Something Aca-hilarious, 4

     Life can be hilarious. There are just moments in everyday life that can turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary day. For me, funny moments occur daily. Sometimes, these funny moments don’t happen to me, I end up seeing and watching these moments in movies. I also can find funny moments when people react to funny scenes in movies. For example, the other night, my friends and I were watching “Pitch Perfect,” which is hilarious. I was merely observing these funny moments, they weren’t happening to me.

     “Pitch Perfect” had numerous funny moments that made my friends and I laugh and laugh. Many of these moments had to do with the eccentric character that is “Fat Amy.” She is funny because she’s a blunt, honest, and extremely witty person who isn’t afraid to say what’s on her mind. She definitely has a lot of colorful quotes. First, I love how she tells the Bellas that the reason she calls herself “Fat Amy” is so “twig (expletive) like you don’t do it behind my back.” So therefore, people are forced to call her “Fat Amy.” This is an example of the Incongruity Theory and the cognitive shift. In real life, we don’t expect someone that we have just met to say, "Hi, I'm Fat ___." And we definitely would not expect that person to have Fat Amy’s reasoning. Another quote that is humorous occurs is Fat Amy’s reaction when the Jewish student says “Shalom.” She replies, “That’s not a real word but keep trying. You. Will. Get. There.” While this is not her funniest and raunchiest quote, it does follow the Superiority Theory. We feel pity for Fat Amy because she is from Australia, and apparently, there aren’t a lot of Jewish people there. So she is extremely ignorant about the Jewish culture, and doesn’t know that “Shalom” is a Jewish greeting.

     “Pitch Perfect” is also hilarious because of all of the random, bodily humor that takes place. The scenes that are particularly hilarious, as well as extremely gross, are the two scenes in which Aubrey projectile vomits all over the place. In one scene, she vomits on the misfortunate audience members during Nationals. In the second scene, she gets so upset that she projectile vomits all over the floor This second incidence of projectile vomiting is even funnier than the first because the vomit spews everywhere as the girls fight over the pitch whistle, which eventually lands in the vomit. And then, Lilly is knocked over and lands on the vomit, and makes a “vomit angel.” These scenes are hilarious because they're overly dramatic and highly exaggerated. These scenes are so blown out of proportion and ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh. The Superiority Theory is also evident, because we feel pity for poor Aubrey, who vomits at the most inappropriate times, like in the middle of her solo at Nationals. But I can’t help but laugh at her misfortune. I’m also glad to not be Aubrey, and I subconsciously feel as though I’m better than her. And of course, the Incongruity Theory plays a role because of the cognitive shift. The cognitive shift first occurs when Aubrey vomits in the middle of her solo, because I certainly didn’t expect that to happen. And the second instance of the Incongruity Theory occurred when Lilly fell in the vomit. Instead of getting back up, she made a vomit angel. Again, this was certainly unexpected.

      We can also apply Morreall’s aspects of humor to the movie. For example, we can apply the third aspect, enjoyment, to the movie, because most people really enjoy watching this movie. I know I did! It’s also fun to watch it with other people. Since laughter tends to be social and contagious, we often laugh harder at this movie when we watch it with other people, because if one person laughs, everyone else has to laugh too. It’s also really fun to watch funny movies with people who have a funny laugh, and we can’t help but laugh at them.

     To anyone who hasn’t seen “Pitch Perfect” before, I highly recommend you do. The plot is Aca-amazing! Plus, it has a lot of good music, singing, and dancing. But what really makes “Pitch Perfect” special is the humor present throughout the film. It never fails to make me laugh!