Nerd Movie Reviews

There’s no two ways around it: jerks are funny. For some reason, one of the most amusing things you can see on a television show is a character who is a total, unmitigated, incorrigible jerkwad. This comedic device works so well that television shows like Archer and House MD have “this guy is a jerk” as their entire premise! In fact, far from being reviled, these characters are beloved. Archer’s entire character just comes out to being a jerk, but for some reason, you still see him on Archer t shirts. So what gives?

I think that it’s ultimately funny because of incongruity. It’s funny when someone is a jerk because it’s something you don’t see every day, and something you don’t expect. We’re accustomed to living in a world with standards, with certain expectations and rules. Humor, at its root, is largely about incongruity, and people acting like jerks provides a ready source of incongruous humor. Even slapstick cartoon gags, such as stepping out of the way and trippings someone or slamming a door in their face as they’re running toward you, are a species of comedic incongruity. They don’t fit with their surroundings, and that’s the point.

The second big reason is the mean-spiritedness of it. Not to say that everybody is secretly mean, but we all have a little bit of schadenfreude in us. Every single one of us can think of a time or place where we would have loved to pop off with some horrible response to a person who was annoying us. Shows like Archer can provide stress relief in this way, because they allow us to get our jerk fix vicariously. Maybe you can’t be a jerk when you’re mad at someone, but you can have that experience vicariously by watching the right TV.

A third reason is that it allows for situational comedy and wordplay. When someone is being a jerk, it’s much easier for the show’s writers to steer it into an absurd situation, because unrealistically jerky behavior can plausibly lead to situational comedy. Additionally, there is all kinds of fun to be had with the verbal aspect of humor. Think of R Lee Ermey’s insulting monologues in Full Metal Jacket. Part of what makes those monologs funny, besides the sheer crudeness, is the creativity of the verbiage in the insults he uses, the sheer strangeness of what he says.

So in summary, jerks in TV are funny for the following reasons: they’re incongruous, they play to the pent-up meanness in all of us, and their attitude allows us to experience novel situations and dialogue. So the next time you see someone in an Archer t shirt, think of this article. You know why they’re wearing that shirt, and you know why everybody finds shows like Archer funny.