Comic Event

The Comic Event approaches comedy as dynamic phenomenon that involves the gathering of elements of performance signifiers timings tones gestures previous comic bits and other self-conscious structures into an “event” that triggers by virtue of a “cut” an expected/unexpected resolution. Using examples from mainstream comedy The Comic Event progresses from the smallest comic moment―jokes bits―to the more complex―caricatures sketches sit-coms parody films and stand-up routines. Judith Roof builds on side comments from Henri Bergson’s short treatise “Laughter” Sigmund Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious and various observations from Aristotle to establish comedy as a complex multifaceted practice. In seeing comedy as a gathering event that resolves with a “cut” Roof characterizes comedy not only by a predictable unpredictability occasioned by a sudden expected/unexpected insight but also by repetition seriality self-consciousness self-referentiality and an ourobouric return to a previous cut. This theory of comedy offers a way to understand the operation of a broad array of distinct comic occasions and aspects of performance in multiple contexts.