Black comedy

Black comedy is a style of comedy in which normally disturbing or morbid subjects are used as a basis for humor. This type of comedy is also called black humor and is typically a form of satire that focuses on themes such as disease, violence, war, or death. The roots of black comedy can be traced back to the plays of ancient Greece, although its modern form is often credited to the eighteenth-century writer Jonathan Swift. The term was further defined in the early twentieth century and went on to flourish as a cinematic and literary genre.

Early History

The earliest forms of modern drama were developed by the ancient Greeks around the sixth century BCE. The oldest of these forms, tragedy, possibly originated from performances of older epic poems or from sacrificial rituals held during religious festivals. Greek tragedies usually concerned tales of kings or great heroes whose actions or character flaws caused their life to spiral into ruin. Greek comedy developed on the heels of tragedy and is thought to have originated in the sexually themed revelries performed during festivals honoring the god Dionysus. The earliest of these comedies viewed public figures and political institutions as subjects of humor, making fun of the social structure of the era. Later comedies abandoned such pointed humor and focused on farce-like situations often with bawdy themes.

Greek tragedies were often presented in trilogy form. After the conclusion of the third performance, the playwright would try to lighten the mood somewhat with a combination of tragedy and comedy called a satyr play. These plays featured a male chorus dressed like mythological satyrs—half-man, half-goat nature spirits—and were noted for mixing serious themes with the mischievous reactions of the chorus. One of the few surviving examples of a satyr play is The Cyclops, a fifth-century BCE tale that weaves the legend of Greek hero Odysseus blinding a man-eating cyclops with the drunken, cowardly actions of the satyr chorus.

The satyr play fell out of favor among the Romans when they conquered the ancient world and absorbed much of the culture of ancient Greece. During the medieval period, humor sometimes combined off-color and sexual themes with elements considered "dark" by the standards of the day. One story recounts the tale of a drunken man who loudly bragged that a saintly local bishop was engaged in immoral and lustful acts. When the accuser went to bed that evening, his pants were said to spontaneously catch fire. No matter what he did, he was unable to extinguish them, finally resorting to rolling around in a filthy pigpen to quench the flames.

Overview

The modern concept of black comedy was developed by French surrealist poet André Breton who coined the term in his 1940 book Anthology of Black Humor. Breton maintained that the genre originated in the writings of Jonathan Swift, an Irish author best known for his satirical novels such as Gulliver's Travels. One of the examples cited by Breton is a 1729 essay by Swift titled "A Modest Proposal." In the short work, Swift suggests one way to solve the ills of overcrowding and poverty is to feed the children of the poor to the rich. While Swift meant his humor to illustrate the inhumane treatment of the lower classes by the wealthy, some readers of his era were aghast by his seeming endorsement of cannibalism.

Inspired by Breton's work, the terms black humor and black comedy slowly became associated with subject matter that married the disturbing with the comical. Twentieth-century authors such as Joseph Heller, Roald Dahl, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut were some of the names associated with the genre. For example, Heller, in his 1961 novel Catch-22, parodies the military establishment and the horror of World War II by introducing a squadron of Air Force pilots trying to find comical ways to avoid flying deadly combat missions. Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle, a humorous satire on the Cold War and the arms race, ends with Earth frozen solid and nearly all human life destroyed.

The film industry also embraced black comedy as a genre. One of the most famous early examples was the 1940 movie The Great Dictator, in which film legend Charlie Chaplin parodies the rise of Adolf Hitler and Germany's treatment of the Jews. Director Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War classic Dr. Strangelove is a parody of the absurdity of nuclear conflict. In the film, an insane US general orders a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, setting up a series of comic, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to stop Armageddon. Other black comedy films treat the subject of death or murder as a humorous theme. In 1971's Harold and Maude, a young man obsessed with death learns about the joys of life from an older woman on the brink of dying. The 1996 Academy Award-winning film Fargo follows the story of a car salesman who hires two hitmen to kidnap his wife. As the scheme comically unravels, the kidnapping turns into a series of murders. Other black comedy films include Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Death of Stalin (2017), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in the United States, several satirical media outlets and television shows used the tragic events as a springboard for cathartic humor. The parody newspaper TheOnion published an edition mocking the hijackers as surprised they ended up in hell after expecting rewards for their martyrdom. The animated show South Park also ran a post–9/11 episode poking fun at the mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden.

The proliferation of the Internet in the twenty-first century led to the rise of a type of black humor that feeds on tragic events, such as 9/11, and turns them into fodder for online jokes. While so-called "disaster humor" is not new, the ability to disseminate it quickly over the Internet has brought it to a larger audience. This style of black comedy surfaces after mass shootings, natural disasters, or the deaths of famous people. Rather than using comedy in a satirical manner, the humor is often criticized as being abusive and shocking to others with its cruel tone.

However, for some individuals, black comedy provides a way to process difficult situations. As a coping mechanism, black comedy can aid long-term stress reduction and acceptance of anxiety-inducing or upsetting life events. Much research has explored the theory of humor and dark humor’s underlying psychological mechanisms. The superiority theory of humor explains that dark humor allows people to feel in control of the situation. By finding humor in or mocking a situation, the individual asserts dominance over it, allowing their mind to process the event under less perceived threat.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold, and Blake Hobby, editors. Dark Humor. Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010.

Breton, André. Anthology of Black Humor. City Lights Books, 1997.

"The Different Types of Greek Drama and Their Importance." PBS, www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/24c.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Gehring, Wes D. Genre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s: Twelve American Films. McFarland, 2016.

Gournelos, Ted, and Viveca Greene, editors. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America. UP of Mississippi, 2016.

Kreiner, Jamie. "Dark Humor in the Dark Ages." Fifteen Eighty Four, 3 Sept. 2014, www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/09/dark-humor-in-the-dark-ages. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Matloff, Judith. "In Praise of Gallows Humor." Psychology Today, 7 June 2020, www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/crisis-control/202006/in-praise-gallows-humor. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"A Modest Proposal." Museum of Hoaxes, hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/a‗modest‗proposal. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Phillips, Whitney. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. MIT P, 2015.

Specktor, Brandon. "If You Laugh at These Dark Jokes, You’re Probably a Genius." Readers Digest, 22 Aug. 2024, www.rd.com/article/dark-sense-of-humor-and-intelligence. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.