No worries kendall.

Name calling is the second last resort of a person who has no better argument to advance, and this thread is bigger than MtheGM.

The last resort is violence.



"In the Anne Frank joke, we're supposed to laugh because the family's stupidity kills them."


If the Frank Family had actually bought Anne a drum kit and had subsequently been caught by the Nazi's as a result of playing it noisily then that would have been a very bad decision.

Drawing attention to that and laughing at it would be to ridicule them and find enjoyment in a tragic mistake.

That would be to say "weren't the franks stupid ha ha ha"


But they didn't did they.


So we aren't laughing at something they did are we?


No.


So we aren't calling them stupid are we?


No.



Well then what could we possibly laughing at?



1. The notion that Anne Franks Father would have considered buying her a drumkit in the first place, which is completely absurd because:

a) Anne Frank didn't play the drums and had no interest in doing so. we know this because there are no passages in her diary in which she expresses such a desire. So for her to be given a drumkit is entirely incongruous with everything we know about her.

The incongruity of a Drumkit with the context of Anne Frank's story is ridiculous.

The drumkit is extremely funny!

b) A drumkit would have been virtually impossible to find in Nazi occupied Amsterdam, and would have been unaffordable to Anne Franks Father even if he had been free to go shopping down at the local Drumkit retailers.

The idea of Him buying and carrying a drumkit through Amsterdam to bring home to their house, looking like a one man band as he clatters and bumps his waay home, is an utterly absurd fiction and for that reason very funny.

It is also entirely incongruous with the realities of the story, hence it is both funny and (being incongruous) has no bearing on whether or not Mr Frank was stupid or not.

It says nothing about whether he is stupid or not.

2. We are also laughing at the idea that somebody in hiding might decide to start playing the drums.

"Surely Lox and others recognize the difference between laughing *with* and laughing *at*. "

I'm not laughing either 'with' or 'at' the Franks. They are not essential to the Joke. It could just as easily have been anyone else in hiding.

In the case of the Franks however it is particularly absurd as we know the question of owning a drumkit would never have crossed their minds in the first place even if they had never been in hiding.


A drumkit in the context of Anne frank is simply very funny and I laughed out loud at the joke for that reason.


Examples of humour involving incongrous additions to well known situations.


The idea of Pamela Anderson applying for a job as a pole dancer in a mosque.

This says nothing about moslems or Pamela anderson.

It is funny because it is ridiculous.

The idea of an insurance salesman knocking on frodo baggins door in the lord of the rings.

The idea of Aslan the Lion being arrested by the FBI for the murder of the Ice Queen in Narnia.


You see?


The idea of a drumkit in the Anne frank house ...



The idea of a palestinian suicide bomber in colditz ...


Any help?