Freud's Theory of Humor Explains the Fact That Old Comedies Suck

According to Freud, humor operates by releasing repressed psychic energy. In his 1905 work Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, he argued that jokes—especially those involving taboo subjects like sex, death, or authority—serve as a socially permissible outlet for forbidden desires. They offer a brief holiday from repression, allowing unconscious material to surface in a disguised, and therefore acceptable, form. Laughter, in Freud's account, is a signal of relief: the ego has dodged the superego's censors, however momentarily.

This mechanism also explains why comedy ages rapidly and often poorly. Because humor depends on shared repressions and cultural taboos, it becomes ineffective once those taboos fade or mutate. A joke that depends on, say, the shock value of premarital sex or rigid gender roles will fall flat in a society that no longer represses such themes. The punchline loses its punch because the tension it was designed to discharge no longer exists. The once-forbidden thought is now mundane.

Furthermore, much of old comedy is built on stylistic conventions—slapstick, puns, exaggerated accents—that were once familiar and amusing but now feel archaic or tiresome. Freud would likely argue that these techniques served to cloak repressed material in a socially palatable form. But once the repressed content loses its charge, the form is exposed as hollow.

Thus, Freud's theory suggests that comedy is culturally contingent and historically fragile. It is only as effective as the psychic tension it resolves—and when that tension evaporates, so does the humor.