posted
I finished Good Omens a little while ago, before I found this forum. It's ostensibly comedy, and it works as such. Here's the deal, though: in terms of laughs per page, I didn't find it much funnier than a Harry Potter book.
(Warning: minor spoilers follow.)
Now, before anyone lays into me about not grokking British comedy: oh, boy, I do. I love Monty Python, Red Dwarf, lots and lots of Pratchett, Faulty Towers, etc., etc., ad infinitum. That particular brand of dry humor resonates in a particular way with my brittle old funny bones.
Parts of Good Omens made me laugh out loud. (Pollution (the horseman) getting teary-eyed and proclaiming some capital bit of filth "damn beautiful," and a minor demon being particularly proud of Manchester just set me off.) But so did parts of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There were some truly zany moments in there - and there are some in Harry Potter as well. There were touching, poigniant moments in each. So what's the big difference?
My current hypothesis is that the premises dictate whether a story is comedy much more than laughter rate. Good Omens premises: end of the world is near, the Anti-Christ is mixed up at birth by bumbling Satan-devoted nuns, the angel and demon in charge of arranging the whole affair being on great business terms, etc., etc. Lots to build on. Harry Potter premises: scabby young orphan discovers he's really a wizard and is whisked away to another, better world to train for his eventual showdown with Darth Vad - um, the Principal Bad Guy. Nothing funny about that, but the book manages plenty of humor notwithstanding.
I'm pretty sure that's correct, but my big question is whether there's anything else. What am I missing?
posted
comedy, in my oppinion, is just a bunch of Irony that is unexpected. what makes us laugh at Elmer Fudd when a bear sneaks up behind Him? Irony. Irony is funny.
Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
You just can't say there must be a laugh on each page in order for it to be termed as 'comedy'! There are not many readers who 'see' the comedy in Harry Potter, but you do so you probably enjoy just them as much as those who take the books seriously! One of my favorite 'comedy' books are autobiography's by Spike Milligan. They are about his colourful life, but his outlook on life just sends me into la la land. It is hard to finish some of his pages... If I get only two good laughs from a 'comedy book' I am pleased. Since what makes us all laugh is so diverse no one book would have the same effect on everyone. A lot of 'serious' books include humour too Best Wishes John Mc...
Posts: 140 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I guess I take my Harry too darned seriously. I don't get many laughs, just an occasional feeling of comic relief.
Omens, however, I laughed about every page. I love that kind of writing and definitely saw it as out-and-out comedy. Actually, I saw it as very funny satire.
But, the funniest books I've read were Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series, and Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat series. "Slippery Jim" diGriz is so funny because he's so flaming outlandish in his capers.
posted
There are times when reading HP for the first time that I fell on the floor laughing. More true in the earlier books but even in number 6 it happened (the garden gnome used as a Christmas tree angel springs to mind).
Most things that are designed to be funny, like Steve Martin movies or most stand-up routines, or late-night shows, I am deadpan or even bored during. Though I admit to a deep and abiding fondness for Dave Barry. He's different from most other comedians to me.
I think humor is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder almost as much as beauty is.
posted
And I also loved Erma Bombeck. They both kind of have a wry way of looking at the world. Maybe that's the kind of humor I respond to most.
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I submit that everything should have comedic qualities to it. But there is a special catagory of art/literature where it has no value if you're not laughing. Think about the social commentary and witty observations about human nature and the perversity of nature in general which we find in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other Douglas Adams books. Would any of that seem anything other than purile ranting without the comedy? Of course not.
The key is that in comedy you're free to agree or disagree as much or as little as you like with what the author is saying. Whether it's a totally implausible plot device or a comment on the human condition, you can enjoy it whether or not you agree. Like when The Simpsons portrayed the local meeting of the Republican party as a cultic gathering of vampires and satanists hosted by Montgomery Burns, it didn't matter whether you think well or ill of Republicans, the portrayal was funny.
In a really good satire, you can't tell how close the author thinks the portrayal is to the truth, it's funny whether you think it's a polar opposite or very near the mark. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is hilarious whether you think that the wealthy would be genuinely horrified or secretly impressed by the cold logic of it (and truth be told, there are probably persons of both persuasions amongst both the rich and the poor...but probably not many among the middle class ).
In good comedy, you're free to laugh at everything, even the bits that genuinely strike a chord of melancholy in your heart. That liberation from sifting through the "meaning" of art is what gives comedy it's power. In other literature and art, the comic moments exist to release the tension so that the audience can bear to watch without turning away. In comedy, there should never be any tension, only complete liberation. The bad guy can win, and it's just funny. It doesn't always work, though. Mostly Harmless didn't pull it off that well, partly because I don't think that Adams really found the Vogons all that funny...he couldn't bring himself to see that he was as much one of them as anyone else was, so the humor fails. If the guys who actually pulled the trigger had been the real bad guys, it would have been funnier, because they were funny, and the paradoxically hopeless action they take to prevent what actually occurs as a result of their actions is a good ending note.
posted
As one who writes comedy stories from time to time, I would say that Survivor has much of the essence of what makes something work. My comedy tends to be in farce, which is easier to write for me than most serious work, but harder to do well. There has to be a reason for saying something to make it funny. The part of it that Survivor missed is the George Carlin aspect of comedy. That is, you already knew the situation was funny, but never thought about it in those terms before.
