Author: Adrian LeClair
Henri Bergson’s Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1900) remains one of the most influential philosophical approaches to comedy. Rather than treating humor as a mere emotional reaction, Bergson sought to define the conditions under which laughter occurs and what it reveals about human society.
For Bergson, comedy emerges when the mechanical is imposed upon the living. In other words, when human behavior becomes rigid, repetitive, or overly habitual—stripped of flexibility—it becomes laughable. Comedy thus acts as a form of social correction, exposing the automatism in human behavior and reminding individuals to remain supple, alive, and adaptable.
Bergson’s theory is not concerned with specific comic forms like slapstick or satire, but with the deeper logic of comic effect. He emphasized that laughter is inherently social—it requires a group, an audience, a shared context. Laughter is not purely emotional, but intellectual: it arises from the perception of incongruity, and often serves to police behavior by ridiculing what deviates from social norms.
In cinema, Bergson’s theory has been applied to visual gags, physical comedy, and moments of exaggerated repetition. Chaplin’s tramp character, for example, walks the line between the human and the mechanical—his jerky, clockwork movements perfectly exemplify Bergson’s concept of “the mechanical encrusted upon the living.”
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