasure found in incongruous humour, and that the fundamental collaboration required for an audience to appreciate a puppet performance lends the form a particular comic specialism which may help explain why puppets appear to thrive in comic contexts.Abstract:
Many of the studies that explore the fascination audiences have with puppets have focused largely on the relationship between the operator and the object and the illusion engendered through performance. Those that attend to the issue of humour, such as Dina and Joel Sherzer’s Humour and Comedy in Puppetry in 1987, tend to address generic comic components of specific puppet practices, and only minimally engage with the more fundamental concerns about how the object may be viewed humorously by audiences. This article intends to bridge this gap in scholarship by exploring the similarities between spectatorship and humour in relation to puppet practices. Drawing links between the incongruities inherent within puppet forms, particularly those revealed through the juxtaposition of object and human operator, and theories of humour, I argue that there is amusement to be found in seeing the inanimate animated, which is similar to the pleasure found in incongruous humour. While not all puppets are used for comic purposes, my argument suggests that the fundamental collaboration required for an audience to appreciate a puppet performance lends the form a particular comic specialism which may help explain why, historically, puppets appear to thrive in comic contexts.read more
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Journal Article
Puppetry: A Reader in Theatre Practice
TL;DR: PENNY FRANCIS, PUPPETRY: A READER in THEATRE PRACTICE (BASINGSTOKE: PAIERAVE MACMILLAN, 2012), and DORITA HANNAH and 01AV HARSLOF (EDS), PERFURMAHCE BESIEH.
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Challenging the stereotype through humor? Comic female scientists in animated TV series for young audiences
TL;DR: The authors examined how female scientists are portrayed through humor (and what kind of humor) in two popular animated entertainment series for children and how their portrayal reinforces or challenges gender stereotypes in cultural representations of science.
References
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Book
Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor
John Morreall,Robert Mankoff +1 more
TL;DR: Mankoff as discussed by the authors discusses the traditional rejection of humor and traditional theories of humor, such as No Laughing Matter, Incongruity Theory, Humor as Irrational, and Relief Theory.
Book
Toward an aesthetics of the puppet : puppetry as a theatrical art
TL;DR: A New Basis for Definition and Explanation Describing the Puppet Standard Descriptions A new basis for Description Coda-Metaphor and the Puppet Works Cited Index.
Book
A history of European puppetry
Henryk Jurkowski,Penny Francis +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the origins of the Renaissance and the Baroque genres: commedia dell'arte puppet opera fairground theatre the English comedians Maquina real.