Gallows humor

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. Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humor with authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes.''Dark Humor''. Edited by Blake Hobby. Chelsea House Press.Garrick, Jacqueline and Williams, Mary Beth (2006
''Trauma treatment techniques: innovative trends''
pp. 175–176Kurt 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:Bloom, Harold (2010
''Dark Humor''
ch. ''On dark humor in literature'', pp. 80–88

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. Breton's preference was to identify some of Swift's writings as a subgenre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism,Real, Hermann Josef (2005
The reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe
p.90 quote: often relying on topics such as death.

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).André Breton introduction to Swift in '' Anthology of Black Humor'', quote: In his book, Breton also included excerpts from 45 other writers, including both examples in which the wit arises from a victim with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and examples in which the comedy is used to mock the victim. In the last cases, the victim's suffering is trivialized, which leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as analogously found in the social commentary and social criticism of the writings of (for instance) Sade.

History

Among the first American writers who employed black comedy in their works were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov.Merriam-Webster, Inc (1995
''Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of literature''
entry ''black humor'', p.144 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. 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. Among the recent writers suggested as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Zevon, Christopher Durang, Philip Roth, and Veikko Huovinen. Evelyn Waugh has been called "the first contemporary writer to produce the sustained black comic novel." 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, 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

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." 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.

Black comedy has the social effect of strengthening the morale of the oppressed and undermines the morale of the oppressors. According to Wylie Sypher, "to be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them."

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. It is rendered with the German expression ''Galgenhumor'' (cynical last words before getting hanged). The concept of gallows humor is comparable to the French expression ''rire jaune'' (lit. ''yellow laughing''), which also has a Germanic equivalent in the Belgian Dutch expression ''groen lachen'' (lit. ''green laughing'').Claude et Marcel De Grève, Françoise Wuilmart,
Treaduction / Translation
'', section ''Histoire et théorie de la traduction – Recherches sur les microstructures'', in: Grassin, Jean-Marie (ed.)
DITL
(Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires), 2 November 2010

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.Pardo, Denise (2001
Interview
with Daniele Luttazzi, in ''L'Espresso'', 1 February 2001 quote: Daniele Luttazzi (2004
Interview
in the Italian edition of ''Rolling Stone'', November 2004. Quote: Marmo, Emanuela (2004
Interview
with Daniele Luttazzi (March 2004) quote: 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.

Black comedy is common in professions and environments where workers routinely have to deal with dark subject matter. This includes police officers, firefighters, ambulance crews, military personnel, journalists, lawyers, and funeral directors, 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.

A 2017 study published in the journal ''Cognitive Processing'' 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."

See also

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Comedy

Film genres
Humour
Jokes
Stand-up comedy