Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Over the years, the topic of cross cultural humor has received little attention and research. Those who have researched the subject have approached the subject from a psychological point of view or have tried to create their own theory for being humorous in one culture or the other. However, this is not an exercise in creating a new theory for how to be humorous in both China and America. I strictly observed how both audiences responded to ten different types of laughing points from both American and Chinese comedy films. Those types of laughing points are: humorous anger, awkward humor, blunt humor, dark humor, funny faces, juxtaposition, puns/play on words, referential humor, sarcasm, and sexual humor. Although many assumed that humor would not be able to cross culture due to cultural differences, all laughing points except for juxtaposition were able to cross culture at least one way. Humorous anger, puns, referential humor, and sarcasm only crossed culture one way. American audiences laughed at Chinese humorous anger, referential humor, and sarcasm while Chinese audiences laughed at American puns. Awkward humor, blunt humor, dark humor, funny faces, and sexual humor were able to cross between both cultures. This thesis had two goals: to prove that humor can cross culture and deserves research, and to produce results that would be beneficial to both Hollywood and Chinese film companies. These results prove that humor can cross between Chinese and American cultures and that comedy films and cross-cultural laughing points deserves further research. It also shows that Hollywood should plan to use awkward humor, blunt humor, dark humor, funny faces, puns, and sexual humor to better appeal to the Chinese Audience.

Committee: Xiaobin Jian (Advisor); Galal Walker (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Film Studies; Foreign Language