Given that slapstick is essentially a comedic conceit, I was wondering, do you guys actually find pies in the face and all that actually funny? We wammers enjoy it for other reasons, after all. What then is the relationship between humour and eroticism? Many producers seem to produce stuff that at least seems to respect the conventions of slapstick comedy, but mostly it seems that these tropes act mostly as triggers for a sexual response - having girls say "I don't know" before getting slimed for example. I've noticed that I do find myself smiling at these things, but I'm not sure I really think they're actually massively funny.
I'm not sure if I really have a point to make, I'm just interested in hearing what the rest of you think about this. So, discuss!
I find a pie in the face either on a girl or guy or myself extremely erotic I don't really get the humor in fetish...Tho saying that, I have had a fun few messy private times where I have been so turned on and laughing and giggling away all the way through so maybe humor is a sexy thing
I've had this thought myself and I think its not so funny on tv. But if it happens to one of my friends someone I know personally it could be alittle funny.
No, it's never been funny to me. Slapstick and mess sequences in films actively annoy me...unless of course it turns out there's a lovely girl on the receiving end of something (and then providing the film doesn't screw it up by not showing it for long enough or in the right way)
Weird. In a way I kind of feel bad for not laughing at, say, a joke in a SlapstickStuff sequence or the old Splosh videos - because they are there and they do try to make it more than the obvious intended provocation of...well, *that*, but the truth is, I think a lot of this fetish for me stems from a subliminal desire to humiliate girls in this fashion and I've got no time for anything that gets in the way of that. I'll even skip ahead on short videos to the required points, if I'm in the right mood.
By the way, I said subliminal desire then, because although I recognise it, and have lived with it since my late teens - along with another fetish for a certain type of costume that I discovered some years back - I can go about my life perfectly happy, talking to women, being friends with them, loving them, and *never* have this intrude on it or even think about doing anything to them. So I have that innate conflict between the part of me that loves and respects women so much, and this other part of me... and there goes that 2 am train of thought!
Botttom line, back on topic, no, I don't find anything funny about this at all! I promise I'm not probably just a bit tired
This echoes what Noise said a little bit; I think there can be humour in something unexpected, like a good pratfall. But the key to it is that it can't be set up and seen coming from a mile away, unless there is something clever in the execution.
Most of us probably agree that no pie-in-the-face we've ever seen on TV or in a movie ever made us laugh - unless it was an element in a completely unexpected sight-gag, and contributed to the ridiculousness of the overall situation. The problem is that someone involved in the production gets focused on the pie as the source of humour, rather than letting a pie or something messy simply happen as part of a humourous pratfall. And as we all know, as soon as we see that there's a pie coming, there's usually no more humour coming.
BUT...
1. I have seen at least one comedy skit where pie-in-the-face (or, getting faces messy with pie, anyway) was an integral part of a fairly funny bit. Check it out and see what you think: (Warning: no girls in the skit. Sorry.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnkb0lOnb1k&feature=results_video
2. While I'm not turned on by pied girls because it's funny, I have found myself laughing at girls (and guys) taking pies in the face WHEN THEY ARE PEOPLE THAT I KNOW and/or I AM PRESENT AT THE PIEING. I might turn around and watch the same video later without laughing, and instead be turned on by the images (of the girls, anyway), but at the time of shooting, it's actually funny sometimes. Doesn't anyone else feel that?
Don't get me wrong; just the sight of a friend getting pied isn't funny in itself. But rather, the game or contest or whatever we've engaged in has gotten everyone tense in a competitive way, and then when someone finally loses it's funny to see their reaction, and the attitude & expression of the person doing the pieing. No? I love it. The parties we've had where we start out with 5 or more people and it gets whittled down to one loser who finally gets the pie are super fun, and the pieing is usually genuinely funny to watch.
It's also genuinely funny sometimes to watch our actresses get pied in a skit, I find. Again, I usually feel a little different later when reviewing the footage; but at the time, if it's a girl I know, seeing her delivering stupid lines leading to a pie we all see coming from miles away, when she's just taken the time to do her makeup and put on nice clothes, and she's the only one in the room who's gonna get pied (for now), and seeing her trying to stay in character through the pieing when she really wants to laugh... this all genuinely makes me (and everyone else in the room) laugh. (Unless the nature of the skit isn't slapstick/comedic, but rather a sub/dom thing... then there isn't so much laughter.)
Slapstick humour generally, both the messy kind and more widely including pratfalls is derived from humiliation, from the ridiculousness and the undermining of norms. The pie fight in the Great Race, for example, is surely supposed to be funny, but there's very little in there that relies for effect on the element of surprise or the unexpected. In fact it's just the anarchy, the mayhem, the breakdown of order and norms that makes it 'fun', rather than 'funny'.
But back to WAM, I'm surprised - I thought people would be saying they sound it funny AND hot, and that they saw the two things as connected, but in fact perhaps it's the case that most wammers are finding it hot instead of funny. Certainly in my case I think that as a young child when I saw WAM on TV, I felt uncomfortable and sorry for the people involved. It seems I came to associate it with a different button being pushed in me than the one intended.
noise said: Humour is based the unexpected, wether it be in a subtle use of words or gratuitous and shocking. A pun or a pratfall.
