Everything about Slapstick totally explained
Slapstick is a type of
comedy involving exaggerated physical violence or activities (for example, a character being hit in the face with a frying pan or running full speed into a wall). The style is common to those genres of entertainment in which the audience is supposed to understand the very hyperbolic nature of such violence to exceed the boundaries of common sense and thus license non-cruel laughter. Its greatest modern representations therefore lie in cartoons and the simple, amplified film comedies aimed at younger audiences. Though the term is often used pejoratively, the performance of slapstick comedy—based on exquisite timing and unerring calculation of execution, character reaction, and audience laughter—is considered among the more difficult tasks facing a live performer.
Origins
The phrase comes from the
battacchio—called the '
slap stick' in English—a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in
Commedia dell'arte. When struck, the battacchio produces a loud smacking noise, though little force is transferred from the object to the person being struck. Actors may thus hit one another repeatedly with great audible effect while causing very little actual physical damage. Along with the
inflatable bladder (of which the
whoopee cushion is a modern variant), it was among the earliest forms of
special effects that could be carried on one's person.
History
While the object from which the genre is derived dates from the
Renaissance, theater historians argue that slapstick comedy has been at least somewhat present in almost all comedic genres since the rejuvenation of theater in church liturgical dramas in the Middle Ages. (Some argue for instances of it in Greek and Roman theater, as well.) Beating the devil off stage, for example, remained a stock
comedic device in many otherwise serious religious plays.
Shakespeare also incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies. Building off its later popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century ethnic routines of the American
vaudeville house, the style was explored extensively during the "golden era" of black and white, silent movies directed by figures
Mack Sennett and
Hal Roach and featuring such notables as
Mabel Normand,
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle,
Buster Keaton,
Charlie Chaplin,
Laurel and Hardy, the
Marx Brothers, the
Keystone Kops, and the
Three Stooges. Slapstick is also common in animated
cartoons such as
Tom and Jerry and
Looney Tunes. Cartoonist
Brendon Small considers the gory violence in his late-night cartoon,
Metalocalypse, a form of Slapstick.
Modern criticism
In recent times, some have criticized representations of violence in a belief that they encourage actual violence, a claim supported by the
American Academy of Pediatrics.
(External Link
) Slapstick comedy hasn't escaped negative attention, though its lengthy presence in performance history and obviously fictitious nature usually protects it from efforts meant to censor
video games and
action films. Slapstick continues to maintain a presence in modern comedy that draws upon its lineage, running in film from
Buster Keaton to
Mel Brooks to the
Farrelly Brothers, and in live performance from Weber & Fields to
Jackie Gleason to
Rowan Atkinson.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Slapstick'.
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