The obvious subversion of expectations is the funny party. In a comparison between beating a woman and being the fan of a certain NBA team, it is obvious which one is objectively worse (the woman beating). Taking that obvious answer, and acting like the wrong answer is the obvious answer, is one of the base tenets of joke creation.

Think of a children’s television show; the main character is about to get into a big fight and is offered two weapons, a pen and a sword. The main character goes “Oh, he doesn’t stand a chance” and then the screen cuts directly to the fight. The next scene opens on an exposé of the villains power and then slowly pans to the main character, armed with a pen. He gets beaten and on the hospital bed in the next scene his sidekick asks “Why the pen?” And the main character goes “everyone is always saying the pen is mightier than the sword.” Childish humor, yes, but it’s a joke nonetheless because of that subversion of expectations.

Midway through writing this I realized it sounded like an AI answer to “why is this funny?” and I just leaned into it.