Elements of Comedy

The simplest way of looking at comedy is to say that it surprises, startles, shock or
delights us and the essential aspect of all comedy is that it goes beyond the ordinary,
the dull and the familiar. If a man goes into a bakery and comes out with a loaf of
bread, that is not funny. If a man goes into a bakery and struggles out the door with a
loaf of bread that’s the size of a washing machine that has the potential to be funny.
Comedy pushes the barriers of behaviour, goes beyond an audience’s anticipation of
what someone is going to say or do. To do this comedy uses a whole range of comic
tactics from absurdity to mockery, to sarcasm to irony, which are discussed below. The
whole impetus of comedy is to create a distance, a perspective on the world, a world
that is no longer pedestrian, but comic. Each of the tactics of comedy disturbs, disrupts,
alters and changes things from what is expected. Comedy plays with the world
changing it, distorting it, and in doing so creates, the glee, the relief and enjoyment of
laughter. To write comedy one has to put these comic tactics to good use and the first
step is toward this is to understand the range that is available rather than just trying to
be comic using an unspecific idea of what might be funny.

It is a popular myth that comedy is much more difficult to create than drama; that it’s
too hard to understand and explain how comedy works and therefore much harder to
write it. This situation may have come about from a combination of reasons. Firstly,
comedy is not a single entity. The list below sets out a whole range of ways to make
people laugh and so trying to understand comedy as a single sort of emotional
experience is not practical. This means that many people only have a vague idea of
what ‘comedy’ is in relation to analysing and understanding it; we laugh, but we don’t
really know why. What follows on naturally from this vagueness is the second
problem that when people want to write comedy they don’t really know what they are
after. These notes are intended to suggest what the elements of comedy are and in
doing so clarify how to approach writing comedy.

Comedy: What’s Funny?

Absurdity Exaggeration Rudeness

Aphorism Hyperbole Sarcasm
Coincidence Innuendo Sauciness
Crudity Irony Silliness
Delight Demean Stupidity
Embarrassment Mockery Synchronicity
Epigram Literalism Whimsy
Euphemism One-upmanship Wordplay
Punning

The aspects of comedy listed in the table on the previous page work in the following
ways:

Absurdity The ridiculous and the nonsensical. The real world transformed into the
fantastic; the absurd leading to a world of wonder, or a world where things are worse
than ever.

Aphorism A clever witticism where its social observation is seen as apt or acute

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Coincidence When the disaster that’s been likely to happen wreaks havoc, the laughter
begins. When events transpire to bring out hidden secrets then the audience joins in
the fun.

Crudity When the polite world is disrupted or has to confront sex and other bodily
functions, there is laughter in embarrassment and recognition

Delight When that wonderful thing occurs, followed by another wonderful thing and
as this keeps going a smile of wonder can turn to a laugh of delight

Embarrassment It is humorous when others lose their dignity without regret when for
us the same situation would be one we dread.

Epigram A clever remark for a knowing laugh

Euphemism Politely referring to something that is unpleasant or embarrassing, while

making sure that what’s rude is plainly understood.

Exaggeration Each of us has our small troubles, but to see them magnified allows us
the release of laughter. To see the foibles and failings of the world, its pretensions and
petty vanities and to exaggerate them is to make them comical.

Hyperbole An extravagant exaggeration that pokes fun at the normal world

Innuendo To insult, to demean, to sexualise when the meaning is clear, but the words
are innocent is to carry on a covert and amusing conversation

Irony To say exactly the opposite of what you are actually implying, makes it clear
exactly what you mean. It’s an attack with a humorous distance

Demean The proud, the vain, the self-important, its fun to see those who want to lord
it over us demeaned and ridiculed

Literalism Something is said; we know its colloquial meaning, but it’s literal meaning
makes something else, something unexpected happen.

Mockery To ridicule the pretensions, rules and traditions that you are surrounded by
is to poke fun at the world

One-upmanship When someone wants to put you down its fun to get the better of
them and let everyone know it

Punning Phrases and words have more than one meaning. A pun can just be a silly
comparison or a pointed re-working of a popular phrase, or saying.

Rudeness To be impolite and offensive is to refuse respect, and to challenge customs

and taboos. To mock and ridicule the conventional is a comic weapon.

Sarcasm Insincerity is the easiest defence to all trials and tribulations

Sauciness Suggesting that sex is naughty, but fun, can raise a knowing smile

Silliness Why takes thing seriously? Make the pompous trivial, the serious silly.

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Stupidity To refuse or to be unable to cope with the world, to refuse to cope with the
world is to undermine its norms.

Synchronicity The incredible, the wondrous, makes the world less drab and less grey.
There is an escape from the dull and familiar, it can and does happen

Understatement To make light of the serious, to refuse to be afraid or unimpressed is

to take a comic distance.

Whimsy To link something serious to something you find odd of fanciful. It makes the
world a funnier place.

Wordplay To play with language, to twist its meaning, its sounds, its everyday use is
to have fun.

