Mr Bean has been a popular comedic character for a number of decades now and has succeeded in making millions of people laugh. The fundamental reason behind Mr Bean’s humour is that he is a child in a man’s body and consistently fails to get it right under a number of social situations. In this clip, we see Mr Bean attending a wedding: a solemn and traditional affair during which Mr Bean attempts to fit in and celebrate with the happy couple, but manages to get it entirely wrong. The actor who plays Mr Bean, Rowan Atkinson, is known for his physical brand of humour and never more so than in this role. The brilliance of Mr Bean is that he rarely speaks and usually only utters the odd word or two or sound, and this is the case in this particular clip; Atkinson uses his face and body to induce humour in his audience. The clip is exemplary of physical humour and uses hallmarks of the genre to create a funny situational comedy.
In the scene, we see Mr Bean in attendance at a church wedding. However, he’s late and his first mistake is barging past the bride and her father whilst they’re walking up the aisle. This immediately launches the viewer into the middle of a celebration of physical comedy. After interrupting one of the greatest moments in a father’s life, Bean then insists on sitting in the front row (presumably because there’s an empty seat) and takes the father of the bride’s place whilst encouraging the rest of the row to shuffle up so that the father can sit down. The humour in this opening minute is simple: Bean is a child who misunderstands a situation whilst thinking he’s doing the best thing. He takes the empty seat so as not to make a fuss and he encourages the others to move so that they can make room for someone else who needs a seat. He doesn’t realise his social faux pas. In this sense, Mr Bean’s humour takes on a logos element in as much as Mr Bean thinks he’s applying logic to a situation he doesn’t completely understand, but fails miserably making it funny for the audience who do understand it. This juxtaposition mirrors the traditional, real-life scenario and Mr Bean’s perception of social etiquette.
Throughout the ceremony, Mr Bean continues to conduct himself in a wholly inappropriate way: making lewd hand gestures about the bride’s shapely appearance, acting out the marriage vows through ridiculous facial expressions, and panicking as his gift of an alarm clock goes off mid-ceremony. The final blow is when he steals the prayer cushion from the father of the bride, causing him to slip and crash into the stone floor of the church; and then finally stepping on the bridal train and making her wedding dress rip from her body, leaving her standing in her lingerie. Still, wonderfully oblivious, Bean then dodges three punches from the groom; one hits a groomsman, another hits the priest, and the final one hits the bride. As chaos reigns around him, Bean surreptitiously places the alarm clock on the ground next to the bride as she’s comforted by her husband. He tiptoes out as the rest of the wedding party react with anger and confusion. The humour of the scene lies entirely in the contrast between what Mr Bean thinks is socially acceptable and what actually is socially acceptable. Atkinson’s physical brand of humour rings true here as he ricochets from one catastrophe to the next.
Rowan Atkinson is a comedy actor who is best known for his physical brand of humour. His various roles including that of Mr Bean, Blackadder, and his various stand up characters see him using his facial expressions: “Atkinson (Bean) is very goofy with his facial expressions and physical humour.” (Morency 165). On the British comedy scene, he is an actor who is associated with the silly and unsophisticated form of humour. Atkinson’s comedy is rooted in the elementary joke of a man falling over and with Bean he takes that to the extreme by allowing the audience in on the fact that he’s mentally just a boy whilst the character and his onscreen colleagues are unaware of the grown man in front of them being anything but just that. This sort of humour has made Mr Bean extremely possible with children across the world and because it is not reliant on speech or wit, it has made it an international hit too.
Production of Mr Bean began whilst Atkinson was still at university and was a regular part of his stand-up routine. The character truly came into its own when Atkinson performed at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Quebec, Canada in 1987; he insisted on performing on the French stage and proved to be a hit with his physical over linguistic humour (Mr Bean Wiki). The creation of the character was successful in bringing family humour to a wide audience of people – not just children, but to adults of all ages too. This brand of humour is unusual as it is usually divided into what is and what isn’t suitable for children. Bean manages to straddle this divide – even being amusing to particularly young children, again, due to the lack of reliance on language. Presumably, the BBC created the series from Atkinson’s comedy creation in order to produce a programme which was funny to all ages and inoffensive to anyone. In some way, we can all relate to Bean as we’ve found ourselves failing to live up to social expectations, making embarrassing mistakes, or even grappling with etiquette as children. It is hard not to like Mr Bean for this reason alone.
The significance of analysing such a comedic text is that this brand of humour is one which has been in existence since the dawn of time. Physical humour transcends age, language and cultural barriers and it is clear to any type of audience that Bean’s buffoonery is extremely funny and relevant. Physical humour is the basis for all other forms of humour. From an early age, children make their first jokes by pulling silly faces – we are not born with the ability to create complicated, witty remarks but we all recognise the humour behind poking our tongue out, which is one of the first things a baby will giggle at. In short, the humour behind Mr Bean is one which will outlive us all as it continues to be hugely important in the development of all our senses of humour.
References
“Mr. Bean (television/film). Mr Bean Wiki. Wikia. Web. 2 December 2012. <>
BBC. “BBC One – Comic Relief – Mr Bean’s Wedding.” YouTube.com. 27 March 2007. BBC. 2 December 2012. <>
Morency, Philip. On the Aisle: film reviews. Rosedog Books: Pittsburgh, PA, 2012. Print.
