Introduction
Comedy is a major form of entertainment in the world today. Comedians constitute some of the most known celebrities in our society. Today almost every television runs a comedy series; some of which are greatly adored by their fans. Stand up comedies are also in the increase with stand up comedians being hosted in various venues. Comedy films that are purely dedicated to humour have found themselves in Hollywood with some of them winning major awards.
The increase of use of comedies in entertainment industry calls for more focus on comedies in studies. Comedian comedies could be one of the least known forms of comedies. However, in recent past comedian comedies have become very significant in entertainment. Despite of success of comedian comedies in entertainment, there have been questions of its destructive nature. The effect of comedians in comedian comedies to the narrative and plot of these comedies has become major area of study for scholars in entertainment.
Historical overview of comedies
The origin of comedies is traced in ancient Greek. The history and development of comedies is not as complex as that of other type of arts, however early information of comedies in not readily available. In history, comedies are mentioned by the early Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle mentions comedies by telling us that comedies initially took place in Sicyon and Megaris, in the early Greek. Comedies were the lighter form of early Greek literary dramas (Krutnik, 2003).
Comedies were encouraged by the various festivals that took place in various villages in Greece. The festival allowed individuals with entertainment skills to take various roles in entertaining villagers during the festivals. Beside the festivals, it was customary for young people to move along the villages with choruses that later came to constitute the early comedies. Later, comedies developed as a distinct branch of drama. Unlike dramas, comedies were less expensive, involved fewer characters and focused on humour (Beach, 2002). For example, Plato comedies addressed the political and other issues in Athens in a lighter way that attracted more attention.
Comedy is a well-known name in history of art. Comedies started as work of art written in the ancient Greek to address the issue that affected their society. Comedies continued as part of western culture with various artists writing and performing comedies as literary works. Later comedies were included in music in musical theatre; increasing their entertainment nature. As it is today, comedies in the early days addresses common issues in the society in a humorous way. The use of irony and satire were the major styles used in the early comedies. As entertainment industry went through transformations, comedies started to take new forms.
Comedy films
Comedy film is a development from the conventional comedies. Unlike other films that focus on describing event or fiction, the focus of comedy films is humour. The other main difference between comedy film and other kinds of films is that most comedy films are centred on individual comedian rather than a wide range of characters and issues (Beach, 2002). This trend in comedy film leads to most comedians starting as stand up comedians then later transforms to become comedy film stars. Most comedy film contains light-hearted stories aimed as amusing their audience that play any other roles.
Despite of this some comedy film address important issues in society such a politics and family but in a light manner. Comedy films take various forms such as comedy of manners, parody, anarchic and black comedies. Apart from black comedy films, most other films usually have a happy end.
Comedy in television
Comedies are a common component of most of our television channels. Comedies started to be featured in television as early as after television programs started to be shown. For example, an early BBC program, Starlight, hosted comedians to entertain its audience as early as 1939. Most early television comedies developed from comedies in radio (Beach, 2002). Comedians were at first hosted in radio programs and later developed programmes for television after their comedies had become popular. Most of television comedies take ether situation of star based comedy with either of them having supporters.
Comedian Comedy
It is not easy to differentiate a comedian comedy from other form of comedy films. However, a comedian comedy refers to a comedy that is structured in order to recognise the status of a comedian as a performer. The comedian comedy is also known for its disruptive nature that aims at recognising a particular comedian (Krutnik, 2003). Comedian comedies are challenged in their attempt to capture narration due to their disruptive nature.
A narrative or descriptive film aims at capturing a past event or a fictional issue with focus of giving the details of the narrative. For a narrative film to be successful, the focus should not be on an individual character but on the story at large. In a fiction films, the characters are supposed to be viewed in context of the film rather than on the known characters of the performers. To bring in this difference in a comedian comedy is usually challenging (Krutnik, 2003). Since the comedians in the comedian comedy are well known by audience, the audience are reluctant to accept other roles or character of the comedian other than the known character.
