Black comedy

File:Hopscotch to oblivion.jpg

"Hopscotch to oblivion" in Barcelona, Spain, alluding to suicide

File:Irony.jpg

A cemetery with a "Dead End" sign, creating a play on words

Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss, aiming to provoke discomfort, serious thought, and amusement for their audience. Thus, in fiction, for example, the term black comedy can also refer to a genre in which dark humor is a core component.

Black comedy differs from blue comedy—which focuses more on topics such as nudity, sex, and body fluids—and from obscenity. Additionally, whereas the term black comedy is a relatively broad term covering humor relating to many serious subjects, gallows humor tends to be used more specifically in relation to death, or situations that are reminiscent of dying. Black humor can occasionally be related to the grotesque genre.<ref>Merhi, Vanessa M. (2006) Distortion as identity from the grotesque to l'humour noir</ref> Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humor with authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes.<ref name="hobby1">Dark Humor. Edited by Blake Hobby. Chelsea House Press.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web

}}</ref><ref name="Garrick2006p175">Garrick, Jacqueline and Williams, Mary Beth (2006) Trauma treatment techniques: innovative trends pp. 175–176</ref><ref>Lipman, Steve (1991) Laughter in hell: the use of humor during the Holocaust, Northvale, N.J:J Aronson Inc.</ref><ref name="Vonnegut1971">Kurt Vonnegut (1971) Running Experiments Off: An Interview, interview by Laurie Clancy, published in Meanjin Quarterly, 30 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 46–54, and in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, quote:

The term was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it—'gallows humor.' This is middle European humor, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humor in this country. Actually it's humor from the peasants' revolt, the forty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes and the black humorists are gallows humorists, as they try to be funny in the face of situations which they see as just horrible.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Etymology

The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the Surrealist theorist André Breton in 1935 while interpreting the writings of Jonathan Swift.<ref name="Real05"/><ref name="GuardianBreton"/> Breton's preference was to identify some of Swift's writings as a subgenre of comedy and satire<ref name="Black Humor from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2008"/><ref name="Black Humour, The Hutchinson Encyclopedia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web

}}</ref> in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism,<ref name="Real05">Real, Hermann Josef (2005) The reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe, p.90 quote:

At least, Swift's text is preserved, and so is a prefatory note by the French writer André Breton, which emphasizes Swift's importance as the originator of black humor, of laughter that arises from cynicism and scepticism.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref><ref name="BretonSwiftIntro"/> often relying on topics such as death.<ref>Thomas Leclair (1975) Death and Black Humor Template:Webarchive in Critique, Vol. 17, 1975</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Breton coined the term for his 1940 book Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l'humour noir), in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor (particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants (1731), A Modest Proposal (1729), Meditation Upon a Broomstick (1710), and in a few aphorisms).<ref name="GuardianBreton">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="BretonSwiftIntro">André Breton introduction to Swift in Anthology of Black Humor, quote:

When it comes to black humor, everything designates him as the true initiator. In fact, it is impossible to coordinate the fugitive traces of this kind of humor before him, not even in Heraclitus and the Cynics or in the works of Elizabethan dramatic poets. [...] historically justify his being presented as the first black humorist. Contrary to what Voltaire might have said, Swift was in no sense a "perfected Rabelais." He shared to the smallest possible degree Rabelais's taste for innocent, heavy-handed jokes and his constant drunken good humor. [...] a man who grasped things by reason and never by feeling, and who enclosed himself in skepticism; [...] Swift can rightfully be considered the inventor of "savage" or "gallows" humor.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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History

