Black comedy, also known as black humour or dark comedy is a sub-genre of comedy and satire where topics and events that are usually treated seriously (death, mass murder, suicide, domestic violence, disease, insanity, fear, drug abuse, rape, war, terrorism, etc. Hopscotch is a simple Children's game which can be played with several players or alone Comedy (from the Greek κωμωδίαkomodia has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse especially in Television, Film, and Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and Performing arts In satire human Death is the termination of the biological functions that define living Organisms It refers both to a specific This article deals with mass killings that are not considered Genocide. Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or spousal abuse) occurs when a family member partner or ex-partner attempts to physically or psychologically dominate A disease is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions and can be deadly Traditionally insanity or madness is the behaviour whereby a person flouts societal norms and may become a danger to himself and others Fear is an Emotional response to Threats and Danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific Stimulus, such as Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions related to taking a Psychoactive drug or Performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect Rape, also referred to as Sexual assault, is an Assault by a person involving Sexual intercourse with or Sexual penetration of another person War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion ) are treated in a humorous or satirical manner. Synonyms include dark humour and morbid humour. Although very similar, it is not to be confused with gallows humour and off-colour humour. Gallows humor is a type of humor that arises from stressful, traumatic or life-threatening situations such as wartime events hostilities mass murder often in circumstances The term off-color humor (also known as dirty jokes or blue humor) is an Americanism used to describe various Jokes, Prose, Poems
Humour
Black comedy should be contrasted with obscenity, though the two are interrelated. Obscenity (in Latin obscenus, meaning "foul repulsive detestable" is a term that is most often used in a legal context to In obscene humour, much of the humorous element comes from shock and revulsion; black comedy usually includes an element of irony, or even fatalism. Irony is a literary or Rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or Discordance between what one says or does and what one means or Fatalism is a Philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or inevitable predetermination This particular brand of humour can be exemplified by a scene in the play Waiting for Godot: a man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives Another example comes from a scene in the play "Grandma's in the Wedding Cake": the recently deceased Grandmother's ashes continually get accidentally moved around, ending in the Wedding Cake at the Wedding. An accident is a specific identifiable unexpected unusual and unintended external event which occurs in a particular time and place without apparent or deliberate A musical example is The Velvet Underground's story/song The Gift in which a college student in love mails himself to his beloved far away in Wisconsin with very funny dark results. This article is about the band For their self-titled album see The Velvet Underground (album; for the book see The Velvet Underground (book
Black humour is also parodied. A common gag is the humorous reaction to something that is supposedly serious but clearly is not. One example of this are Kenny's deaths on South Park. Kenny McCormick, voiced by Matt Stone, is one of the four central Fictional characters of the Animated series South Park, the South Park is an animated American television comedy series created and written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for Comedy Central
Writers such as Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, Eric Nicol and Jeff Lindsey have written and published novels, stories and plays where profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner. Terry Southern ( May 1, 1924 &ndash October 29, 1995) was a highly influential American short story writer novelist essayist screenwriter Joseph Heller (May 1 1923 – December 12 1999 was an American Satirical novelist Short story writer and playwright William Gaddis ( December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr (born May 8 1937 is an American writer based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of Fiction. Kurt Vonnegut Jr (November 11 1922 – April 11 2007 (ˈvɒnəgət was a prolific and genre-bending American Novelist known for works blending Satire, Black Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific American Writer of Short stories, Novellas, Teleplays Eric Patrick Nicol CM, BA, MA (born 28 December 1919) is a Canadian Humorist, Author and Playwright Dark Comedy can be seen in such comic books as Mark Sable Grounded & Hazed,and such other like Manga's Princess Resurrection and Grant Morrison cult classic Kill Your Boyfriend. Mark Sable (born on June 22, 1975 in New York) is an American writer for stage screen and Comic books. is an ongoing Supernatural Manga by Yasunori Mitsunaga The story portrays a boy (Hiro who encounters a young woman ( Hime) whom he must serve Grant Morrison (born January 31 1960 is a Scottish Comic book writer and artist Kill Your Boyfriend is the title of a Comic book one-shot written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Philip Bond and D'Israeli Warren Ellis Anti Hero Comic Transmetropolitan has many dark funny moments in the story and many Black Humour characters such as Yelena Rossini & Mitchell Royce. Warren Ellis (born February 16, 1968) is a British author of Comics Novels and Television, well known for sociocultural Transmetropolitan is a Postcyberpunk Comic book series written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson and published by Yelena Rossini is a fictional character in Transmetropolitan, a Comic book published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics. Mitchell Royce is a fictional character in Transmetropolitan, a Comic book published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.
