It's half a brilliant political satire, half a surreal comedy of errors. Causality of the characters and the “chilled out” dialogues only add to the brilliant script. The acting is top notch, deNiro and Hoffman are hilarious and spunky. The first and second part of the film is full of dark humour, excitement and sarcasm. The last third of the film is powered by too much of conventional drama giving away the ending way too easily.
But there have been some excellent texts written and filmed that use this technique to its full extent. These include Unknown Citizen by W.H Auden and The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest controversial films of its time. Satire adds to the enjoyment of many texts and without it our world would be monotonous and life wouldn’t be as fun had it not been for this great technique. The Unknown Citizen by W.H Auden was a fantastic poem that uses ridicule to portray its point to the audience. The poem is about a man in society, overlooked and status deteriorated.
"Modern comedy is cruel and cynical” Barry Cryer. To what extent do you agree that cruelty and cynicism are at the heart of the comedy in ‘Educating Rita’? Cruelty and cynicism play a vital role in creating comedy in ‘Educating Rita’. Both of the characters have aspects of their lives that the audience can laugh at, however for a majority, it can be perceived as cruel due to the fact that most of the circumstances we laugh at negatively impact the lives of the characters. Willy Russell uses superiority theory to engage the audience by creating comedy through the misfortune of others.
Professor Dan Rebellato states that: “we laugh at something because we feel superior to it”. This is valid as the audience laugh at Frank not understanding the joke. However, we may also laugh at Rita not understanding Frank’s references. People in the audience may understand Frank’s references if read well which would be typical of people who attend the theatre. Andrew Edwards, a set designer for a production of ‘Educating Rita’ claimed that: ‘a lot of
John sees a serious person as anxious and solemn while humorous person as relaxed, cheerful and dissatisfied. Therefore, Harvey argues that the individual approach humor and asses its value according to their approach to life. Therefore, individual approach to humor is unsuitable because expressing a sense of humor is a social act and how other people are involved in this humor is very essential (Harvey 26). Additionally, intentional humor incorporates the initiator, the audience and the subject of the joke. Therefore, humor is a chancy dealing because its succession relies on the response of the desired audience.
Shakespear's comic genius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it. He gives the most amusing exaggeration of the prevailing foibles of his characters, but in a way that they themselves, instead of being offended at, would almost join in to humour; he rather contrives opportunities for them to shew themselves off in the happiest lights, than renders them contemptible in the perverse construction of the wit or malice of others.-There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those, who would impose on us for what they arenot, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of
While the walrus is doing this, the carpenter is preparing so they could have a feast that night. In the movie, the carpenter worked very hard and long to prepare the meal. In the end though, the Walrus ate the oysters after the carpenter had done all the work. The carpenter didn't receive any oysters. The characters in the story relate to the Industrial Age.
The paragraph continues: There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is a very comic creature, and most of the things he does are comic—eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most worth doing—such as making love. We are taken aback: the last sentence is true and apposite, but quite startling in so pious and conservative a writer as Chesterton. We begin to revise our opinion of him.
THE THEATRE AS A VEHICLE TO SOCIAL SATIRE It could be said that satire is a means of using comedy and high humor to expose social problems and ills. The genre is often lauded as an intelligent form of criticism. Artists and writers use comedic devices to get their message through to audiences without resorting to bald statements. It is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.
They make fools out of the main characters. The tangled web of love is humorous. Although the fool is portrayed to be quite stupid, there are a few that have a certain cleverness to them. The fool in the play King Lear, for example, seems to comment on society’s behavior and criticizes King Lear’s actions. Despite the hilarious manor in which he does this, there is an element of truthfulness in what he says.