2014-10-19
Explanation
The Joke
A romantic scene: the sun is setting over the ocean, and a woman asks a man to tell her the three words every woman longs to hear. Instead of saying "I love you," the man exclaims "Cheese is available!" The woman is confused and protests that he was supposed to say "I love you," but then spots the cheese and exclaims "Oh my God! Is that Camembert?!" In the final panel, both are happily eating cheese together while she declares "This is such a beautiful moment."
The Humor
The comic subverts the classic romantic setup where a couple watches a sunset and exchanges heartfelt declarations of love. The man'''s substitution of "cheese is available" for "I love you" is initially played as him ruining the moment, but the punchline reveals that the woman is actually even more excited about the cheese than she would have been about the romantic declaration. The joke works on multiple levels: it parodies the cliche of sunset romance scenes, it plays on the idea that simple physical pleasures (good cheese) can be more genuinely satisfying than performative romantic gestures, and it ends with the couple sharing a moment of real happiness over something completely mundane -- which is arguably more romantic than the scripted version would have been.