Template:Globalize section Among the first American writers who employed black comedy in their works were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov.<ref name="books.google.com">Merriam-Webster, Inc (1995) Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of literature, entry black humor, p.144</ref> The concept of black humor first came to nationwide attention after the publication of a 1965 mass-market paperback titled Black Humor, edited by Bruce Jay Friedman.<ref name="Dark Humor"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The paperback was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the concept of black humor as a literary genre. With the paperback, Friedman labeled as "black humorists" a variety of authors, such as J. P. Donleavy, Edward Albee, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Bruce Jay Friedman himself, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline.<ref name="Dark Humor"/> Among the recent writers suggested as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl,<ref>James Carter Talking Books: Children's Authors Talk About the Craft, Creativity and Process of Writing, Volume 2 Template:Webarchive p.97 Routledge, 2002</ref> Kurt Vonnegut,<ref name="Black Humor from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2008">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Warren Zevon, Christopher Durang, Philip Roth,<ref name="Black Humor from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2008"/> and Veikko Huovinen.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Evelyn Waugh has been called "the first contemporary writer to produce the sustained black comic novel."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The motive for applying the label black humorist to the writers cited above is that they have written novels, poems, stories, plays, and songs in which profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner. Comedians like Lenny Bruce,<ref name="Black Humour, The Hutchinson Encyclopedia"/> who since the late 1950s have been labeled as using "sick comedy" by mainstream journalists, have also been labeled with "black comedy".

Nature and functions

File:18251112 Nine-pin bowler execution - gallows humor - Sag Harbor Corrector.jpg

An 1825 newspaper used a gallows humor "story" of a criminal whose last wish before being beheaded was to go nine-pin bowling, using his own severed head on his final roll, and taking delight in having achieved a strike.<ref name=Corrector_18251211>Template:Cite news "Bowl" means ball in modern parlance. Nine-pin bowling preceded modern ten-pin bowling.</ref>

Sigmund Freud, in his 1927 essay Humor (Der Humor), although not mentioning 'black humor' specifically, cites a literal instance of gallows humor before going on to write: "The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure."<ref name="Freud 1927 Humor">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some other sociologists elaborated this concept further. At the same time, Paul Lewis warns that this "relieving" aspect of gallows jokes depends on the context of the joke: whether the joke is being told by the threatened person themselves or by someone else.<ref>Paul Lewis, "Three Jews and a Blindfold: The Politics of Gallows Humor", In: "Semites and Stereotypes: Characteristics of Jewish Humor" (1993), Template:ISBN, p. 49 Template:Webarchive</ref>

Black comedy has the social effect of strengthening the morale of the oppressed and undermines the morale of the oppressors.<ref>Obrdlik, Antonin J. (1942) "Gallows Humor"-A Sociological Phenomenon Template:Webarchive, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 47, No. 5 (Mar. 1942), pp. 709–716</ref><ref>Mariah Snyder, Ruth Lindquist Complementary and alternative therapies in nursing</ref> According to Wylie Sypher, "to be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them."<ref>Wylie Sypher quoted in ZhouRaymond, Jingqiong Carver's short fiction in the history of black humor p.132</ref>

Black comedy is a natural human instinct and examples of it can be found in stories from antiquity. Its use was widespread in middle Europe, from where it was imported to the United States.<ref name="Vonnegut1971"/>Template:Verify source It is rendered with the German expression Galgenhumor (cynical last words before getting hanged<ref>Lynch, Mark A witch, before being burned at the stake: Typical man! I can never get him to cook anything at home (cartoon) Template:Webarchive</ref>). The concept of gallows humor is comparable to the French expression rire jaune (lit. yellow laughing),<ref>Redfern, W. D. and Redfern, Walter (2005) Calembours, ou les puns et les autres : traduit de l'intraduisible , p.211 quote:

Des termes parents du Galgenhumor sont: : comédie noire, plaisanterie macabre, rire jaune. (J'en offre un autre: gibêtises).{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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humour macabre, humeur de désespéré, (action de) rire jaune Galgenhumor propos guilleret etwas freie, gewagte Äußerung{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Walter Redfern, discussing puns about death, remarks: 'Related terms to gallows humour are: black comedy, sick humour, rire jaune. In all, pain and pleasure are mixed, perhaps the definitive recipe for all punning' (Puns, p. 127).{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref> which also has a Germanic equivalent in the Belgian Dutch expression groen lachen (lit. green laughing).<ref name="Brachin85p101">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="DeGrèveDitl">Claude et Marcel De Grève, Françoise Wuilmart, Treaduction / Translation Template:Webarchive, section Histoire et théorie de la traduction – Recherches sur les microstructures, in: Grassin, Jean-Marie (ed.), DITL Template:Webarchive (Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires), [22 November 2010]"</ref><ref>(1950) Zaïre, Volume 4, Part 1, p.138 quote:

