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What’s So Funny?

What’s So Funny? A Glimpse at the Origins of Comedy It All Started With The Greeks… Dionysus, Greek god of the common man, wine, nature, and human/wild impulses Drama originated from ancient festivals honoring Dionysus (masks, torches, dancing, singing)

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What’s So Funny?

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  1. What’s So Funny? A Glimpse at the Origins of Comedy

  2. It All Started With The Greeks… • Dionysus, Greek god of the common man, wine, nature, and human/wild impulses • Drama originated from ancient festivals honoring Dionysus (masks, torches, dancing, singing) • Komoidia means “the song of the komos” (communal ritual carouse) • Normal social rules and inhibitions set aside

  3. Three Ages of Greek Comedy • Old Comedy (fifth century BC) • Political and social satire; enforce social norms • Middle Comedy (400-323 BC) • Mock reenactment of famous myths • New Comedy (320 BC to mid-third century BC) • Focus on family, love, relationships

  4. Old Comedy

  5. Characteristics • Original (not based on myths) • Outrageous ideas presented as plausible solutions (Lysistrata) • Role of the chorus prominent • Use of obscenity in language and gesture • Purpose: to ridicule recognizable figures without naming names • Political and social satire; vigorous concern with social events

  6. Old Comedy: A Serious Edge • Scatalogical and obscene humor, but for a purpose: • to influence civic ideology, • to provide political and social critique

  7. Aristophanes • Most well-known figure of old comedy • Wrote over 40 plays; eleven survive • Frogs, Clouds, Lysistrata are three of the most well known

  8. Middle Comedy

  9. Characteristics • Turned from confrontation, topical humor to mythological burlesque (mock reenactments of famous myths) • Less direct social/political comment • More interest in daily life • Attempts to develop characters more fully

  10. New Comedy

  11. Characteristics • Less obscene • Focused on family matters with complications in love relationships. • Love is an important theme New Comedy introduces into literature. • New Comedy concentrated on everyday life • Genial, mildly philosophical reflections of human situation

  12. Focus of New Comedy • domestic situations, • troubles with husband/wives or particularly fathers and sons. • Interest in human characters revealed in an individual’s moral choice • Characters are placed in difficult situations through their own failings; must make difficult decisions. • Characters’ dilemmas reflect issues of Athenian society or Athenian attitude

  13. Echoes Today

  14. Where do we see Old Comedy? • Satire • Parody • Political cartoons

  15. Where Do We See Middle Comedy? • Comedy of manners • Satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class • Much Ado About Nothing

  16. And New Comedy? • Deals with relationships • Most easily translated to our society • Romantic comedies (“chick flicks”) • Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, It’s a Wonderful Life

  17. Subgenres of Comic Film Or, Where the Greeks Led Us

  18. Comedy of Manners • Satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class • Often represented by stock characters • Plot often concerns illicit love affair or other scandal • Witty dialogue • Examples: Importance of Being Earnest, Seinfeld, anything by Noel Coward, • “Brit-coms”

  19. Fish Out of Water • Main character(s) in a strange environment…for example: • Swapping gender roles (Tootsie) • Swapping age roles (Big) • Free spirit fitting into structured environment (Police Academy)

  20. Parody or Spoof • Satirizes other film genres or classic films • Uses sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from the films, etc. • Examples: Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, Young Frankenstein

  21. Anarchic Comedy • Nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor • Jokes and visual gags—usually non-sequiturs (i.e., random stuff happens) • Wildly exaggerated characters and situations, sometimes unrelated to the narrative • Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Marx Brothers, Animal House, Wayne’s World

  22. Black Comedy • Based around normally taboo subjects: death, murder, suicide, war • Treats these subjects in a humorous way • Includes an element of irony (belt example from Waiting for Godot)

  23. Romantic Comedy • Focuses on development of relationship between two people • Typical plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back • Sexual tension and confusion along the way • Generally happy ending

  24. Put Another Way… • Old Comedy focused on political and social commentary and change. • We see it today in satires (Daily Show, SNL, Simpsons, etc.)

  25. Middle Comedy focused on increasing interest in daily life and character development, less interest in social/political commentary • We see it today in comedy of manners films

  26. New Comedy focused on love, and developing human relationships. We see it today in one of the most prevalent subgenres of comedy: romantic comedy (chick flicks).

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