Woody Allen
woody allen
Woody Allen is a challenge for philosophy. Why? Laughter is of course not one of the most fundamental but is never- theless one of the most controversial and intriguing topics in philosophy, in whose analysis various philosophical dis- ciplines have to work together—philosophical anthropol- ogy, philosophical sociology, and aesthetics proper. This bestows on comedians a certain philosophical interest—the more so since, “while comedy may be the most widely ap- preciated art, it is also the most undervalued,”1 an injustice that calls for redress by philosophy. Philosophers have to operate with abstract concepts; but it is reality, or at least a certain interpretation of reality, that has to show whether the concepts developed are fruitful. Therefore, every phi- losopher interested in elaborating a general theory of laugh- ter is well advised to study those works that make people laugh, and Woody Allen can claim to make a certain type of people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries
(mainly Western, particularly European intellectuals) laugh as nobody else can. It may well be that a careful analysis of his work will contribute to an improvement of the main the- ories of the comic developed till now. What are the causes of Allen’s success?
First, Woody Allen has succeeded in impersonating a certain type of comic hero, and it well befits philosophy to try to find the general features common to Victor Shaka- popolis in What’s New, Pussycat?, Jimmy Bond in Casino
Royale, Virgil Starkwell in Take the Money and Run, Field- ing Mellish in Bananas, Allan Felix in Play It Again, Sam, the jester Felix, Fabrizio, Victor Shakapopolis again, and the loquacious and fearful sperm in Everything You Always
Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Miles
2
© 2007 University of Notre Dame Press
Woody Allen: An Essay on the Nature of the Comical
Monroe in Sleeper, Boris Grushenko in Love and Death,
Alvy Singer
Woody Allen is a challenge for philosophy. Why? Laughter is of course not one of the most fundamental but is never- theless one of the most controversial and intriguing topics in philosophy, in whose analysis various philosophical dis- ciplines have to work together—philosophical anthropol- ogy, philosophical sociology, and aesthetics proper. This bestows on comedians a certain philosophical interest—the more so since, “while comedy may be the most widely ap- preciated art, it is also the most undervalued,”1 an injustice that calls for redress by philosophy. Philosophers have to operate with abstract concepts; but it is reality, or at least a certain interpretation of reality, that has to show whether the concepts developed are fruitful. Therefore, every phi- losopher interested in elaborating a general theory of laugh- ter is well advised to study those works that make people laugh, and Woody Allen can claim to make a certain type of people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries
(mainly Western, particularly European intellectuals) laugh as nobody else can. It may well be that a careful analysis of his work will contribute to an improvement of the main the- ories of the comic developed till now. What are the causes of Allen’s success?
First, Woody Allen has succeeded in impersonating a certain type of comic hero, and it well befits philosophy to try to find the general features common to Victor Shaka- popolis in What’s New, Pussycat?, Jimmy Bond in Casino
Royale, Virgil Starkwell in Take the Money and Run, Field- ing Mellish in Bananas, Allan Felix in Play It Again, Sam, the jester Felix, Fabrizio, Victor Shakapopolis again, and the loquacious and fearful sperm in Everything You Always
Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Miles
2
© 2007 University of Notre Dame Press
Woody Allen: An Essay on the Nature of the Comical
Monroe in Sleeper, Boris Grushenko in Love and Death,
Alvy Singer