1. Comedies & the Comedic Ladder
Much Ado about Nothing Unit

2. Answer the following questions.
What is your definition of comedy?
What makes you laugh?
Why is it funny?
What are some funny things you have heard, seen, watched lately?
What is the purpose of comedy?
Is there anything we should not make fun of? Why?

3. “Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.” Francis Bacon ( )

4. Roots of Comedy Greeks and Romans—plays with happy endings
Satyr plays (obscene)
Aristotle’s pattern
Low/base characters
Seeks insignificant aims: thwarted love, eccentric behavior, corruption in high places fueled by misunderstanding, mistakes in identity, errors in judgment
Elements of supernatural
All end happily
Similar plots to tragedy
Base=lacking proper social or moral values; often offensive; lowest in social class
Similar to tragedy---affairs go wrong, truth is discovered or covered up, hero saves the day, the villain is overcome and balance is restored
Tragedy moves toward despair or death
Comic climax: a catastophoe, or turning point, introduces a sudden revelation in which a key fact or identity or even is planned to characters and audience at the same time.
Shakespeare’s comedies end with marriage
Middle Ages: add satire (higher level)

5. The Comedic Ladder

6. The Bottom Rung: Low Comedy
Animalistic
Dirty jokes, dirty gestures, sex, elimination (fart jokes)
Exaggeration with focus on physical
Slapstick, pratfalls, loud noises, physical mishaps, collisions
The Three Stooges

7. Farce Man is Fate’s puppet
Coincidences, mistimings, mistaken identities
Everyone gets a happy ending
Bringing Up Baby

8. Comedy of Manners
Focus on the amorous intrigues of the upper class or popular clique vs. those of the lower class, outsiders, “wannabes”
Emphasis on language: puns, malapropisms, paradoxes, witticisms, clever speeches, insults, word play
Individuals are destroyed through the use of wit
Use office clip from netflix

9. Comedy of Ideas Characters argue about or are representations of ideas
Politics, religion, sex, traditions, institutions, customs
Satire
Ideas are destroyed by wit
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

10. How comedy affects us Based on irony (incongruity, reversals)
Allows us to see things differently
Characters are simplified
Allows audience to recognize the need for change

11. Fool Audience is allowed to feel superior Must also be sympathetic
Does not see his faults
Fool-rigid, blind stupidity, repetitive, consistent, predictable, unchanging

12. Six elements required for something to be humorous
Must appeal to intellect rather than emotions
Must be mechanical
Must be inherently human (reminds us of humanity)
Must be a set of established norms familiar to the audience
Situations, actions, and dialogue must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surroundings
Must be perceived by the audience as harmless or painless

13. Other ideas Society can make jokes about itself, but outsiders cannot
Usually ends in marriage (order from chaos)
Servant or vehicle for change