Random Rambles: Comedy = Tragedy + Time

The book "Earth" by Jon Stewart had a joke in it saying that twenty minutes after the theatrical release of "The Diary of Anne Frank" there was already a knockoff called "The Diarrhea of Anne Frank." Comedy and tragedy seem like opposing forces yet they frequently intertwine despite the major difference between the two. They are two sides of a coin and when people are sad, they watch a comedy. This was seen in the Vietnam War and World War II where people wished to escape the horrors of their time by going to the theaters and seeing something to take their minds off of the current issues. However, nowadays we have multiple dramas that delve deeply into the human psychology. Movies like "The Hurt Locker" or "Argo" kinda tell us what to realize is happening in our current society. People want the truth and the censorship issues of today only make people want to find out more about the human condition. So people like comedies and tragedies when the time calls for them.

So what does comedy = tragedy + time even mean? This general formula pretty much explains itself. Almost everything can be ridiculed. While the Holocaust may have been tragic for its time, there are many jokes to be made about it including mocking Hitler or telling about the Jews condition in a comedic way like the Epic Rap Battles of History do. Similarly, Breaking Bad has gotten a few comedic interpretations like "Joking Bad" by Jimmy Fallon and "Breaking Bad, Jr." In this way, we see that something that is tragic for its time will always become something funnier. As humans, we don't want to always take things seriously and seeing a film or drama series being so thought-provocative makes us want to just parody it to see how conflicting the parody and the original source material can be. As humans, we move on and comedies are a way of moving on. In a sense, comedies numb our raw emotions we felt over a tragedy and make us desensitized to the experience so we can move on. 

Is making comedies such a crime in and of itself? Is it sacrilegious? Do we cut ourselves away from an artistic film? Do we deny ourselves a more in-depth experience for a cheap substitute? Well, comedies are artistic in themselves. They tell a cohesive narrative that either parodies the source material in an amusing way or feature something more to the audience. In that, comedies and tragedies are not too different. They both have something to say and none of them are inferior to each other. Because of this, comedies aren't to be hated for its presentation, but to be commended as well. It's up to personal preference whether someone likes a comedy or a tragedy and both options are equally valid.