...Thea 102 Comedy Pigs Paper Improvisation seemed hard at first when watching it in the class room on the DVD that professor Brady showed us. But the comedy pigs demonstrated something less complicated and more relatable too. I was thrown off immediately when I saw the little mermaid set up in the background of the stage but I did not let it throw me off completely. Unlike our class, the comedy pigs held a heavier cast than we did. While we only held six people in our group "Fuck it Bucket", the comedy pigs had about ten people I would say. I am not sure if they played any warm up games in the back or if they even need too but they came out quickly explaining everything and performing as if it was second and nature to them. After many years of doing improvisation, I am sure that you become accustom to all the games or exercises that a group may do. I am still getting good at games we introduced later or in the middle of the semester. But the comedy pigs were great and in a small way, a bit of an inspiration to continue acting no matter where I may end up. The many games they played that were perfectly played improvised made me feel more interested in furthering my knowledge with acting and improvising. Like any other improvisation group, they walked out and gave a warm welcoming as the comedy pigs. The games they played were nothing like the games we played in class and I believe that is because they have more experience. We are new to the event of improvisation while...
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...Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love Title page of the first quarto of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream (1600) "Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays.[13] Comedy (from the Greek: κωμῳδία, kōmōidía), in the contemporary meaning of the term, is any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or to amuse by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film and stand-up comedy. This sense of the term must be carefully distinguished from its academic one, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.[1] The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance which pits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old",[2] but this dichotomy is seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation. A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth...
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...We have all been there; you are sitting at home, bored and decide to pick up the remote. What kind of show do I want to watch? you think to yourself. There are countless types of television categories. Are you in the mood to laugh? To cry? To get so sucked into the plot that the next thing you know you have finished a twelve episode season in one sitting? There are lots of television genres, and the most popular are comedy, drama, and science fiction. The comedy genre has one goal in mind--to make you laugh. Shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation are examples of comedies that never fail to make you laugh. While The Office and Parks and Rec. are shot in a way some may not like (they are both filmed with a single-camera setup), they are prime examples of what comedy...
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...Comedy has evolved in many ways over the past two thousand years or so since the writings of Plautus and Aristophanes, and yet, there are many things that remain the same. When you look at modern comedy, such as the film "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the connections between old Greek Comedy and the humor that exists today are very apparent. More specifically, when comparing the film to Plautus' Mostellaria one can see that the two contain many comedic and structural similarities. They both have similar plot ideas and the character structures are very alike as well, but what gives both stories the ability to contain so many similarities and still appeal to their intended audiences during vastly different time periods are how they alter the content of each joke to match the knowledge, values, and norms of the society in which they were written to entertain. The first signs of similarity between "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and Mostellaria is the plot structure and the character personalities. All of the basic stock characters are easily identifiable in both stories. Both father characters are easily relatable to the "senex" stock character due to their overly lax character traits and how they both are fooled by a "servi" due to their son's ("adolescens'") mischievous actions. In addition to the similarities between the "senex" and "servi," the son in both stories confuses lust for love in the way they few a certain "meretrix" in the two...
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...wrong, at the time we can be furious but eventually we are usually able to look back and laugh, even if it is a rather wary laugh. Black comedy may position an audience to laugh at something they’re not ready to laugh at, or at something they’re not really allowed to laugh at. Black comedies can show us the errors and misjudgements that lead to our downfalls and give us an opportunity to laugh at the silliness of human existence. The only difference between comedy and black comedy is the seriousness of the consequences of the misunderstanding. Black comedy explores modern comic plays from different countries that deal with what is often uncomfortable or suppressed. The nature of comedy and the use of humour is used to confront an audience with human experiences of pain, loss, forms, styles, techniques and conventions. Black Comedy is all about how you get your audience into a position to observe the confusion, to be aware of the misunderstanding leading to these terrible events. And the difference (sometimes) between the confusion and the reactions of the confusion is what creates the comedy. The term for the positioning the audience so they are aware of a significance that the characters are ignorant, is of course Dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a theatrical technique that can be used in a variety of styles of theatre, from tragedy to comedy. It is the form of irony where the audience is aware of the significance of something that the characters are ignorant of. Within the plays...
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...that many humorists have hidden messages behind their comedy. One may say that comedy is just that, humor, nothing more. This makes a lot of sense as a humorists job is to make the audience laugh; it’s what their job requires. Many of the jokes they tell may not even be real world stories. This allows the audience to believe that it is all entertainment and having a good time; but is this really true? Is this the truth in any other form of entertainment? Take music, for example. People connect on an emotional level to this, and many musicians pour their own heart and soul into what they write. That’s the reason for people liking artists such as: NF and Eminem. They use their personal traumas to tell a story people can relate to. They are there to tell a story that means something to them. Same goes for authors, they are there to present a story on paper. In most cases a fiction writer will have some underlying message, or give a sense of their experience, whether it be childhood, growing up, or some traumatic event in their lives and play this out...