Genre
In America, black comedy as a literary genre came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s Decade refers to the years of 1950 to 1959 inclusive The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 An anthology edited by Bruce Jay Friedman, titled "Black Humour," assembles many examples of the genre. Bruce Jay Friedman (born April 26, 1930) is an American Novelist Screenwriter, and Playwright. Current writers and directors employing the art of black humour in their work include author Chuck Palahniuk, director Todd Solondz, cartoonist Jhonen Vasquez, and writer/essayist David Foster Wallace. Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (ˈpɑːlənɪk born February 21 1962) is an American Transgressional fiction Novelist Todd Solondz (born October 15 1959 in Newark New Jersey) is an American Screenwriter and Independent film director Jhonen Vasquez (born September 1, 1974) also known by his Pseudonyms Mr David Foster Wallace (February 21 1962&ndashSeptember 12 2008 was an American author of novels, Essays and short-stories
According to John Truby, when black comedy is used as a basis for a story's plotline, it involves a society in an unhealthy state and a main character wanting something which, for whatever reason, is not a thing that will be ultimately beneficial to himself or society. John Truby is a Screenwriter, director and screenwriting teacher. The audience should usually be able to see this for themselves, and often a supporting character within the story also sees the insanity of the situation. The main character rarely ever learns a lesson or undergoes any significant change from the ordeal, but sometimes a relatively sane course of action is offered to them. One such example of this sane course of action being taken is in the comic series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, which ends with the title character voluntarily leaving town and checking himself into a mental institution. This page is about the comic book series For its central character see Johnny C.
The 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb presents one of the best-known examples of black comedy. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. The subject of the film is nuclear warfare and the annihilation of life on Earth. Annihilation is defined as "total destruction" or "complete obliteration" of an object having its root in the Latin nihil (nothing Normally, dramas about nuclear war treat the subject with gravity and seriousness, creating suspense over the efforts to avoid a nuclear war. But Dr. Strangelove plays the subject for laughs; for example, in the film, the fail-safe procedures designed to prevent a nuclear war are precisely the systems that ensure that it will happen. Plotwise, Captain Mandrake serves as the one sane character in the decayed society, and Major Kong fills the role of the hero striving for a harmful goal. A more modern film based upon black comedy is 2003's Bad Santa, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Willie, an alcoholic who uses his job as a mall Santa for the harmful goal of robbing the mall every Christmas Eve. Bad Santa is a Golden Globe -nominated 2003 Comedy Film directed by Terry Zwigoff, produced by Joel and Ethan William Robert Thornton (born August 4 1955 While the film shows a society jaded and interested in Christmas only for reasons of greed, The Kid serves as the one sane character who believes faithfully in Santa and the spirit of giving. By the close of the film, though Willie is little improved by the events that befall him, he does ultimately find himself a new career and escape from the world of avarice.
Notable directors of black comedy films:
- Quentin Tarantino
- Alexander Payne
- Alex de la Iglesia
- Tim Burton
- Terry Gilliam
- The Coen Brothers
- Wes Anderson
- Martin Scorsese
- Ralph Bakshi
- Peter Jackson
- Takashi Miike
- Stanley Kubrick
- Chanwook Park
Films containing Black/Dark Humour:
- Brazil
- Catch-22
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Nighty Night
- Stalag 17
- Running with Scissors
- Fargo
- Thank You for Smoking
- Trainspotting
- Twin Town
- Very Bad Things
- Keeping Mum
- Heathers
See also
- Anthology of Black Humor
- Crude humor
- Gallows humour
- British humour
- Macabre
- Problem plays
- Black Comedy, a play by Peter Shaffer
- Charles B. Griffith
- List of movie genres
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