Understand the subtle

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I watched this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7AXskSxxMk&t=39s

I find his body language and prosody to be more subtle than other comedians. He is hard to understand. I don't understand the joke at all.
It is too subtle for my ASD brain. I just get frustrated when I watch it.

People have said that this one is funny:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m5CX00i4uZE&t=78s

To me that is not comedy. It is just a man giving an advice with some exageration in order to prove a point.

This one is some much easier to understand, I think: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xBkrrzuO4jQ&t=80s

Is dry humour difficult for us?
What do tou think this is all about?
We often are told that reading sutble body language, facial expressions and prosody can be difficult for us.
On the other hand I hear people with ASD who seem to be good at it. Some of them become psychologists.

I like drama a lot. I sing and recite dramatic stuff.
My performances don't sem to be that suble even if I do subtle stuff as well, I hope.

I have studied comedy but due to ASD dry humour is too hard for me.

In the first clip, the man is somewhat the "straight man," and his subdued reactions are intended to not offend the flaming Dunning-Kruger case he is dealing with, although he must be struggling to stay polite.

In the second, the "acting lesson" is rather patronizing, more suitable for a first-grade class than an acting academy.

For some reason, I generally revere John Cleese, but Fawlty Towers has never been my cup of tea.

I don't see what's hard to understand.
Her understandings are absurd but she says them entirely straight-faced.
He's the straight man.
The contrast between the absurdity and the straight-face is the source of the humour.



He's explaining it in an exaggerated way to the point of absurdity. The contrast between the absurdity and the straight-face is the source of the humour.

I missed how the second video was supposed to be patronizing. I just thought he was exagerating a bit.
ASD makes such thing hard to understand.

What then is the difference between exageration and patronizing?

When you use an exaggerated tone to condescend, that's patronizing.

It's the way it's exaggerated, the goal is to treat the other party like they're incapable of understanding without all the details being explicitly given, the dots connected, etc.

I have difficulties with seeing the funny in the straight man in itself. I see the importance of having one if the other person is an auguste.

I don't understand communication that is communicated by abscence of something.
You two seem to understand it very well.
So communication is a lot about abscence of something?
Do I focus too much on what is happening rqther than what is not happening?

The straight man or comedic foil is there to provide contrast with the exaggerated character. They respond in a subtle, restrained, 'normal' way to the ridiculous person or situation (or combination of the two) they're interacting with.

Comedy often works on creating an expectation and then subverting it.

Let's say the scene starts with you offering me a little bit of water because I look thirsty. If you return with a firehose and proceed to send me tumbling with a torrent of water, the audience expectation has been subverted.

If I pick myself up off the ground unscathed, ignore all consequences of the torrent of water and politely thank you for the water before toddling off, we've again subverted audience expectations because it's an unreasonably tame, 'normal' response to a ridiculous situation.

That would be an example of playing the straight man because the humour comes from being seeming mundane and normal in the midst of the absurd.

I really find the subtle difficult but...I am not sure that the video with Simon Pegg is very subtle.
It is just another way of communication that I am not used to.

Isn't it all about training rather than whether you have asd or not?

What I think of when I hear the term straight man is the whiteface clown and the auguste clown: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe1ggcd1Hgg&t=238s

But I see no auguste in the video with Simon Pegg. Who is the auguste and who is the whiteface?

I was told that Laurel and Hardy often changed roles (changin between auguste and straight man) a lot.
Does that happen a lot in social situations?

Social situations and also in stand-up.

If they can swap roles easily it allows for more of that subverting expectations that I described.

Are you familiar with Ernie and Bert? They're a good example of a funny man/straight man pairing, but sometimes the skit focuses on something weird or eccentric about Bert. If the skit is focused on something strange about Bert that lets Ernie remain the grounded, 'normal' one.

Simon Pegg was the straight man, the woman is also playing her role completely dead-pan but everything she says is absurd so she's the auguste/funny man/whatever you wanna call it.

What I know about Ernir and Bert come mostly from Family Guy

But it did sound like a good advice to me.
It might sound a bit simplified but I like the advice.
It is good to remind people of what acting is about.

How is that a rude way of giving someone an advice? Should he have given the advice in another way?
Or maybe McKellen was warning Gervais against something that he had seen many actors doing ie going away from the script?

I am aware that it is not a comedy scene since it is not funny at all. You see no fun person in the video. Or maybe some people find it so boring that they must laugh but it isn't boring.

I am confused. Why do people think a non-conedy scene is funny?

We know that dry hunour isn't funny! That's a fact! I think dry hunour exists to provoke people rather being fun!

It's not a comedy scene, but it's a charming person being funny.

I have been told that I was funny when I never tried to ve comical at all.
So being comical and funny ate different things?