Black comedy

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'Hopscotch to oblivion', Barcelona, Spain

A black comedy (dark comedy) is a comic work that employs black humor, which, in its most basic definition, is humor that makes light of otherwise serious subject matter.[1] Black humor corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor.[2][3][4][5][6]

History and etymology[edit]


Origin of the term[edit]

The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the surrealist theoretician André Breton in 1935,[7][8] to designate a sub-genre of comedy and satire[9][10] in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism,[7][11] often relying on topics such as death.[12][13]

Breton coined the term for his 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, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included 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, whose suffering is trivialized, and leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the grotesque genre.[14]



Adoption in literary criticism[edit]

Bruce Jay Friedman, in his anthology entitled Black Humor, imported the concept to the United States, labeling with it very different authors and works, arguing that they shared the same literary genre. The Friedman label came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Early American writers who employed black humor were Nathanael West [1] and Vladimir Nabokov.[1] In 1965 a mass-market paperback, titled Black Humor, was released. Containing work by a myriad of authors, which included J.P. Donleavy,[5][6] Edward Albee,[5][6] Joseph Heller,[5][6] Thomas Pynchon,[5][6] John Barth,[5][6] Vladimir Nabokov,[5][6] Bruce Jay Friedman,[5][6] himself, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine,[5][6] this was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the conception of black humor as a literary genre; the publication also sparked nation wide interest in black humor.[6][15] Among the writers labeled as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl,[16] Thomas Pynchon,[9] Kurt Vonnegut,[9] Warren Zevon, John Barth,[9] Joseph Heller,[9] and Philip Roth.[9] The motive for applying the label black humorist to all 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.

The purpose of black comedy is to make light of serious and often taboo subject matter, and some comedians use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought as well as amusement in their audience. Popular themes of the genre include murder, suicide, depression, abuse, mutilation, war, barbarism, drug abuse, terminal illness, domestic violence, sexual violence, paedophilia, insanity, nightmare, disease, racism, homophobia, sexism, disability (both physical and mental), chauvinism, corruption, and crime.

Comedians, like Lenny Bruce,[10] that since the late 1950s have been labeled "sick comedy" by mainstream journalists, have also been labeled with "black comedy." After Lenny Bruce,[10] others have been Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Jimmy Carr, Frankie Boyle, Chris Morris, Monty Python team, Louis C.K., Christopher Titus, Daniel Tosh, Doug Stanhope, Jeff Dunham, Dane Cook, and Anthony Jeselnik.


Visual media[edit]

Motion pictures[edit]


Black comedy is commonly used in dramatic or satirical films, retaining its serious tone, working as a tool of many films, television shows and video games. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove presents one of the best-known mainstream examples of black comedy.[9] The subject of the film is nuclear warfare and the possible annihilation 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 instead 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. Another example is the closing scene of Monty Python's Life of Brian where Brian and others sentenced to death by crucifixion sing and whistle a cheerful tune centering around death not being such a bad thing: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

Horror films also utilized dark humor despite the serious settings. The 2011 film You're Next is a prime example, where characters frequently bicker with each other with remarks while dealing with a home invasion from three weapon-wielding masked men.


An example of a situation comedy that is also black comedy is M*A*S*H, which, like the film version of M*A*S*H that had inspired it, treated the Korean War as a subject of black comedy; it deliberately kept recorded laughter out of the operating room sequences, and many of the episodes described the absurdity of many combat situations, even in sequences where the characters were weathering hostile fire.

Wilfred (Australian and US versions) in an example of a dark comedy. In both versions the protagonist is battling a form of mental illness (presumably schizophrenia). He communicates with a dog that in his mind is a real person dressed in a dog suit. No one else can hear the dog talk.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster, Inc (1995) Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of literature, entry black humor, p.144




  9. ^ a b c d e f g
  10. ^ a b c "black humor - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about black humor". Retrieved 2010-06-24. 

