Comedy

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Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). In the theater, its Western origins are in ancient Greece tragedy, a genre characterised by a grave fall from grace by a protagonist having high social standing. Comedy, by contrast, portrays a conflict or agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) between a young hero and an older authority, a confrontation described by Northrop Frye as a struggle between a "society of youth" and a "society of the old". A more recent development is to regard this struggle as a mere pretext for disguise, a comical device centered on uncertainties regarding the meaning of social identity. The basis of comedy would then be a plot mechanism conceived to engender misunderstandings either about a hero's identity or about social being in general. ^[1]

Comedy is known as being difficult to describe, given its subjective nature. Some enjoy cerebral fare such as irony or black comedy, while others may prefer scatological humor (e.g. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not.^{[citation needed]}

Most good comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations.