The Link between Comedy and Misery

The Link between Comedy and Misery

People have discussed how these two concepts are related for many years. Really it’s simple. Both are six letter words, containing two vowels and end in the letter y. Simple, why has no one seen this before? The deeper connection? Okay fine.

 

Which is more relevant. Misery without a doubt. Without misery, comedy cannot exist. What would we laugh at without the polar opposite in existence? Misery can live by itself however. Animals can feel misery, I find it hard to believe they enjoy comedy. Some people don’t laugh very much. These people are often labelled as miserable. What if something tragic happens to you? Without comedy does the impact of this tragedy lessen? Absolutely not.

 

The situation comedy has become incredibly popular over the last couple decades. People use them as an easy watch when they just want to relax. It’s not stressful, they are an easy laugh. Sitcoms are basically just following the lives of normal people. Life is unjust, it dishes up a lot of misery for people to attempt to overcome.

 

Officially the world’s most popular sitcom is The Big Bang Theory. I don’t watch the Big Bang Theory outside of a few glimpse so there’s not a lot I can say. From what I can gather however it deals with some typical nerdy/ lonely stereotypes as they’re rejected and ignored by women and society. This is a miserable situation for a lot of people. I could be wrong however so let’s look at the next 2 most popular sitcoms, Two and a Half Men and Mr. Bean.

 

Fortunately I have more experience with these two. Two and a Half Men at first follows a man named Charlie who lives a womanizing life style. He drinks heavily, is implied to take drugs and had many temporary sexual encounters. We also know he pushes any women away who he actually cares about, has an awful relationship with his mother and is fully aware his lifestyle will bring him an early grave. Oh dear. The other main character is his brother Alan. Alan is perceived as a bit strange, he was divorced and lives in his brother’s house, he has no money, is rejected by pretty much everyone he meets and his family, his brother and mother treat him like an outcast. Again, oh dear. People actually living like these two would surely be living with some kind of mental illness such as Depression. But we laugh. The show makes a lot of jokes and is also very crude. We don’t just laugh at how miserable these characters are but we also laugh at the jokes made at the expense of their misery. Why do we find this funny?

 

Mr. Bean is perhaps not quite as good an example. It’s an excellent example of a fish out of water story, although it is worth mentioning how alone this character is. His only real friend is a Teddy Bear. His strange actions isolate him from most social interaction. Anyone actually living this alone id imagine would be a pretty miserable human being. There is his girlfriend of course but if anything she is even worse, feeling unloved by Bean. It’s funny. All this misery is funny.

 

I myself am often referred to as having a sarcastic and dry sense of humour. How do I do it? I react off the situation. People don’t realise that sarcasm isn’t just random, it’s all about timing. Dry humour will often make the person making the joke seem above the recipient, like they’re more sophisticated and intelligent. Sarcasm is similar although instead of putting one person up it puts another down. That’s not saying dry or sarcastic people are cruel people but it’s a proven form of humour. Many can see it as a joke but many others will be heavily offended. Is this not using someone’s flaws or misery as a joke?

 

Another popular type of comedy, particularly with Children is slapstick comedy. We’ve all seen it, in cartoon and live action form. I grew up watching Tom and Jerry, perhaps the masters of slapstick. Unlike other cartoons this didn’t have witty dialogue to complete the joke. It is imply about the situation. It’s incredibly well done to keep us laughing with little to no dialogue but it’s also quite awful to think about what happens to the antagonist Tom. We laugh over and over at his pain and failure. It’s easy to think he deserves it but in some episodes he is actually being forced to capture Jerry. I remember now where if he feels he will get beheaded but that doesn’t stop it all being funny.

 

Sure Top is arrogant but so is Jerry. Tom was still likeable, many liked him more than Jerry and for good reason. Jerry was at times a sadistic little mouse. On top of everything else Tom was a cat chasing a mouse, it wasn’t like that’s anything unnatural. But his pain and misery has kept people laughing for years. It doesn’t seem to add up.

 

Death can be funny too. Remember in the Dark Knight when the Joker slams a pencil into that thugs face. That was gruesome and yet I laughed at loud and this psychopaths method of murder. The Winhelm scream has been used in over 300 films, its purpose to add the comedy of a death. Death isn’t funny, especially not when it involves killing. A saw a YouTube video once that showed a clip of a man shooting himself in the head. It was awful. But some slightly different circumstances can make us laugh?

 

Comedy and misery are two sides of the same coin. Misery is something every person will have to endure during their life. Therefore people need ways of dealing with their misery. I once spoke to a counsellor who said that the best way to deal with misery is to distract yourself from it. What better distraction is there than comedy? Comedy makes us think about things in a completely different way. What better way is there to feel less misery than to enjoy more comedy? Perhaps comedy was a creation developed to cope with misery. Or maybe an early human laughed when a caveman hit his head on a rock. Earlier I said that people will deem people who don’t laugh much as miserable. This is partly true but there is more to it than that. There’s a common misconception that people don’t laugh because they are miserable. Maybe instead it’s that people are miserable because they don’t, or maybe even can’t laugh.