Comedy: it ain’t for sissies

Genre Wheel by Dr. Louise Cowan Epic: Beowulf, Odyssey… Lyric: Araby, A&P… Tragedy: Antigone, Hamlet… Comedy: Dante’s Commedia… Where do we put: Canterbury, HOD, Murder in the Catherdral, Faustus, Wuthering Heights, Stranger….

The Three Modes of Comedy: Dr. Louise Cowan’s The Terrain of Comedy Infernal Purgatorial Paradisal

INFERNAL “The community has accepted its fallen condition and cynically attributes its corruption to the ‘way of the world’” (11). “[. . . ] a state where grace is utterly absent and where selfishness and malice prevail. The community has accepted its fallen condition and cynically attributes its corruption to the ‘way of the world.’ Love cannot dwell in such a society; everyone is fundamentally alone, though hypocrisy and self-serving may give the appearance of friendship” (11).

PURGATORIAL “Its mood is pathos: in it the community hopes and waits, powerless to save itself” (13). “Time, in this realm, stretches out its lengthy wait; but time is benevolent and will eventually permit things to be healed. In the realm of space too, this middle region has greater largesse. This is the stage in which the “second world” of comedy accomplishes its effects most beneficently – a community may locate itself in a place where things can work out according to laws other than those that have gone astray in civilization” (13).

PARADISAL “Man is lifted up into a realm beyond himself, one that he has not gained by his own effort” (14). “[. . .] here grace and forgiveness supplant even mercy. Man is lifted up into a realm beyond himself, one that he has not gained by his own effort” (14). “universal love”

Timing is Everything Tragic Time: The world is already set in motion, and time is locked. The tragic action is inevitable because results are not a matter of time but of cause. The idea of tragedy is its inevitability Comedy is often surprising Comic Time: There is room for play and possibility; delay for the deeply desired.

Movement Comedy: Levity [ rising upward] Dante gives you this upward movement literally! Comedy: Levity [ rising upward] Tragedy: Gravity [moving toward the grave]

Tragedy gives us ultimate knowledge Tragedy gives us ultimate knowledge. Comedy gives us a way around things, through life Comedy is concerned with new possibilities as shown through inclusive communities (often with a feast) and marriage. Comedy appeals to deepest social chords. Where tragedy goes below earth, comedy goes above it providing a comic thrust, a hopeful vision. Canterbury Tales fits this description well – Wife of Bath, Miller’s Tale

Comedy makes men lesser than tragedy. Where tragedy operates in a philosophical (intellectual/individual) realm concerned with sight and sound, comedy operates in a physical (democratic) realm. Comedy plays with taste, touch, and smell. Comedy reduces things to the most rudimentary threads of humanity where everyone can be invited to join, participate, and understand. Stereotypes – tragic figures such as Medea break the expected stereotype, where comedy embraces stereotypes. Big Bang Theory is full of stereotypes!

Trickster Trickster, sometimes called Poneros (“little rascal”), goes against the norms. He does not allow himself to be victimized, always sees a possibility where a victim cannot. Bart Simpson Jack Sparrow The Joker The doctor – doctor who

The Green World The Green World is a pastoral dimension – a place of exit from the city – a place of achievement/discovery and IMAGINATION Unlike the tragic abyss from which one cannot really return, discovery from the Green World can be brought back into the city Tragedy is a world of “If only . . .” Comedy is a world of “What if . . .” The forrest serves this purpose in The Scarlet Letter. More comic options? How about the road trip starting with Canterbury Tales and moving on to Dumb and Dumber.

Formulaic Formula comedy, although predictable, is not limited in creativity. It appeals to our predisposed patterns (archetypes) Typical plot - young man wants woman, thwarted by opposition, twist of fate, and finally satisfaction

Puppy dogs and roses Often in comedy, everyone ends up being loved. Those who are not loved are the figures that must leave the inclusive community.

The History of Comedy

Comic Ladder Comedy of Ideas (high comedy) Comedy of Manners (high comedy) Farce (can be combination of high/low comedy) Low Comedy

The Comic Paradigm The comic problem The comic climax The comic catastrophe Comic education and change Comic characters Comic language

Problem Comic Problem: Romantic: (Shakespeare)—focus is young couple trying to overcome blocking agent and get together Satiric: (Ben Jonson)—the blocking agent itself is the focus, not what is wrong with it * Term: blocking agent - A person, circumstance, or mentality that prevents two potential lovers from being together romantically. The blocking agent was a common generic trait for classical Roman comedies and for many of Shakespeare's plays. It remains a feature even in modern genres such as Harlequin romances.