En français on dit « rire jaune », en flamand « groen lachen »{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref><ref>Chédel, André (1965) Description moderne des langues du monde: le latin et le grec inutile? p.171 quote:

Les termes jaune, vert, bleu évoquent en français un certain nombre d'idées qui sont différentes de celles que suscitent les mots holandais correspondants geel, groen, blauw. Nous disons : rire jaune, le Hollandais dit : rire vert ( groen lachen ); ce que le Néerlandais appelle un vert (een groentje), c'est ce qu'en français on désigne du nom de bleu (un jeune soldat inexpéribenté)... On voit que des confrontations de ce genre permettent de concevoir une étude de la psychologie des peuples fondée sur les associations d'idées que révèlent les variations de sens (sémantique), les expressions figurées, les proverbes et les dictions.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref> Italian comedian Daniele Luttazzi discussed gallows humor focusing on the particular type of laughter that it arouses (risata verde or groen lachen), and said that grotesque satire, as opposed to ironic satire, is the one that most often arouses this kind of laughter.<ref name="Pardo2001">Pardo, Denise (2001) Interview Template:Webarchive with Daniele Luttazzi, in L'Espresso, 1 February 2001 quote:

Q: Critiche feroci, interrogazioni parlamentari: momenti duri per la satira.

A: Satira è far ridere a spese di chi è più ricco e potente di te. Io sono specialista nella risata verde, quella dei cabaret di Berlino degli anni Venti e Trenta. Nasce dalla disperazione. Esempio: l'Italia è un paese dove la commissione di vigilanza parlamentare Rai si comporta come la commissione stragi e viceversa. Oppure: il mistero di Ustica è irrisolto? Sono contento: il sistema funziona.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref><ref name="DLRS2004">Daniele Luttazzi (2004) Interview, in the Italian edition of Rolling Stone, November 2004. Quote:

racconto di satira grottesca [...] L'obiettivo del grottesco è far percepire l'orrore di una vicenda. Non è la satira cui siamo abituati in Italia: la si ritrova nel cabaret degli anni '20 e '30, poi è stata cancellata dal carico di sofferenze della guerra. Aggiungo che io avevo spiegato in apertura di serata che ci sarebbero stati momenti di satira molto diversi. Satira ironica, che fa ridere, e satira grottesca, che può far male. Perché porta alla risata della disperazione, dell'impotenza. La risata verde. Era forte, perché coinvolgeva in un colpo solo tutti i cardini satirici: politica, religione, sesso e morte. Quello che ho fatto è stato accentuare l'interazione tra gli elementi. Non era di buon gusto? Rabelais e Swift, che hanno esplorato questi lati oscuri della nostra personalità, non si sono mai posti il problema del buon gusto.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Quando la satira poi riesce a far ridere su un argomento talmente drammatico di cui si ride perché non c'è altra soluzione possibile, si ha quella che nei cabaret di Berlino degli Anni '20 veniva chiamata la "risata verde". È opportuno distinguere una satira ironica, che lavora per sottrazione, da una satira grottesca, che lavora per addizione. Questo secondo tipo di satira genera più spesso la risata verde. Ne erano maestri Kraus e Valentin.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}</ref> In the Weimar era Kabaretts, this genre was particularly common, and according to Luttazzi, Karl Valentin and Karl Kraus were the major masters of it.<ref name="Marmo2004"/>

Black comedy is common in professions and environments where workers routinely have to deal with dark subject matter. This includes police officers,<ref name="wettone">Template:Cite book</ref> firefighters,<ref name="fire-chief">Template:Cite magazine</ref> ambulance crews,<ref name="jpp">Template:Cite journal</ref> military personnel, journalists, lawyers, and funeral directors,<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> where it is an acknowledged coping mechanism. It has been encouraged within these professions to make note of the context in which these jokes are told, as outsiders may not react the way that those with mutual knowledge do.<ref name="fire-chief"/><ref name="jpp"/>

A 2017 study published in the journal Cognitive Processing<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> concludes that people who appreciate dark humor "may have higher IQs, show lower aggression, and resist negative feelings more effectively than people who turn up their noses at it."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• Blue comedy
• Comedy horror
• Cringe comedy
• Cruel jokes series
• List of British dark comedies
• Macabre
• Satire (film and television)
• Surreal humour