ComedicEffect
Veronica Torres
The Comic Effect – 1st paper
10/29/14
A Comedic Lesson Against War
Often taken lightly, comedies are seen as works of literature meant to lift spirits and change the mood of an audience. Although what a passive audience doesn’t realize is that when taken seriously, a comedy can have a very powerful effect on society. It has the ability to teach us through our own laughter. The author of a comedy uses our funny bones against us in a well-thought out scheme to get us to change the way we may think about something. We laugh at what is wrong, correct ourselves, and then attempt to correct the problem in our everyday lives. In this way, comedy can spark a change in a society by altering the way that society’s citizens see what is right and what is wrong based on what an author is trying to teach us. The age of comedy does not affect the ability of it to teach. Although the techniques by which an old comedy and a new comedy might do this can differ, the effectiveness generally stays the same. For example, when you take the two comedies Lysistrata by Aristophanes and Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore, you see that they both share the common goal of spreading antiwar sentiment while using different tactics. This is not to say that they don’t also use similar tactics, because they do. But being that Lysistrata was written around 411BC and Fahrenheit 9/11 was filmed in 2004, they are bound to have different strategies reflecting their time periods. Not to mention, the first is a play and the latter is a movie. To recognize the differences, one must first set aside the similarities that come with sharing a similar goal, if not an identical goal. Both Lysistrata and Fahrenheit 9/11 are anti-war critiques. Aristophanes and Moore want you to laugh at war and politics to get you to question it and if they are successful, hopefully push you to make a change. In this case, the change would be to refrain from war. They focus on the domus and
The Comic Effect – 1st paper
10/29/14
A Comedic Lesson Against War
Often taken lightly, comedies are seen as works of literature meant to lift spirits and change the mood of an audience. Although what a passive audience doesn’t realize is that when taken seriously, a comedy can have a very powerful effect on society. It has the ability to teach us through our own laughter. The author of a comedy uses our funny bones against us in a well-thought out scheme to get us to change the way we may think about something. We laugh at what is wrong, correct ourselves, and then attempt to correct the problem in our everyday lives. In this way, comedy can spark a change in a society by altering the way that society’s citizens see what is right and what is wrong based on what an author is trying to teach us. The age of comedy does not affect the ability of it to teach. Although the techniques by which an old comedy and a new comedy might do this can differ, the effectiveness generally stays the same. For example, when you take the two comedies Lysistrata by Aristophanes and Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore, you see that they both share the common goal of spreading antiwar sentiment while using different tactics. This is not to say that they don’t also use similar tactics, because they do. But being that Lysistrata was written around 411BC and Fahrenheit 9/11 was filmed in 2004, they are bound to have different strategies reflecting their time periods. Not to mention, the first is a play and the latter is a movie. To recognize the differences, one must first set aside the similarities that come with sharing a similar goal, if not an identical goal. Both Lysistrata and Fahrenheit 9/11 are anti-war critiques. Aristophanes and Moore want you to laugh at war and politics to get you to question it and if they are successful, hopefully push you to make a change. In this case, the change would be to refrain from war. They focus on the domus and