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...Write a note on "Pygmalion as a comedy" of manners. Comedies of manners are plays which are "set in the world of the upper class, and ridicule the pretensions of those who consider themselves socially superior, deflating them with satire. With witty dialogue and cleverly constructed scenarios, comedies of manners comment on the standards and mores of society and explore the relationships of the sexes." The play Pygmalion is many things, and one of those is certainly a comedy of manners. Pygmalion is less of a farce than the earlier comedies of manners. While there are certainly miscommunications (especially at the beginning between Eliza and Higgins) they generally don't create changes to the plot. But in several other respects Pygmalion is a comedy of manners; most especially in its satire of both the upper and lower classes. Higgins, though a respected figure and "professor of phonetics" is an example of much of what is wrong, in Shaw's mind, with the upper class of Britain -- particularly the upper class intellectual male (a class to which Shaw, himself, belonged!) Higgins is a master of his subject, and, as he boasts, is not only able to place with minute accuracy London accents, but is able to train the most entrenched Cockney accents (Eliza's) into the tones of Mayfair. But with all his learning and accomplishments Higgins has left his humanity behind. He has to be forced (with only limited success, by Mrs. Pearce, Eliza, and Colonel Pickering) to understand that Eliza...
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...Extended Definition of Comedy. Define “comedy”. When browsing the Internet for the definition of comedy, they all have the quote: “a light and humorous drama with a happy ending.” Comedy is full of opposites and contradictions. Something is funny when it’s both expected and unexpected. Something is funny when it’s familiar and unfamiliar. There are various types of comedy including irony, sarcasm, parody, spoof and many more. Irony is where the opposite of what is expected happens or where someone says the opposite of what they mean, while sarcasm is where an insult or quick remark is fired at someone with the intention of causing injury. Parody is when someone deliberately mimics the style of another for comic effect or ridicule. Spoof is somewhat like parody, except it’s lighter and has a gentle imitation. It is not necessarily intended to make fun of the thing being spoofed but the comedy happens in the allowance of the piece being spoofed. Comedy is funny when the act is unexpected. For example, a woman buys a white coat and approaches a wet black bench. "Look out!" yells a zoo keeper. " Oh, thanks," says the woman, "I almost sat on that." Then an escaped lion leaps in from the side and bashes her. This is comedy because just like the woman, the audience did not know that a lion would appear and bash her, even though the zoo keeper warns her to watch out. We all though the same the the woman thought, that the zoo keeper was warning her about the wet bench. This would...
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...The Evolution of Women in Comedy: From the Italian Renaissance to Today Since the rejuvenation of comedies during the Italian Renaissance, the roles of women in comedy have changed and fluctuated dramatically along with the roles of women in society. Female characters in comedy have ranged from stock characters with no control, to women who take some control via masquerades, to women with freedom but no personality, and finally to the fully empowered, funny women we watch on screen today. Throughout the centuries these changes in comedy have occurred to allow many women to reach their full comedic potential. Changes in comedy to include funny women are ultimately tied to changes in societal views, and this paper aims to explore the journey it took to empower women in comedy, starting from the return of comedy during the Italian Renaissance. Just as in the Middle Ages, women of the Italian Renaissance were granted neither freedom nor independence. With very little exception, women were controlled by men for their entire lives, first ruled over by their parents during childhood and then sent straight into a marriage arranged by their family to a man they probably did not want to marry (“Women”). This lack of freedom encompassed many areas. Women were expected to be housewives and only housewives. They could not leave the home without a male escort and in fact could not even own a home. Women who did not marry were forced to live with a male relative or live in a convent and become...
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...Good evening ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour to present here at the Brisbane Comedy Festival and to recognise the important role that humour plays in our society. Humour is observed in all cultures and at all ages. It can shift the ways in which people think and can bring people together. It is innate yet also learned. It can be harmless and also incredibly damaging. For me, subtle humour is most enjoyable. The show about nothing, also known as Seinfeld is my favourite show. Stereotypes have always been used in comedies. Stephen Amos says when comics consciously tackle controversial social issues using stereotypes, they can reach people on a more meaningful level. Amos contends that one of the singular properties of satire is the...