Climax When things fall apart. Comes when confusion is at a peak, decisions must be made, solutions must be found

Catastrophe Comic Catastrophe: Resolves the problems from the beginning and sets things right on all levels Individual and relationships are reconciled, married, fixed, made healthy, social order reestablished.

Education and Change Comic Education and Change: At least some characters learn something about themselves, society, the way to live, the way to love. Education improves them and their world Or audience is educated and that will change the world

Comic Characters Italians create stock characters; their masks identify which stock character they are. Comic Characters: They are usually not as deep as tragic characters, usually stock characters.

vibraphone Language larch wankel rotary engine Monty Python determined that… vibraphone larch wankel rotary engine …had humor embedded in them. Comic Language: These words are naturally funny, Doesn’t matter what they mean. Comic language is one of the most important elements in humor and extends from elegant and witty language to puns to bawdy humor. Comic language is used in showing a character either to be the master of comic language or to be mastered by it When a character is master of comic language, we admire his skillful use of satiric language, slicing things apart. When a character is mastered by comic language, we laugh loud and hard at his accidental puns and misuse of language.

COMEDY THEORY from Richard F. Taflinger, Ph.D. It must appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions It must be mechanical (unadaptable, inflexible) It must be inherently human, with the capability or reminding us of humanity There must be a set of established societal norms familiar to the audience The situation, actions, and dialogue must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surroundings It must be perceived by the observer as harmless or painless to the participants

Appeal to the Intellect Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it. - Lenny Bruce He used comedy as an educational tool. He broke the boundaries. obvious when ethnic humor is used. Polish (Irish, whitey, gay, fraternity, sorority, etc.)   Lenny Bruce counted on the intellectual basis of comedy when, in one of his routines, he identified all the races and ethnic groups in his audience with insulting labels: "I see we have three niggers in the audience. And over there I see two wogs, and five spics, and four kikes," etc.. As he started the routine there were gasps of incredulity and even anger: the audience couldn't believe that Bruce would be so insulting and insensitive. But as Bruce continued and the list grew longer, and it became clear that he was listing everything he could think of, the words lost their connotative, emotional meaning as insulting terms and turned into just noises. In other words, they lost their emotive content and became an intellectual exercise in how words lose their meanings outside of context. At this point, the audience, all of whom had been appalled and angry at exactly the same words, started laughing at them: the audience was reacting intellectually, not emotionally.

Mechanical It must be mechanical (unadaptable, inflexible) -. It's humorous when a person acts in a manner that is inappropriate to a stimulus or situation, as in any slapstick comedy routine. It is funny when a chair is pulled out from under someone who is sitting down, because he doesn't adapt to the change in situation and continues to sit in a mechanical fashion. Dogberry, in Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is funny because he continues blithely along, thinking he's in charge of the situation when in actuality he has no idea what's happening. Lucy on I LOVE LUCY is funny because she mechanically reacts to events without thinking about how events have changed the situation.

Inherently Human It must be inherently human, with the capability or reminding us of humanity; An extension of Bergson's theory is his idea that comedy is inherently human. Something is funny only insofar as it is or reminds the audience of humanity. The audience may laugh at the antics of an animal, such as chimpanzees or horses or bears, but only in direct proportion to the animal's capability of reminding the audience of something human. Thus, animals such as chimps and orangutans are often dressed in human clothing to heighten the reminder, and horses, such as Mr. Ed and Francis the Talking Mule, can talk and think better than the men they're around.

Established Societal Norms One major point that becomes apparent when one examines comedy is that it is based on incongruity: the unexpected with the expected, the unusual with the usual, the misfit in what has been established as a societal norm. For there to be incongruity there must be something to be incongruous to. Therefore, for a comedy to work there must be an established set of cultural, human and societal norms, mores, idioms, idiosyncrasies, and terminologies against which incongruities may be found. Such norms may be internal or external. Internal norms are those which the author has provided in the script. External norms are those which exist in the society for which the script was written.   The major problem is to know what norms exist, and which have become out-of-date. Many times some people, upon hearing a joke, will respond with "I don't get it". This is because they don't know or understand the societal norms being violated in the joke. This is also why you can never explain a joke: to explain you must first expound on the norms, then show how they have been violated. Such an explanation removes any incongruity by illustrating how it works within the norms. The need for norms also explains why humor can become passe. Stand-up comedians do very few jokes about President Eisenhower's administration because the norms have changed: no one understands topical references to forty years ago. Plays and jokes can also go out-of-date. Neil Simon's early plays often depended heavily on social attitudes of the time, particularly those about the relationships between men and women. However, sex roles and attitudes have changed considerably since 1961 and COME BLOW YOUR HORN, and the humor in the character Alan Baker's rather sexist approach to women and sex now evokes an emotional reaction in many people, distaste, rather than laughter. The humor that does work takes as its norms human attitudes and norms that are independent of society and culture.

