Essays on Comedy

The film Mean Girls directed by Mark Waters and written by SNL star, Tina Fey, debut in 2004 and captured a large audience for its comedic storyline. However, the film used comedy and satire to display an important message to the men and mostly women…

Improvisational theatre is a collective action of creating a play – an unscripted form of theatre, where the actors collaborate to produce a spontaneous story. In conventional theatre, the audience usually is a silent spectator, while in improv theatre, it is engaged in making of…

In Divine Comedy, Dante meets a number of characters as he takes his journey traveling in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. One of the souls he sees at the shores of Purgatory is Cato of Utica. Cato is a Roman military leader and a statesman. The…

The text Vita Nuova is a work specifically to create to express the author’s love for a woman – Beatrice. In this work, Beatrice serves as Dante’s love interest. In fact, a number of scholars note that the text presents Beatrice as an embodiment of…

Sony Pictures had initially planned to release the movie, The Interview in the upcoming holiday season at the time. The film is a satire comedy, centered about a way to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea. In the weeks prior to the…

While reading Twelfth Night, it was fascinating to see how Shakespeare implemented comedy into the piece. Being the genius that he is, Shakespeare was able to break up comedy in his play into several different types (including physical, verbal, and visual comedy). In doing so,…

The movie It All Happened in One Night is one of the most popular comedies in the mid-twentieth century. The movie involves a spoilt girl, Ellie Edwards, who is caught in the nightmare of marrying the right man with the influence of his father. The…

A sense of humour has been said to benefit physical health in several ways which is important nowadays as humour could be an option for future pain therapy as opposed to using painkillers. Humour effects pain tolerance and looking at the ways in which this…

The early part discusses how radio became popular in 1930s and started surpassing newspaper before World War II. For instance, the book stated that about 90% of American families owned at least one radio set. Therefore, it explains why radio was an essential mean for…

As you Like It is one of Shakespeare’s famous comedy plays. More specifically pastoral comedy, which refers to work dealing with shepherds and rustic life; it presents an idealized view instead of a realistic view of rustic life. The film version, from 1963, was essentially…

Believed to be one of William Shakespeare’s most impressive comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a visionary and comical tale; nevertheless, its poetic lines convey and incorporate a message of love, reality, and magic. However, the play uses characters to portray helpful life lessons, potentially…

There are social norms in every culture. How we act is often dependent on the society around us. This is true for cultures throughout the world and throughout time. In “Shakespearean Comedy” Katherine Eisaman Maus argues that some characters challenge the status quo throughout the…

Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid is full of specific references to 17th Century France, and could be alienating for a contemporary audience. By setting the play in the current-day United States, with an emphasis on the health care system, and huge gaps between social classes, The…

Satan was in town last night, and he will be back next Sunday. Yes. You heard right. There is a stage play in town titled Satan: A Dark Comedy written and directed by Joy Isi Bewaji. This play which happens to be her first theater…

The comedy genre has existed for as long as we can remember and has consistently released many hilarious films since the dawn of its day. Some of my personal favorites in this genre are the films 21 Jumpstreet and We’re the Millers. Both of these…