Comedy -- and Its Misuses

picture borrowed from Bull and Cross
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An important note about media literacy, all media is meant to be experienced, shared, and even discussed and analyzed.  If this sort of trend is broken, problems tend to arise.

Sort of an unfortunate situation today is the fruition of the maxim "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" when it comes to much of the media.  At this point, it might be safe to say that life is imitating art, in that while I wander about from class to class, I see so many people imitating rather blue comedies and then using their media reference to argue the validity of their behavior.

For those who have read the classics (and understand why Aristotle's Poetics is to the right) are also aware that mimicking the bluer comedies on tv is sort of a concern.  To understand why, we must do a little time travel.

Doodle-do! Doodle-do!  Doodle-do!

Way back in the days of when people were beginning to explore all sorts of writing, even travel journals throughout the Mediterranean Sea, like Philostephanus, the greeks looked deep into what people were creating and how it worked, why it worked, and catalogued it all while tinkering with epic tales, heroic tragedies, and comedic follies.

And that's what I want to focus on -- the comedies.  Aristotle, whose writing on the subject is still used and followed today, noted specific elements that define a comedy.

Little pic stol--borrowed without rights from
the incomparable Mel Brooks and his
History of the World: Part I (1981)

The Catharsis:  the emotional experience, though Aristotle considered it more of a purge allowing us to more moderately experience our lives, created from a good piece of literature.  A comedy, particularly, is designed to cause pleasure (though this is important to note that this is considered a sense of joy rather than what the term pleasure is typically tied to today) and a sense of bad-intention and error.

It is also important to note that the discussion of pleasure was of debate in Greek society as it was considered by those who followed Plato's writings as a pleasure mixed with pain as we find joy in the ignorance of our friends when they come to some sort of harm that doesn't harm us.  Like, slap-stick comedy or jokes at races and disabilities, though I'm curious how we would classify dark humor in this; because we laugh to keep away pain.

It's interesting to think that bad-intention and error are actual emotional sensations, but consider the song, "It's Good to be Bad" but this is only part of the catch.  The fact that people are experience the cathartic purge of such emotions, but no one is training them how to express those emotions in a socially acceptable manner -- thus, why I have had to explain why slurs are in poor taste even when a specific person isn't present.

But there is more, consider the character traits of a comedy and the treatment of natural laws.  Natural laws can be suspended - like cartoon figures walking off cliffs and being suspended.  Though luckily I haven't had to deal with this fact, I have had heard of ridiculous games played by riding on the hood of cars through the town or riding in a couch behind a truck on the highway.

Character traits are also important.  Characters within a comedy must behave worse than normal (drunkards, louts, egotists, strumpet-like behavior, etc.) and their behavior is an exaggeration of how a person would normally act (various staples of the sit com: confusing one's spouse, overly elaborate schemes to hide the truth, stereotypes).  Now this another catch to the problem of life imitating art -- people are forgetting or are unaware of the fact that many of the beloved movies and television comedies are meant to experience an emotion, but not mimic it.  We are meant to discuss and share with one another, but not roam about our institutions and societies mocking (and ultimately harming) other people -- which is, in essence, the very violation of a comedy.