Why do we laugh when a little boy really hurts two grown men in home alone?

slapstick, slapstick, slapstick… There are all kinds of wrong in that movie. What the heck is he doing in his fathers tool box? My father would have hurt me worse than 2 potential kidnappers if he ever caught me in his toolbox.

Home Alone is probably the most violent film ever made. Ever.

I would say we laugh A) because we know it’s just Hollywood fabrication and B) because we enjoy seeing a small boy defend his home against what seems like hopeless odds. Yes it’s a very violent movie, but I think it’s the idea that the meek can prevail makes us see the movie as primarily happy.

I’m not laughing at any of this.

“What if it was two grown men hurting a little boy. Not so funny now, is it.”

No. Which is why the kid hurts them. So they won’t hurt him. This makes the violence justified in most people’s eyes.

I still don’t find it funny, though.

That’s a very good question. I was reading some of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and i think he touched on the subject. Or rather, my brain was influenced to ask: where does our laughter derive from? Comedians now, and maybe always have been, make ‘fun’ of either him/herself, another person(s), even an object ( I’d assume maybe by comparing to another object, it’s a thought :S ) But is it really all that true? Can anyone else name me something that isn’t having some sort of tragedy brought up that is funny?

Revenge