Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Black comedy \Black" com`e*dy\ (bl[a^]k" k[o^]m`[e^]d*[y^]), n. (Drama) a comedy that treats of morbid, tragic, gloomy, or grotesque situations as a major element of the plot.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
first recorded 1961, from black (adj.) in a figurative sense of "morbid;" compare French pièce noire. In a racial sense, from 1921.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (alternative form of black humor English) 2 A film genre that uses black humor.
WordNet
n. comedy that uses black humor
Wikipedia
A black comedy (or dark comedy) is a comic work that makes light of serious, disturbing, and / or taboo subject matter. Black comedy corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. Black comedy is often controversial due to its subject matter.
Black Comedy is a one-act farce by Peter Shaffer, first performed in 1965.
The play is written to be staged under a reversed lighting scheme: the play opens on a darkened stage. A few minutes into the show there is a short circuit, and the stage is illuminated to reveal the characters in a "blackout." On the few occasions when matches, lighters, or torches are lit, the lights grow dimmer. The title of the play is a pun.
Brindsley Miller, a young sculptor, and his debutante fiancée Carol Melkett have borrowed some expensive, antique furniture from his neighbor Harold's flat without his permission in order to impress an elderly millionaire art collector coming to view Brindsley's work, and Carol's father Colonel Melkett. When the power fails, Harold returns early, and Brindsley's ex-mistress Clea shows up unexpectedly, things slide into disaster for him.
Black comedy refers to a genre of comedy that deals humorously with serious or disturbing subject matter.
It may also refer to:
- U.S. film and TV comedy featuring characters of African ethnicity, including:
- Blaxploitation
- Black sitcom
- Black Comedy (play), a one-act play by Peter Shaffer
- Black Comedy (TV series), a 2014 Australian television sketch comedy series
- Black Comedy (film), a 2014 film
- William Shakespeare's Problem plays
- Comedy (Black album), an album by Black
Dark Comedy may also refer to:
- Kenny Larkin, an American electronic musician who releases material under that name
Black Comedy is a 2014 Hong Kong fantasy comedy film directed by Wilson Chin. It starred Chapman To, Wong Cho-lam and Kimmy Tong.
Black Comedy is an Australian television sketch comedy series produced by Scarlett Pictures which first screened on ABC on 5 November 2014. Black Comedy combines a mix of observational and physical sketches, historical sketches and parodies of TV, film and commercials and is a fast paced look at Australian culture through the comedic prism of Indigenous Australians.
A second series screened in 2016.
Usage examples of "black comedy".
Shakespeare, who was likewise patronized by aristocrats and who likewise rarely showed the common people in a good light, adopted Thersites as part of the comic relief in the play, though it is black comedy indeed.
Sladek's first novel, _The Reproductive System_ (US: _Mechasm_), was published to enormous critical acclaim in 1968, and his blend of black comedy and SF has been likened to Kurt Vonnegut at his best.
Not only is it a black comedy, it is also an effective period piece—.
Not only is it a black comedy, it is also an effective period piece -- the story unfolds against the backdrop of the Bush-Dukakis election -- and a poignant family drama.
Entries have ranged from This Land Is Ours, a Nigerian picture in the Hausa language about a corrupt businessman who tries to buy up an entire village without revealing that precious stones are buried beneath the land, to an Iranian black comedy, The Suitors, in Farsi, which deals with a group of Iranians who sacrifice a sheep in their Manhattan apartment and end up facing a SWAT team.