----- Original Message ----- From: Sally Manton smanton@hotmail.com
Can I ask something of everyone? Does the use of violence as humour - as
'a
source of innocent merriment' - also have disturbing, if different, overtones?
Not sure if I should get involved, but anyway-- I'd have to say it depends on the humour, and on the violence. For instance, the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail worked for me because it was so OTT and silly, but I recall once while in the States happening across a "politically-incorrect" sketch comedy show in which there were jokes about Hispanic men beating their wives, which just made me cringe. And the humour in the film *Brazil*, to me, works well in a violent setting *because* it makes the violence that more horrible (e.g. a guard advising a torture victim to confess quickly before his credit card runs out-- I've never seen the banality of evil put better).
The problem though as I see it is that violence is (as we've just seen :) ) such a fraught issue that one person's black comedy may be another person's offensive humour. Someone else might see the same sketch show and see it as a sendup of racist stereotypes, but watch *Brazil* and find the comic elements totally out of place.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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