Timing
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.149
Distance and Proximity > The Possibility of Offense
Theoretical move: Comedy requires a paradoxical dual operation of simultaneous identification and distance from its object; neither proximity alone nor distance alone enables comedy, and the possibility of offense — theorized through Kierkegaard's structure of Christian faith — is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for comedy, structurally paralleling the joke's timeliness with the believer's contemporaneousness with Christ.
Timing is essential for comedy, which suggests that comic ability derives from knowing how to avoid being either too soon or too late.