So when you know slime or a pie is coming, I would put forth that it can not be funny.
It can be amusing or entertaining in situation or the act itself, but it can't be funny.
That said, there is no reason dialogue can not be funny - but that is reliant on a writer with talent, or subjects with wit on tap.
I don't think it's one or the other. Comedy - and some people spend a life-time trying to analyse it - generally relies on the TENSION between the expected and unexpected (surprise) - the magic is when someone gets it right (this applies visually and verbally). It's a bit like the "twelve bar blues" in music: some people make it sound like twelve bar blues and some people can make it sound like something you've never heard before.
When it comes to humour, I personally do genuinely love slapstick, but I recognise that it's divisive: I love the 'predictability' of Laurel and Hardy, but many others - like my wife - find it mind-fuckingly infuriating.
For me, humour in WAM makes it even more enjoyable and as Splosh!'s Bill Shipton once suggested, makes people feel "less guilty" about being turned on by a beautiful woman being covered in gunge.
there's nothing funny or erotic about a pie in the face...nothing.
OK...
Nick....did you mean to say "conceit"...?
AS many ave pointed out, slapstick is about humorous humiliation (note that both words use the "hum" morpheme, meaning 'earth' or 'ground'...as in 'bringing one down to earth')...
...someone mentioned "tension" in comedy....perhaps a part of the laughing at a sight gag is to release the (nervous) tension that is built up...whether we know what's coming or not...we still watch it, want to see it...like all those crotch hit shots on America's Funniest Home Videos...
For those who don't think it's funny to WATCH....try participating in a public pie fight sometime...you will find yourself laughing continuously throughout...funnest and funniest experience of my life (a friend's birthday bash)
Also: I had an old girlfriend that didn't think it was funny at all (she actually said this while watching the Great Race)...then one sunny summer day I pied her by surprise...she was at first shocked and then mad, but when I gave her a pie to pie me (which she did immediately with great force), her mood instantly changed to one of joyous revenge and we both laughed uncontrollably for quite some time...(there was also a nice erotic moment following this incident, but I'm keeping that to myself)
A few days later, we were with a friend, and SHE mentions the pie in the face out of the blue, her shock at the experience, but with a big evil smile on her face all the while...and chuckling about it...
watching and doing are two very different experiences....
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noise said: Humour is based the unexpected, wether it be in a subtle use of words or gratuitous and shocking. A pun or a pratfall.
So when you know slime or a pie is coming, I would put forth that it can not be funny.
Two points to this; one, a pie in a girl's face is funny because it's unexpected - the whole nature of society is that women are not meant to get messy and the jobs where you're more likely to need protective clothing are generally men's; two, sometimes KNOWING the joke is going to happen IS the joke - it's how it's executed or subverted. The Monty Python pie history skit is surely one of those kinds. And The Fast Show ran for a number of series with everyone knowing the punchline, it was how they got there.
there's nothing funny or erotic about a pie in the face...nothing.
OK...
Nick....did you mean to say "conceit"...?
AS many ave pointed out, slapstick is about humorous humiliation (note that both words use the "hum" morpheme, meaning 'earth' or 'ground'...as in 'bringing one down to earth')...
...someone mentioned "tension" in comedy....perhaps a part of the laughing at a sight gag is to release the (nervous) tension that is built up...whether we know what's coming or not...we still watch it, want to see it...like all those crotch hit shots on America's Funniest Home Videos...
For those who don't think it's funny to WATCH....try participating in a public pie fight sometime...you will find yourself laughing continuously throughout...funnest and funniest experience of my life (a friend's birthday bash)
Also: I had an old girlfriend that didn't think it was funny at all (she actually said this while watching the Great Race)...then one sunny summer day I pied her by surprise...she was at first shocked and then mad, but when I gave her a pie to pie me (which she did immediately with great force), her mood instantly changed to one of joyous revenge and we both laughed uncontrollably for quite some time...(there was also a nice erotic moment following this incident, but I'm keeping that to myself)
A few days later, we were with a friend, and SHE mentions the pie in the face out of the blue, her shock at the experience, but with a big evil smile on her face all the while...and chuckling about it...
watching and doing are two very different experiences....
For me, WAM as we see it on these forums is generally not funny, but sexy. I think for most of us here, WAM is about the sensuality of messy substances than humour.
That said, some of Rich's videos have had great jokes in them and made me laugh out loud, like his SAW parody for example.
Also I think I agree with Noise that because you know what's going to happen there's no surprise and therefore it's like hearing a joke to which you already know the punchline. It doesn't work a second time.
But WAM is FUN. And when a girl is willing to get messy it shows she has a fun side to her where she's not overly uptight about the way she appears, and she enjoys that sensual feeling, and that is very attractive when you know a girl has that, even if they're not getting messy. It's the carefree rebelious streak that makes both the act, and the girls willing to do it very appealing.
probably just a bit tired 
