jsburbidge: (Default)
jsburbidge ([personal profile] jsburbidge) wrote2009-04-20 04:20 pm
Entry tags:

Comedy


I have to disagree with this line in slacktivist's ongoing takedown of the Left Behind series: "Comedy is essentially revolutionary. This scene is counter-revolutionary. That's never funny."

Three counterexamples:

1) Aristophanes

2) Swift

3) Waugh

Reactionaries all.

You can finesse this observation by trying to claim that they're all statirists, and that satire isn't really comedy, but I don't think that flies.

The problem with Jenkins and La Haye is that they are (1) bad writers working with (2) really poor theology.  But I don't think that their problem is, as such, that they're reactionary rather than revolutionary, or that because they're reactionary they shouldn't try comedy.