How To Turn “What If” Questions About Myths Into A Humor Piece
Many humor pieces ask a single “What if…? question about familiar characters or stories that puts myths into a relatable, relevant context. For example, what if the Greek gods used Twitter? What if they were teachers in a public high school? What if they worked out in gyms? What if they had to start getting colonoscopies? You can generate endless numbers of these kinds of questions to see which yields the funniest answers.
With this format you have the luxury of being able to pull jokes from various and sundry myths, which provides you with more material from which to find good lines. Meanwhile, the piece gets its coherence from the single “what if” question running throughout. Most “what if” question pieces wring humor from the heightened contrast between the myths (which are high, sacred, and intellectual) and modern reality (which is low, mundane, and idiotic.) Depending on the question being asked, these pieces can also include commentary about modern society.
Here are three examples of humor pieces I didn’t write that used this technique particularly well. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I did.
HOLIDAY LETTERS FROM LEGENDS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY
by Caitlin Kunkel and Johnathan Appel in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
In this piece, Caitlin Kunkel and Johnathan Appel asked “What if characters in Greek myths wrote letters for the holidays?” The question created a frame for hilarious contrasts, such as the idea that Echidna, the half human half snake that gave birth to many monsters in Greek mythology, might write fond little updates about how her evil children were doing each year. Although these ancient Greek characters have experienced tragedies, in their holiday letters they put positive spin on their horrific lives (e.g., the queen of Troy cheerily discusses her son’s beautiful funeral.) In the process, Kunkel and Appel show us the hollow, insincere and meaningless tone of most modern holiday cards.
NEW YORK SUBWAY MYTHOLOGY
by Evan Allgood and Glynnis Fawkes in The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts
Evan Allgood and Glynnis Fawkes wrote a great piece that asks the same question throughout: what would Greek mythological figures look like on the New York subway? While this single line of thought unifies the jokes in this visual story, Allgood and Glynnis still manage to tap into myths ranging from the Sirens to the Furies. Many of the laughs come from the gritty contrasts: e.g., the goddess Tyche now takes the form of an old lady or child hawking sweets, Nemesis takes the form of subway signal problems, and Tartarus is a notoriously bad station. The result is to emphasize the subway’s grungy awfulness.
Disney Princes Reimagined as Feminist Allies
by Blythe Roberson in The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs
In this one, Blythe Roberson asks the simple question “What if Disney princes were feminists?” throughout. Since she can draw on different stories for inspiration, she comes up with answers as varied and hilarious as the prince in Sleeping Beauty issuing a “proclamation asking women to relive their traumas on social media” or the prince in Beauty and the Beast giving his beloved a library filed with books by Don DeLillo. Here, again, the contrast between modern reality and the sugary fantasy worlds of Disney movies make this piece funny and surprising. At the same time, Roberson throws in commentary about sexism in Disney movies.
