22 Jump Street Crash

This scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SSzuDZ58z0) is from 22 Jump Street and is an example of the relief/release theory. The movie focuses on two cops who go undercover at the local college to investigate a drug ring, while there one of the cops (Jonah Hill) hooks-up with a student - something that the whole team, including his captain (Ice Cub), congratulates him on. Later, Hill’s character goes to the parents’ day event and upon seeing the girl he slept with, realizes that his boss is her father. In this scene Hill’s partner (Channing Tatum) and the rest of the force finds out what has happened and the captain enacts his revenge.

The humor in this clip comes not only from the tension between Hill and Ice Cub’s characters, but from

Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is a male model who is being recruited by Mugatu (Will Ferrell) as an assassin to help take over the world – although Stiller’s character has no idea. Here, Ferrell’s character is showing him what he is willing to give him if Stiller’s character will come work for him. He unveils a model of the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who can’t Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too.

The superiority theory of humor is based on the notion that, “X is funny because it prompts apprehension of our superiority over others.” This scene is funny not only because the name of the school is egregiously grammatically incorrect, but also because of the way Stiller’s character reacts to the model. He asks, “What is this, a center for ants,” clearly not understanding that the model was not the actual school but a model. Moreover, he continues by telling Ferrell’s character that center need to be at least 3x the size, which would not be anywhere near the size of a building for humans. According to the superiority theory this scene is funny because the audience is laughing at the stupidity and ignorance demonstrated by Stiller’s