For me, getting the laugh is as important, and maybe more so, than making my point. It's probably impossible to write a humorous story without injecting at least a little of your opinion and making a point.
Those Hatrackers who read the entire manuscript for my story Return to the Moon were pretty unanimous that the story was funny, though disagreed to what extent. The other thing was that I did make some very valid points about our space program and disguised them in a funny situation. I made the points short and consise with a quick jab, where in a serious piece each point would probably take a good 250 words at least.
Humor is difficult to write well, but it is very rewarding if you can pull it off.
[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited February 11, 2006).]
posted
Survior, I agree with everything, but I'm not sure about this:
quote:In other literature and art, the comic moments exist to release the tension so that the audience can bear to watch without turning away. In comedy, there should never be any tension, only complete liberation.
I don't think that's always true. I think a funny moment generally requires a simultaneous serious interpretation - that the reader has moral stake in - with a silly one. In satire, the serious thing is what's being poked fun at, so your statement might hold there. You can get away with no tension at all, because all the serious, morally-invested stuff is outside the story.
I'll provide a counterexample from something I wrote recently. My POV character takes over a team of software engineers, and the first hour ends in a fight between two of them. One, a jolly, merry person, finally goads the other into attack by repeatedly using the word "garrulous" wrong on purpose. (The other is a bit touchy.) The happy guy thinks the whole thing is hilarious even while being choked out. The POV character dances around, distressed.
It's got some punch when you're reading it. The above paragraph isn't really funny (though you might see how the situation could be funny) because you don't know any of the characters. In fact, the humor requires that you empathize with the POV character's recent stresses and overwhelming desire to prove herself as a leader. If she had simply witnessed it in another lab, it would have been more silly or comical, less funny. You need some moral stake in the situation.
EDIT: Late night last night. I can't believe I forgot about romantic comedy. That stuff thrives on tension.
When I posted this, I just slapped down the first thing that popped into my head. Here's another example, probably better, because it draws from shared experience.
Consider Alan Rickman's character in Galaxy Quest, Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus. Alexander wants to be a serious actor, but he's stuck in a dead-end job. Everyone understands wanting to climb a little higher. When you couple empathy for his plight with this over-the-top way of dealing with it (fully understanding that, by golly, you just might do the same thing if in his shoes), it's really funny. His melancholy line, "By Grabthar's hammer... what savings" sets me off every time I watch it. It wouldn't be nearly as funny if I couldn't empathize.
[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited February 11, 2006).]
posted
If you are going to use movies as an example, I have to say that I thought the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" was a terrific example of humor. I laughed until I nearly wet myself. But my sister-in-law thought it was stupid, because she didn't interpret the dialog as satire. She just thought the people were stupid. That script had a lot of tension in it, which ADDED to the humor. In fact, the tension MADE the humor.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I think that we have to make a distinction here between comedy as a genre and comic elements in other works. That's what the thread was originally about, anyway. The question isn't what makes anything funny, but what makes a work "comedy" (as opposed to, say, romantic comedy ).
"You'll laugh, you'll cry" is a different promise from "You'll laugh till you cry." I don't think of it as a subtle difference at all. It's easy to identify a comedy when you have an unhappy ending (for the character) simply by whether or not you laugh. It can be a difficult question when you look at a very comedic narrative work that has a happy ending. The main way to tell is whether the happy ending was inherently funnier than any "unhappy" ending that comes immediately to mind.
For Galaxy Quest, there simply isn't any unhappy ending that would be funnier than having the crew successfully come back and restart the show. Alexander Dane isn't supposed to be taken seriously, he's too much of a parody of the "serious" actor for me to take his character seriously. I mean...
quote:"I'm not going back in there, and nothing you say can make me."
"The show must go on."
"...""...""Damn you!"
Okay, hilarious, but can you take him seriously for a moment after that? Can you take the premise of actors from a cheezy Sci-Fi series actually being recruited to save an advanced alien civilization seriously? Can you take Jason Nesmith (how is that spelled?) seriously? No, you can't. If the movie weren't so outrageously funny, it would be terrible. It's a great comedy, but it couldn't work as anything else.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
And then there are movies which were not meant to be funny, but they are now considered comedy classics like just about anything from Ed Wood and Rocky Horror.
Therefore one could say that comedy is taking the bad parts of a story and embracing them.
I know I am using film to illustrate a writing principle. Here the principle applies to both. I try to only use such illustrations when the wider reach of film vs written word helps me make a connection with my audience (you).
posted
Well...singing alien transvestites and Susan Sarandon? I'm pretty sure that was always supposed to be a comedy.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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