I don't get it

So it is not at all unusual for Justin's and my tastes in movies to be polar opposites. There is a very slim pool of movies that we actually agree on - mostly comedies, and the occasional romance (not too sappily girly or he's out). But he cannot see why I find Zoolander hysterical, and I can't see why he busts a gut over Top Secret! (And my thoughts on Star Wars is well documented, so we won't even go there.)

Justin's sense of humor seems to be genetic. His dad also has horrible/bizzare tastes in movies, only his extends to music (bluegrass Metallica, anyone?) , so I guess I'm lucky that J's portion of the mutation is tamer. I mention this only as a framing mechanism for the horrors I had to partake Monday night.

Our humanities class is starting the final section of class, and the topic is the Dark Ages and the Medieval Times. (No, not the entertainment chain, but they have some darn fine chicken!) We walk into class on Monday and Justin's eyes light up (usually a bad sign for me) and he goes, "Oh goody, we're watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail tonight!"

And. we. did.

This is Justin's (and his dad's) favorite movie. He quotes random bits of nonsense from it all the time, and I had been, up until that moment, pure and happy having never seen it. And let me just tell you, I feel so much worse the wear for doing so.

I knew it was going to be stupid going in, and was not disappointed. But what I did NOT anticipate was our ENTIRE CLASS laughing at the movie. I'm talking rolling in the aisles! Even the students from other countries who didn't truly understand the humor (one girl asked us, totally seriously, what happened to the King's horse.) were laughing. Sure there were moments that made me smile a bit (a world first admission that I know I'm going to pay for dearly once Justin reads this) - the more educated, pointed humor, but those moments were far and few between.

What worries me now is why I was the only one NOT laughing. Originally, I had thought that this movie was a guy's movie, one of those too silly to the point of pain movies that had a certain following (think nerddom). But this non-scientific sample disproved that. Our class is made up of men, women and people of every continent. So I must turn the microscope, uncomfortably, on myself. Am I humorless?

I certainly can find humor in some good old fashioned slapstick humor and spoofs (I'm talking Dodgeball wrench to the groin; one of my all time favorites is Hot Shots! parts 1 and deux), to the nonsensical (Clue) and the so far out there it's stupid but still comes back to smart and witty (the aforementioned Zoolander). But I just cannot get into Monty Python - Holy Grail or any of the other skits - that Justin finds so funny. I think it's the British-ness of it all, and the gross exaggeration of humor, the kind that almost pokes you in the eye just to make sure you got the joke, which a blind person could see from 10 miles away...

Does anyone feel me on this? Please tell me that it's not just me.