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DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-M015-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-M015-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/comedy/v-1

2. Answering the charges

While the four charges against comedy apply to some plays and comic works, none applies to all of them, and none makes a convincing case that some characteristic is both essentially vicious and essential to comedy.

Comedy’s emphasis on the animal side of human nature may be a fault if we share Plato’s low opinion of the body and of the physical side of life. Similarly, the irreverence of comedy may be objectionable if we agree that our leaders and institutions deserve reverence and not critical questioning. But we need not share Plato’s views on these issues. Indeed, a good case can be made for saying that comedy is valuable precisely because it reminds us of our physicality and because it keeps us thinking critically about our leaders and institutions.

The other two charges against comedy – that laughter is an expression of feelings of superiority and malice, and that the base behaviour of comic characters might rub off on us – do focus on two things that are reasonably considered objectionable. But they fail to show a necessary connection between either of these and comedy.

Although the first of these charges has a long history, it has seldom been carefully examined. If the superiority theory is right, then our laughter is always directed at a person, and in laughing we must be comparing ourselves favourably with that person. But, as Francis Hutcheson showed a century after Hobbes, neither of these consequences is true. We sometimes laugh when no one else is involved, and we sometimes laugh when someone seems superior to us. If I open my front door on a November morning to find a foot of snow where there was grass the night before, I may laugh – not at anyone, not even at the snow (in the sense of ridicule), but simply out of surprise. Similarly, I may laugh at clever rhymes or other wordplay in a comedy without comparing myself to the character speaking the lines or to anyone else. Some action which is better than we expected may also make us laugh in surprise. A stock character in early film comedy, for example, is the plucky hero, such as Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, who gets out of trouble with an ingenious acrobatic stunt that we would never have thought of, much less been able to execute. The stunt makes us laugh, though the character looks superior to us.

The last charge against comedy – that we are likely to imitate its base characters – has probably been made more often than any other. But seldom has any evidence been given for it. Do people who see a lot of comedies have a higher rate of drunkenness or adultery? Are people who laugh at hypocrisy more likely to become hypocrites themselves? These are empirical questions calling for empirical research. Several characters, such as the boor, the windbag and the pompous ass, seem to be comic only if we think that their traits are undesirable – someone who emulated them would not find them funny. It may be that other comic characters, such as the smooth-talking liar, do elicit emulation from some people. But that has never been established, nor has it been shown that these characters outnumber the ones who discourage emulation. In short, like the other charges against it, the claim that comedy threatens our morality is largely an ancient prejudice.

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Citing this article:
Morreall, John. Answering the charges. Comedy, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-M015-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/comedy/v-1/sections/answering-the-charges.
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