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, et cetera – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner.

Black humor is sometimes confused with sick humor, such as dead baby jokes. In sick humor, most of the humor comes from shock and revulsion; black humor usually includes an element of irony, or even fatalism.

In America, black comedy as a literary genre came to prominence in the 1950's and 1960's. Writers such as Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut and others 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.

For example, the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb presents one of the finest 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.

A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot is a good example of black comedy: A man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. The cartoons of Charles Addams typically display black humour, by mixing humor with scenes that would normally be considered macabre or horrific.

Some examples of black comedy in print include:

Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. However, this may be a case of unintentional humor, as Heller reported in a Playboy interview in June 1975 of not being aware the novel was funny when he wrote it. [1]
One of the Guys by Robert Clark Young
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
The National Lampoon, especially the work of Michael O'Donoghue, Doug Kenney and Ed Bluestone.

Some other famous films known for their use of black humor include:

Little Murders, written by Jules Feiffer
American Psycho about a serial killer. Played by Christian Bale.
Black Cat, White Cat
Catch-22, another film about the madness of war, based on the novel by Joseph Heller.
Death Becomes Her, about the downsides of immortality
Death To Smoochy A child's best friend is the center of murder.
Do The Right Thing Black community fights against Italian restaurant owner.
Falling Down, a normal guy takes on the world on the hottest day of the year.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, semi-autobiographical film of Hunter S. Thompson starring Johnny Depp directed by Terry Gilliam
Fight Club, about murder, mayhem, and soap. Heavy with black humor about the capitalistic society.
Grace Quigley, a film about euthanasia
Harold and Maude, in which an alienated young man obsessed with staged suicides and the funerals of strangers falls in love with a vivacious octogenarian
The Hospital, the story of a chief of surgery who is trying to figure out why a number of hospital employees begin dying under strange circumstances
Heathers, about a disaffected, jaded couple who start killing members of popular cliques at their high school
Ichi the Killer, about a pair of savage killers, one a sadist and the other a masochist.
Kill Bill, By Quentin Tarantino
Life of Brian, Monty Python's satire about Christianity
The Lindsay Anderson trilogy of If...., O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a Guy Ritchie film about the seedy underside of London crime
Loot by Joe Orton dramatist of several Black Comedies
The Loved One, dealing with funerals
M*A*S*H, in which the medical staff of a Korean War field hospital engage in silly mischief to alleviate the horror of war.
Man Bites Dog, a mockumentary turning the tables on news and documentaries
Monsieur Verdoux, about a suave serial killer who commits his crimes to support his familiy.
Prizzi's Honor, in which a Mafia hitman and hitwoman fall in love
Pulp Fiction, about the misadventures of thugs, whose stories weave into the same destiny.
Roger & Me, in which director Michael Moore posits the existence of the tragically ridiculous decline of Flint, Michigan and its effects after General Motors CEO Roger Smith closed the city's autoplants and threw 40,000 people out of work.
The Ruling Class, about an insane British nobleman who thinks he's Jesus
Sin City by Frank Miller
To Die For, about murder and pedophilia.
Trainspotting, about the adventures of a group of heroin addicts.
Wag the Dog, a story about a fake war, designed to salvage the election for a president who had sex with a young woman.

Black comedy

See also