Inconsistent or Unsuitable Shakespeare's "breeches parts", such as Viola in TWELFTH NIGHT or Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT, (men playing women who played men) evoked great laughter from Elizabethan audiences because their societal norms said that women do not wear men's clothing, and the sight of Viola and Rosalind in male attire was incongruous. Today, women wearing men's clothing is the norm, and therefore seeing Viola in pants is not funny. Nonetheless, there are many things in Shakespeare's plays that are incongruous to today's norms, and thus his comedies continue to be funny four hundred years later. We still laugh, perhaps not at what Elizabethan audiences did, but the plays are still funny because he gained most of his humor from human rather than societal norms.   Three aspects of incongruity are literalization, reversal, and exaggeration. In literalization the joke comes from taking a figure of speech and then performing it literally. When Max Smart (GET SMART) asks the robot agent Hymie to "give me a hand", Hymie detaches a hand and gives it over, interpreting the instruction literally. Reversal is simply reversing the normal, taking what is normal and expected and doing or saying the opposite. When Retief, in Keith Laumer's science fiction novel RETIEF AND THE WARLORDS, is subjected to what his captors think are the most horrendous tortures, he is assailed with modern art and smellovision renditions of overheated tires, burnt toast, chow mein, aged Gorgonzola, and the authentic odor of sanctity. An exaggeration is taking what is normal and blowing it out of proportion. Events occur to which the characters will react beyond all proportion: the mountain out of a molehill syndrome. The jealous wife's discovery of a blonde hair on her husband's jacket leads her to build an entire scenario of mad trysts, trips to the Riveria, and a murder plot against her, until he points at the collie sitting at her feet. Such exaggeration is a standard in comedy. The greatest incongruity is the violating of societal taboos. This violation can provoke the greatest laughter. In American society the greatest taboos are discussions of sex, death, and biological functions. These are all subjects which society has decreed should be discussed seriously, discreetly, and euphemistically, if discussed at all. It is from these taboos that much humor is derived.

Harmless or Painless their physical, mental, and/or emotional well-being may be stretched, distorted, or crushed, but they recover quickly and by the end of the performance they are once again in their original state. A prime example are the Warner Brothers' Road Runner cartoons, in which Wile E. Coyote is dropped, crushed, pummeled, rolled, wrung, and otherwise punished for his attempts to catch the road runner, yet seconds later is putting together his next Acme widget to carry out his next plan. Wile is never damaged permanently, no matter how high the cliff he falls off or how big the rock that lands on him. The criterion applies to real life, as well. It is funny when someone slips on the ice and falls: people laugh--until they realize that the person broke his leg. At that moment the event is no longer humorous.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde This play is a comedy of manners and farce – blend of high and low (and almost a satire). poking fun of witty aristocrats (comedy of manners) and using devices of farce. It attacks important Victorian topics: marriage, wealth, manliness, station, class distinction, education and religion. Usually authors use devices as tools to an end. In Earnest the tools become part of the comedy. For example, the excess use of marriage as a happy ending clearly works as not just a cause of humor but the subject of the humor. Earnest – good, true, Earnest – the guy’s name

The Importance of Being Earnest Devices of Farce Devices of Farce (remember many from Shakespeare) 1. Mistaken identities 2. Coincidences 3. Mistimings (discovery scenes) (If Hamlet would have been a comedy, they would have pulled the curtain away before H stabbed Polonious). 4. Brothers separated at birth 5. Lovers preferring the other lover’s love 6. Parent who blocks a marriage 7. Foolish/wise clergy 8. “Insuperable barriers” (blocking agent) love forbidden by class or wealth 9. The recognition scene (they all have to figure out who they are). 10. Marriage as the answer to the problems

Emily Levine’s Theory of Everything (@ 23 minutes) http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/emily_levine_s_theory_of_everything.html