The Role of Persona

Of the material we watched in class on Wednesday, all pieces had some sort of persona as the speaker who was not the voice of the author. 

Now, with a persona such as Silence Dogood, it is somewhat evident why a male (Benjamin Franklin) would choose a woman (Silence Dogood) as his persona. My best guess is that Franklin uses his knowledge as a male to illicit a male argument by speaking satirically as a woman.

However, with the stand-up bit performed by Eddie Izzard, the choice of persona is a bit more curious. Izzard, a male, is crossdressed as a woman yet his comedy material isn't exclusively gender-based. He speaks, at least in the piece we viewed, of the varying views and actions of religious affiliations. Yet, why is he dressed as a woman? My thoughts so far are that it is a relaxing, absurd persona much like a clown. Why is a clown funny? Well, yes they do perform tricks but their dress and make-up exude light-heartedness and levity which therefore sets the audience more at ease and more susceptible to laughter. I think the same sort of process is occurring with Eddie Izzard stage presence. Much of his material could be interpreted as borderline offensive to some (I personally enjoy having my religion ridiculed and joked about). Therefore, either to avoid offending too many people or to create an atmosphere more open to laughter, Izzard dresses as a woman as if to say "I am crossdressed, I am an adult clown, Try not to take everything I say too personally because after all, it's coming from a man dressed as a woman". 

While some persona roles may have high-order satire intentions, I believe that some, like Izzard's, are meant to let the audience know that they are going to hear jokes, not vicious tirades. 

First Post/Introduction

This is the first post for ENG 404 Humor and Rhetoric. My name is Greg Mantych and a junior at Saint Louis University.

I guess since the focus of the course is humor and rhetoric and although we have not indulged into a vast amount of humor theories just yet, I would be doing this posting a disservice if I did not share some sort of opinion on humor. 

Of the assigned texts thus far, "Mrs. Partington" is most visibly humorous because of the heavy use of malapropisms. Substituting "oil-factories" for "olfactory" and "conscientiousness" for "consciousness" are obvious misuses of words and a common comic device for getting laughs (see Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing" and, recalling children's shows of my youth, many of the characters in "Rugrats"). However, why would someone using a word wrong be viewed as humorous? With the extent to which some characters misuse these words, it seems like it should be more sad than funny. However, I think it all comes down to superiority. 

In many modes of humor, especially satire, there are two groups: those who "get it" and those who "don't get it". The people who "get it" find the humor and those who don't, well, don't. With the malapropisms of Mrs. Partington, we laugh at her misusage because we seem to know what she doesn't i.e. the correct definitions of these words. We are trumping our obviously superior knowledge of the English language over hers. It is funny that someone could be so unintelligent but also I think that it makes us feel good about ourselves as well. The superiority theory is a very selfish theory. Those of us who "get it" feel elite and more intelligent than those who don't and in that we find humor. It may not be the nicest form of comedy or the most inclusive but it is one I enjoy nonetheless.