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...There are many negative opinions and beliefs when it comes to the topic of modern day comedy and what it has to offer to our society. Many of these opinions arise because of the impact we think certain shows or movies will have on our children. Parents view shows like "The League" or "Family Guy" as crude, offensive and a bad example of modern day life. The question you have to ask is if these shows are so offensive why are they so popular? Some argue it is because we can somehow relate to the characters in the shows, the problems that they face in everyday life and the social issues the shows speak about. Comedy has always been a tool in which authors, actors and film makers portray social situations in a way your average person can relate to them. Though it is true that many modern comedies can be considered crude to some, who says that they are offensive to all. No two people have the same political, religious or personal beliefs so it is impossible to make a show based on just one persons beliefs. This is why shows like "South Park" and "The Simpsons" have had so much success and have been around as long as they have. "South Park" has been called one of the crudest shows on television but they have never been afraid to speak about any and all topics. By taking on modern day social issues that most people know about and can relate to people are almost drawn in to see what the writers take on the issue will be, even if there is a vulgar undertone. The...
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...Aguilar, Kryztelle Mae P. World Literature AB Psychology 05/08/2015 About the Author Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) remains Italy's greatest poet. He was born in the city of Florence, in the region of Tuscany, Italy in the spring of 1265. He wrote the Divine Comedy(Commedia) from 1308 to 1320, completing the work the year before he died. The Divine Comedy is one of literature's boldest undertakings, as Dante takes us through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and then reaches Heaven (Paradiso), where he is permitted to partake of the Beatific Vision. Dante's journey serves as an allegory of the progress of the individual soul toward God. While Dante was critical of the Catholic Church as an institution, his writings remained faithful to his schooling by the Dominicans, where he learned the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The Divine Comedy signaled the beginning of the Renaissance. The Commedia by Dante had everlasting impact on Italy, for the Tuscan dialect became the literary language of Italy. He died in political exile in Ravenna, Italy in September 1321. The Divine Comedy 1308-1320 INFERNO "Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was! I never saw so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came...
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...2017 Best Comedy Films List The year 2017 was one that enjoyed comedy in its most interesting form. Action was incorporated into comedy films. The result was the emergences of what some may say compete for the title of best comedy movies ever. This made 2017 comedy films top earners as compared to other years. Below is a comedy movies list of the top contenders of 2017. • Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle(7.2/10) Comedy films latest trend is incorporation of action in the films. Here, four high school kids are drawn into a game called Jumanji. They are drawn into the games settings and they become adult avatars they chose. They have to play the game and survive it in order to return to the real world. They have to discover what was left in the...
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...Purgatory Canto XVI. The Divine Comedy is one of Dante’s great collections of poems. It portrays many themes such as love, suffering, justice, fate and free will. As we move on to the Purgatory, Dante has strict views about his political vision, and we see that through his encounter with Marco Lombardo in Canto XVI. Dante and Virgil encounter Marco in a smoke filled space. Marco Lombardo is a courteous and well informed person as he serves as a center point for Dante’s ideas about human responsibility, free will, political institutions. In Canto XVI of the Purgatory, Dante and Virgil are traveling as they encounter smoke that was “too much to bear” (Pur. XVI 7). Through the blinding smoke, Dante hears the voice of a soul under the name Marco Lombardo. Marco agrees to help Virgil and Dante escape from this smoke infested space. As Marco guides Virgil and Dante through the space, Marco tells of a problem that has been haunting him. “the world, indeed, as you have just declared, Is destitute of every virtue known, swarming with evils, ever breeding more. “(Pur. XVI 58-60) Marco is essentially saying that the world is swarming with evils which consequently give rise to more evils. These evils are created by people not exercising their free will and decision making to aid them in their decisions. “You men on earth attribute everything to the spheres’ influence alone, as if with some predestined plan they moved all things If this were true, then our Free Will would...
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...Spoken language study: Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow Michael McIntyre is a modern day stand-up comedian, with a wide fan base spreading through various age groups. He’s released three comedy DVDs - Live and Laughing, Hello Wembley and Showtime - as well as judging Britain’s Got Talent, appearing in various episodes of Live at The Apollo and hosting his own TV show on BBC One: Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. In his comedy roadshow Michael is recognised for his use of comedic and relatable anecdotes. One such is his recalling of a visit to the Gym changing rooms, which is the piece that I will be studying. Within the first sentence of the piece, which is the declarative statement “have never towel dried my arse in my entire life”, McIntyre uses taboo language. By using the term “arse” the social distance between himself and the audience is removed. The story seems to become instantly more relatable to those listening as he appears to be on the same social standing as them, since taboo language is widely used in everyday life. Furthermore, the use of “arse” adds to the comedic value of the utterance, as is often the case with the use of taboo language within comedy. But dropping the pronoun “I” at the beginning of the sentence McIntyre also successfully creates a relaxed atmosphere that the audience feel comfortable in, as the utterance seems more colloquial and as a consequence more relatable. This friendly audience relationship is further created through McIntyre’s...
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