The word comedy was derived from a Greek verb meaning “to revel”. Plenty of comedic work produced by the ancient Greek still survived nowadays. The typical comedies from fifth-century Greece are by Aristophanes. His plays such as Lysistrata, The Birds, and The Frogs have been translated into various languages and transmitted world-widely. These plays are well-known for making jokes as well as commenting on society and politics, especially relating to the war.
Appeared as a humorous piece of work, comedy is about the continuous actions caused by the clash of a character on other characters. Such a definition fits the early forerunners like The Acharnians, The Misanthrope, The Marriage Of Figaro and The School For Scandal. All these comedies share a common feature that is the actions of the story are the direct results of the influence of several characters on others.
Through the comparison between The Acharnians and a modern cartoon, South Park will demonstrate that the essence of comedy has remained the same throughout the history while indicating how parts of the elements and genre evolved over centuries.
The Acharnians is the earliest of the eleven surviving plays by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. The central theme is a call for peace during Peloponnesian War, a war between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. In the voice of the protagonist, Aristophanes points out that the war is only beneficial to political activists and government officers but detrimental to the people through exaggerated actions by actors and humorous lines. Nowadays, South Park presents the misadventures of four curious fourth-grade boys in the town of South Park to the audience. The boundaries between good and evil sides are a little blurred compared with the opposite sides of The Acharnians. With the improved technology, South Park can be recorded and replayed while there were significant limits for The Acharnians.
However, they both utilize some of the most successful techniques for comedy, including extensive use of humor and the appearance of seriousness.
The comical dialogues between characters not only keep the attention of audiences, but it is still based on a fundamental truth that most comedies share together — audiences can find humor in the illumination of their own life tragedies.
In contemporary society, comedy has become one of the most important art forms. It has the ability to indicate the certain deficiencies existing in human behaviors and the society.
Through showing the serious issues using a hilarious method, comedy entertains a wider range of audiences and causes dramatic irony which provokes laughter than tragedy. With the intention to persuade the audience to view the problems from different directions, comedy promotes a change of social opinions.
Also, it can protect the creators from being culpable for criticism and judgment. Instead of being obviously absurd and directly stated, comedy has implicit meanings hidden behind the lines and plots.
In this way, comedy, therefore, becomes a powerful tool for dissenters to express opinions and evoke public attention during difficult or oppressive periods in both society and politics.