Presenting a comedian in comedian comedy is usually a challenge. Usually there is a dilemma on how the comedian or the known comedian team would be included. Tension exists between the comedian’s known character and the comedian character in a linear narrative (Krutnik, 2003). There is also a dilemma on how to integrate the comedian in a linear narrative, taking into consideration that most comedies lacks that linear structure. Most comedies are known to be disruptive and eccentric (Beach, 2002). Accommodating a comedian in a comedian comedy then has the risk of carrying over this disruptiveness to them. Conflict between known counter cultural behaviours of comedians to social cultural behaviours of other characters is another feature that constitutes a comedian comedy. The difference between the character of comedian as a performer in a comedian comedy and those of other characters result to a disruption.
Disruptive nature of a Comedian Comedy
There is agreement that comedy films that attempt to make use of the roles of a known comedian leads to disruption. The nature and extent of this observation is puzzling. Despite of it is agreed that incorporating a well-known comedian in a mainstream narrative in not easy (Beach, 2002). Although there is lack of enough study to this issue, an attempt to explain the observation can be given. Some form comedies has the potential of being disruptive when they are focussed of classical fictional films. They feature in a classical fiction film such as, how characters are structured; rhetoric and illusionism may be affected by use of a comedian (Krutnik, 2003).
For instance, most classics films were structured more as a story rather than a discourse. Creating this element with use of well-known comedian becomes a challenge for the trend of audience to associate the comedian with certain characters.
Disruptive features of Comedian Comedy
Comedian comedies show elements of extra-fictional features that make it to be disruptive. Extra-fictional features are those features that do not conform to the classical fictions films. The extra-fictional features tend to interfere with the ability of a comedian comedy to portray fictional nature of classical films (Krutnik, 2003). Instead of the classical film appearing as fiction, use of a comedian withdraws the fictional nature making the fiction to appear just like another comedy.
Use of a known comedian in a comedian comedy magnifies the extra-fictional features leading to disruption (Beach, 2002). The first and the main contributor to extra-fictional features of comedian comedy is in fact the show business nature of comedies. As comedies adopted the commercial nature, keen focus on fiction were ignored.
The influence of show business to fiction in comedies has not been addressed. In particular, influence of show business to film narration has not been addressed but it has a potential for leading to the disruptive nature of comedian comedies. Discussion of acting styles in films assumes that there is no presence of audience (Krutnik, 2003). However, in a comedy the presence of audience is always assumed since a comedian aim at entertaining the audience rather that retell a story or create fiction. When placed in comedian comedy, the comedians are not able to overlook the presence of audience. The actual fiction in a film can only be possible when the performers assume that there is no audience; by assuming this, a smooth narrative would be possible.
The difference between film and theatre is important when looking into the nature of disruption in comedian comedy. The difference between theatre and film are evident in many areas but most of all on acting. In theatre performance, the presence of audience is very important to how the performers act. In film performance, on the other hand, consciousness of presence of audience is lacking. In theatre acting, the performers direct their performance towards the audience with aim of attracting their attention (Beach, 2002). This requires the audience to participate, even if implicitly. The opposite of this, however, is observed in film acting (Krutnik, 2003). The performers in a film are not aware of the presence of the audience while the audience have no chance of participating in the performance.
Lack of reciprocity between the actor and audience in film acting is a reality. This lack of reciprocity, in fact, is assumed when depicting a fictional universe. Most of the actors in the films are trained on how to adopt different characters as required by a film (Beach, 2002). This case is however not true when comedians are used in a comedian comedy. The known character of a comedian is carried over to the film with the audience expecting the comedian to assume the known character. Thus, it becomes hard for the comedian to represent a character of another person or portray the linear nature of a fictional narrative.
Classical acting portrayed by classic theatres, the actor and performers were supposed to assume fictional nature of the performance until the performance end. For this reason, the actors could not comment on their presence until the curtain of the theatre closed (Krutnik, 2003). Although slight difference was observed in some of Aristophanes and Shakespeare’s work where performers could comment on their presence, later theatre acting emphasized on pure fiction.
