Blog 6: Elf

Growing up as it got colder, and closer to Christmas that meant it was time for everyone to start making Elf references, and begin begging to watch the classic holiday comedy. It’s a film one could find laughable at any age. The movie Elf follows the journey of Buddy the elf as he leaves his home in the North Pole to find his father in New York City. Buddy, being raised as an elf and not a human, is completely unaware of social norms and the way things works. Buddy’s absence of knowledge about American cultures, leads him to do things the audience would find crazy and hilarious. As Kaitlin said in her initial blog post, this creates an incongruous and benign violation type humor. Buddy is doing wild and problematic things that create a laughable chaos, but it all ultimately harmless. When Buddy first find his father, he goes into his father’s works and creates quite a scene, that is extremely embarrassing to his father, but comes across hilarious to the audience as the entire situation is so wacky.  Beyond just the situation comedy created by Buddy’s ignorance is just the fact he’s a man in an elf suit. Buddy’s entire character is built upon incongruous comedy. Not only does he look funny, he truly believes he is an elf, and views the world in such a comically innocent light. He congratulated a small coffee shop on having the best cup of coffee because he genuinely believed their advertisement. Buddy’s naive mature creates conflict throughout the film, such as all the trouble he gets into working as an elf at the mall, but it all results to be harmless. This plays into the benign violation aspect of what makes Elf so funny. Despite the absurdity and chaos  of Buddy’s antics I think its safe to say he’ll always be a Christmas favorite.