Dark Comedy
dark comedy
n.
1. A comedy having gloomy or disturbing elements, especially one in which a character suffers an irreparable loss.
2. A comedy characterized by morbid or grimly satiric humor.
April’s Real Blog was very dark today. Gerald attempting to commit suicide not once but 2 times and being committed to hospital for treatment. April running among traffic to try to kill herself. I spent the afternoon with my kids and came back to April’s Real Blog, read the posts and my opinion was reflected in Howard’s “Holy Crap!”
The funniest suicide stuff I remember was in the movie “Harold and Maude.” If you haven’t seen the movie, it is a classic. {Spoiler} In the first scene in which Harold does his first fake suicide, the humour is derived from the unflappable reaction of Harold’s family who has learned to ignore his antics. The suicide looks very realistic, and the audience reaction is in sympathy to the guest who does not know Harold is faking. Then when the fake is revealed, it is extremely funny, because you realize the unflappable reaction was the correct one.
Dark Comedy is very difficult to pull off. I think it is probably the toughest thing to do. The old saying is “Tragedy is easy. Comedy is hard.” That’s true, but I would say, “Dark Comedy is even harder.” The old television show, “Seinfeld” did a lot of dark comedy. A lot of it was very funny, but every once in awhile, they would cross the line between dark comedy and plain old dark. Those were resounding clunkers.
I remember seeing a Christopher Durang play and I cannot remember what the title is, where one of the jokes is that there is a woman who wants children desperately, but they keep on coming out dead. An actor playing the doctor comes out and tosses a wrapped up baby doll on the floor declaring the newly delivered baby is dead again. Then at one point, one of the babies tossed is not dead, and the other characters recognize it and try to convince the disbelieving doctor. As you can tell, this is very dark. In the production I saw (Dallas Theater Center), this scene fell flatter than a pancake with an audible gasp from the audience every time the doctor came out and tossed a baby. As I was watching I was thinking, “This could have been funny, if…” and then the whole list of things that would have helped.
Tomorrow’s strip: They have gone full circle. Yesterday was “Our parents are getting old.” Today was “We are parenting our parents.” Tomorrow is “We made our parents old.” I am thinking, “Is it really worth this to create strips you want to have on somebody’s refrigerator?”
n.
1. A comedy having gloomy or disturbing elements, especially one in which a character suffers an irreparable loss.
2. A comedy characterized by morbid or grimly satiric humor.
April’s Real Blog was very dark today. Gerald attempting to commit suicide not once but 2 times and being committed to hospital for treatment. April running among traffic to try to kill herself. I spent the afternoon with my kids and came back to April’s Real Blog, read the posts and my opinion was reflected in Howard’s “Holy Crap!”
The funniest suicide stuff I remember was in the movie “Harold and Maude.” If you haven’t seen the movie, it is a classic. {Spoiler} In the first scene in which Harold does his first fake suicide, the humour is derived from the unflappable reaction of Harold’s family who has learned to ignore his antics. The suicide looks very realistic, and the audience reaction is in sympathy to the guest who does not know Harold is faking. Then when the fake is revealed, it is extremely funny, because you realize the unflappable reaction was the correct one.
Dark Comedy is very difficult to pull off. I think it is probably the toughest thing to do. The old saying is “Tragedy is easy. Comedy is hard.” That’s true, but I would say, “Dark Comedy is even harder.” The old television show, “Seinfeld” did a lot of dark comedy. A lot of it was very funny, but every once in awhile, they would cross the line between dark comedy and plain old dark. Those were resounding clunkers.
I remember seeing a Christopher Durang play and I cannot remember what the title is, where one of the jokes is that there is a woman who wants children desperately, but they keep on coming out dead. An actor playing the doctor comes out and tosses a wrapped up baby doll on the floor declaring the newly delivered baby is dead again. Then at one point, one of the babies tossed is not dead, and the other characters recognize it and try to convince the disbelieving doctor. As you can tell, this is very dark. In the production I saw (Dallas Theater Center), this scene fell flatter than a pancake with an audible gasp from the audience every time the doctor came out and tossed a baby. As I was watching I was thinking, “This could have been funny, if…” and then the whole list of things that would have helped.
Tomorrow’s strip: They have gone full circle. Yesterday was “Our parents are getting old.” Today was “We are parenting our parents.” Tomorrow is “We made our parents old.” I am thinking, “Is it really worth this to create strips you want to have on somebody’s refrigerator?”
posted by howard at 10:01 PM
4 Comments:
Altogether now: "I hate Mike!" It's back to the good ol' refrain about what a hardship it is to have children. ::ick::
I like Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All to You. I'm not familiar with the one you described.
"I hate Mike!"
I feel better now.
It was a long time ago when I saw the play and I think it was Christopher Durang, but I am not sure and I cannot remember the title of the play. I remember it mainly because it was dark and it was awful.
The play you describe does sound awful. And I agree that doing dark comedy well is very difficult.
The Marriage of Bette & Boo. I went to the Christopher Durang website and found it.
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