Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Ezra Klein blogs about a recent movie:

I liked it too, but it was unrelentingly depressing on these issues. It was a film during which the lead female character realized her husband was a senseless brute who would always put his happiness before her own, and where her son realized the father was an abusive drunk who was continually denying him the emotional support and family environment he needed. And ... both characters recognized these truths fully, and abandoned [him] to begin new lives elsewhere. And shortly thereafter, both took him back, tossing away their opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment despite there being no evidence of an enduring change in their tormentor's psyche. It was a tremendous demonstration of the self-destructive mentality of the abused, and in that, quite unsettling.

He's talking, of course, about The Simpsons Movie.

That's the problem with comedy. If you connect with the characters -- they're in pain. Imagine being one of the Stooges. You'd be in NO EXIT. Stuck for eternity with two other guys who devote their lives to sticking their fingers in your eyes.

The Marx Brothers, on the other hand, generally torture other people, not each other.

As Aristotle said in the second book of his Poetics, comedy is tragedy that happens to your mother in law.

Labels: comedy, watching movies

7:53 PM

2 Comments:

I love it!

JDC

By  EditorJDC, at 9:20 PM  

comedy is tragedy that happens to your mother in law.

Dark comedy is tragedy that happens to your mother in law...in the nude...with a vengeance.

By  Cunningham, at 2:48 PM  

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