Black comedy

A black comedy (or dark comedy) is a comic work that employs morbid humor, which, in its simplest form, is humor that makes light of subject matter usually considered taboo. Black humor corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. Black comedy is often controversial due to its subject matter.

History and etymology

Origin of the term

The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the surrealist theorist André Breton in 1935 to label a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism, often relying on topics such as death.

Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l'humour noir), in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included both examples in which the wit arises from a victim with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and examples in which the comedy is used to mock the victim. This victim's suffering is trivialized, which leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the grotesque genre.

Dark Comedy (album)

Dark Comedy is a studio album by American rapper Open Mike Eagle. It was released on Mello Music Group in 2014.

Track listing

References

External links