The Comic Event: Comedic Performance from the 1950s to the Present

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Synopsis
The Comic Event approaches comedy as dynamic phenomenon that involves the gathering of elements of performance, signifiers, timings, tones, gestures, previous comic bits, and other self-conscious structures into an “event” that triggers, by virtue of a “cut,” an expected/unexpected resolution.Using examples from mainstream comedy, The Comic Event progresses from the smallest comic moment-jokes, bits-to the more complex-caricatures, sketches, sit-coms, parody films, and stand-up routines. Judith Roof builds on side comments from Henri Bergson's short treatise “Laughter,” Sigmund Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and various observations from Aristotle to establish comedy as a complex, multifaceted practice. In seeing comedy as a gathering event that resolves with a “cut,” Roof characterizes comedy not only by a predictable unpredictability occasioned by a sudden expected/unexpected insight, but also by repetition, seriality, self-consciousness, self-referentiality, and an ourobouric return to a previous cut. This theory of comedy offers a way to understand the operation of a broad array of distinct comic occasions and aspects of performance in multiple contexts.
Copyright:
2018

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
240 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781501335730
Related ISBNs:
9781501354885
Publisher:
Bloomsbury Publishing
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Judith Roof
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts, Humor
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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