Most classic cinemas assumed lack of spectators and most of them were based on historical events. This can explain the linear nature of narration of these films. Performers in classical films, thus, should be able to assume the new characteristics; they should avoid influence of presence of spectators and position themselves in historical context of the films.
From analysis of classic films and the role comedians, there is presence of tension between the known character of a comedian and the assigned role in the context of the film. The comedian is challenges on how to maintain a balance between his known character and the new character in the film. The other challenge is that the audience take the comedian as a comic figure, changing this perception in the film becomes difficult.
However, this challenge in not to comedians in comedian comedy alone, the same challenge is observed in all stars when they try to take other roles other than the known roles (Beach, 2002). When a star takes a new character in a film, the audience interest goes beyond the new character but to the known character of the star. The conflict between the star and the new persona in the film is, in fact, a conflict between the star’s identity and the new roles in the film.
Example of disruption
Disruptiveness nature of comedian comedy is evident in many films. Keaton is one of comedians and filmmakers that have succeeded in this area. The comedian comedy, The Playhouse is a good example for disruptive nature of comedian comedy (Jenkins, 2004). The Playhouse gives Keaton an opportunity to show her skills as a performer. As the film is based of Vaudevilles repertoire, the film allows Keaton to portray various characters of its nature. In the film, Keaton plays musical instruments, dress in drag, act as a trained monkey, do some acrobatic and other roles. All these roles are done in a single film where he takes more than one role in a single fixture (Jenkins, 2004). The films is structured into short that when brought together constitute the film.
The shorts in Keaton films seem like prototypes for the feature films. However, when looked in isolation, the shorts show evidences of disruptiveness. The shorts are based on non-narrative and semi-narrative structure where the features in the films are not purely linear but adopt non-fictional character. For example, Keaton overlooks the classic demand for story telling to feature on issues that he finds important to his film.
The Vaudevillian obsession of performance, aesthetic and spectacle is addressed at the expense classical narration demands. The shorts are observed to parody other film genres such as The Paleface. They are also observed to transform causality in classical film into an absurd joke. They also play with theme to vary the theme accordingly. Systematic order in classical film is not followed but new order is created.
Apart from the non-conformity with classical requirement, the film shows other features of disruptiveness. The film keeps returning to the structure of disruptiveness (Jenkins, 2004). The film fails to follow the conventional linear structure of film that stick on plan. Keatons in the film do not seem to be aware of the new events in the movie. For example, the Keatons would be seen to be trying to make out the next steps in the film (Jenkins, 2004).
Another disruptive scene in the film is seen when the Keatons’ stagehand are forced to intervene as performers fall apart. Buster, on the other hand, watches helplessly. The impersonation dissolves into another character (Jenkins, 2004). For example, Buster’s character as an ape gradually dissolves while his character as animal is created. The frenzy of performance in the film is also disruptive. The performance destabilizes everything in the film by creating scenes that are inconsistent to classic narration.
Conclusion
Comedy is one of the most important forms of entertainment in entertainment industry today. Comedies have been in entertainment for a long time. Comedies developed from ancient Greek through comedies played in festivals. Later comedies became an important artistic and cultural element in western culture. Aristophanes and Shakespeare’s works is the most known works in classic comedies.
Stand up comedies and television comedies are the most known forms of comedies. Comedian comedies, however, have developed to be one of important forms of comedies in films. Disruptiveness is a common feature in the comedian comedies. The known character of a comedian and the assumption of presence of spectators make comedian not to fit in the classical fictional narrative. Keaton and Buster are some of performers that portray disruptiveness in their work.
Reference List
Beach, C. ‘language and American film comedy’ New York, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Jenkins, Henry. ‘This Fellow Keaton Seem To be the Whole Show’ Publications. Web.
Krutnik, F. ‘Hollywood comedians, the film reader’, New York, Routledge, 2003.