Basic Categories of Comedy

Given all the elements that can be used to create comedy it is of little surprise that there
is no way to define comedy into simple styles, types or genres. What appears clear
though from the terms and definitions that make up the elements of comedy is that
there is the normal, the boring, the everyday, the common, the dull, the serious and the
self-important and comedy undermines, ridicules, mocks, observes and comments on
these. Comedy is having fun and the most common term to describe what is needed for
comedy is comic distance; a perspective on the world that makes it funny. To provide
the broadest model for the types of comedy we use I would suggest that each creates a
comic distance:

Stupid Comedy Those who are displaced and can’t cope with the world, or who are
made to feel inferior, play by their own rules and the normal world suffers as a result.

Clever Comedy Taking a knowing look at the world, dissecting its foibles, pointing out
its idiocies, making fun of what traps and demeans others, makes things more
bearable.

Social Comedy We live within social norms. There’s an etiquette and a social standard
for everything. In the social comedy people’s desires are greater, their problems
exaggerated. Seeing all the intricacies, rules, and our own standards of behaviour
highlighted, pushed to the limit, and even broken gives us the distance we need for
comedy.

Comedy of absurdity The real world has failed so something replaces it, but of course
people are still people and things still go wrong. Each absurdity is a metaphor or
exaggeration of a world that is familiar to us.

Comedy of Delight What if all the obstacles were removed, and all the venality and
cruelty were banished. That's when does the world becomes wonderful.

If the four ideas listed above are potentially useful categories as types of comedy it is
possible to see which elements of comedy fit inside them. The world of the stupid
comedy contains, crudity, embarrassment, silliness and of course stupidity, while the
clever comedy has the epigrams, the aphorisms, the wit and the knowing innuendo.
The comedy of absurdity has the hyperbole, the fantastic, the absurd, while a comic
delight is filled with whimsy, synchronicity, and of course the delightful. What is

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contained in the social comedy depends on the how the social world is defined, and the
characters within it. There is the polite world of the drawing room comedy, and the
crudity of the American Pie teen pic’.

The broad parameters of the various types of comedy are defined by their approach to
comedy; is it fanciful, is it aggressive, is it knowing, etc. What actually limits what is
suitable for a piece of comedy is more specifically defined by the parameters of taste.
Audiences link their preferred tastes for comedy to particular comedians, particular
shows, authors and types of films. What audiences expect is that the comedy they want
to consume will not stray into an area which does not appeal to them. Eddie Izzard is a
fanciful absurdist, he does not attack or insult. Ben Elton was a social commentator on
people's moral and social values and the world of politics. He does not do 'crude and
rude' comedy. The plays of Oscar Wilde are famous for their epigrams. They don’t rely
on stupid comedy, especially physical comedy.

In defining and refining what elements of comedy make for a type of comedy, clever or
stupid, this can again be reduced from a broad range of types to define a particular
performer, play, programme, or film. Audiences recognise what they like in comedy
and that is what comedians play to. Some will go for the rude, some for the smart, and
some for the silly. Focussing, defining these elements are what make a comedy, or a
comedian successful. The talent of a comedian, or a comedy writer is in their ability to
use the elements of comedy to define their own style and brand of humour.

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In Life In Comedy
In life social behaviour is more often than In comedy restraint is given up and what's
not limited by self-restraint and in terms of usually left unspoken is said. In comedy the
one person’s relationship with another a conceit is that comments can fly, behaviour can
single off hand cutting remark that says be flagrantly hurtful, but no one takes long-term
what you really think of someone can end in offence.
long-term animosity.

In life the excesses of pride, arrogance, In comedy it's the display of pride, arrogance,
selfishness, defiant stupidity, dumb naivety selfishness, defiant stupidity, dumb naivety and
and salacious desire are likely to leave you salacious desire that's funny; In comedy a
ostracised, ignored or detested. character gets to be who they really are and if
they suffer for it then that's funny as well.

In life we regret, possibly even dread, the In comedy failures, flaws and weaknesses can't
revelation of our weaknesses, flaws and be concealed. They’re in the open and the
failures, because of the shame and anxiety audience laugh; sometimes because they feel the
they cause us. same worries and sometimes because our own
failures in comparison to the exaggerations of
comedy fiction aren’t that bad.

In life, each day, there are a few minor In comedy a minor problems soon escalates and
problems, perhaps one or two funny reaches new heights in terms of complexity and
moments and we get by without too many the potential for failure or embarrassment. The
mishaps or making too much of a fool of audience laugh because their own lives aren’t so
ourselves. bad and it's pretend. (Real problems offer no
such comic distance.)
In life there are a few people who exhibit In comedy characters are sharply drawn; A
extremes, but most people most of the time character who is dumb keeps being dumb. A
are reasonable and reasonably reserved. worrier will worry endlessly about everything.
Even a dull ordinary person is extremely grey
and extremely dull.

In life lying, plotting, scheming, hiding and In comedy the anxiety of lying, trying to hide
denying are to be concealed, because they something, the machinations, the lengths
make people distrust you and can socially someone will go to in order hold aloft a false
stigmatize you. In life if you're caught out front and conceal the truth are all part of the fun
then you might not be able to laugh it off, and games. There's laughter in seeing the effort
because you've hurt and betrayed someone to conceal and in seeing someone fail to conceal.

In life it's rude to laugh at someone when When an audience watches a comedy laughter is
they show their flaws and failing. a two-sided joy. The audience laugh at a
character because their behaviour is so socially
flagrant or inept or inappropriate. The audience
can also laugh in sympathy with a character
because they can empathise with that failure,
flaw or faux pas.