Black comedy

Black comedy, also known as black humor, is a subgenre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, etc. – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner. Synonyms created to avoid possible racial overtones include dark comedy/humor, morbid comedy/humor and off-color humor (see also color metaphors for race.) A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot demonstrates black comedy well: a man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down.

Related Topics:
Comedy - Satire - Death - Mass murder - Sickness - Madness - Terror - Drug abuse - Rape - Etc. - Off-color humor - Color metaphors for race - Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot

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Black humor is similar to sick humor, such as dead baby jokes. However, in sick humor most of the humor comes from shock and revulsion; black humor usually includes an element of irony, or even fatalism.

Related Topics:
Sick humor - Dead baby jokes - Irony - Fatalism

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In America, black comedy as a literary genre came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Writers such as Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut published novels and stories where profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner. An anthology edited by Bruce Jay Friedman, titled "Black Humor," assembles many examples of the genre.

Related Topics:
1950s - 1960s - Terry Southern - Joseph Heller - Thomas Pynchon - Kurt Vonnegut - Bruce Jay Friedman

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The film ' presents one of the most well-known examples of black comedy. The subject of the film is nuclear war and the extinction of life on Earth. 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.

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