It might be said that populism’s mirror opposite is dark
or black humor. This always provocative form of comedy
emphasizes three interrelated themes: man as beast, the absurdity of the world, and the omnipresence of death.
While populism views human nature as inherently good
and the world as rational, with life after death, the blackly
comic worlds of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and Catch-22 (1970)
typically make life out to be a cosmic joke. At its essence,
dark humor skewers society’s most sacred serious subjects—especially death. For instance, what could be more
seemingly tasteless than comedy based on teen suicide, as
in Harold and Maude (1971) and Heathers (1989)? Both films depict a dysfunctional family, which is typical of
the genre; Igby Goes Down (2002) features teenage brothers assisting in the suicide of their mother, in a more
recent variation on this theme.
In black comedies randomness is as prevalent in suicides as in the frustrating lives that drive characters to
desperation. Reuben, Reuben (1983) documents an accidental suicide (an overwhelmed writer dies by accidental
hanging after he decides to abort the suicide attempt), and
in Crimes of the Heart (1986) Sissy Spacek’s off-center
child of the South fails at many attempts at suicide, then
decides against it, only to accidentally knock herself out
trying to remove her head from the oven. Unlike populism, which preaches hope even in death, the message
of dark comedy is that there is no message. The genre
has been described as ‘‘beyond a joke’’ or ‘‘anticomedy’’
because it fights the new beginnings associated with most
types of laughter. Black humor further keeps its audience
on edge (‘‘Am I supposed to be laughing here?’’) by often
fragmenting its narrative, as in Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
and Pulp Fiction (1994).
Dark humor was fueled by the writings of Charles
Darwin (1809–1882) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939),
whose works helped accelerate the decentralization of the
individual in the grand scheme of things. Darwin’s thenrevolutionary claims about evolution and Freud’s emphasis
on the once-taboo subject of sexuality and the unconscious
provide a solid foundation for black comedy. Freud was
fascinated by this genre, as in the tale of the fellow heading
for the gallows who asked for a neckerchief to guard
against catching a cold. For Freud, dark comedy was a
defense mechanism against the inevitability of death.
Like life, dark comedy is disjointed. It keeps the
viewer off balance with shock effects that are visual, such
as the leg protruding from the wood shredder in Fargo
(1996) by Joel (b. 1954) and Ethan Coen (b. 1957), and/
or auditory, as in Malcolm McDowell’s warbling of Gene
Kelly’s beloved standard ‘‘Singin’ in the Rain’’ as he
stomps people to death in A Clockwork Orange (1971).
Indeed, black humor is the only film genre (comic or
otherwise) that uses a musical score at cross purposes to
the visual, as in the Harold and Maude funeral scene
where the removal of a coffin runs into a John Philip
Sousa–playing marching band that just happens to be
passing the church. This edgy genre offers conflicting
cues to the viewer instead of simply reinforcing the status
quo (as for example, violin music would in a romantic
comedy).
More controversial is how black humor treats institutions of the establishment such as psychiatry, religion,
and the military, which routinely insist that this is a
rational world. Harold and Maude effectively skewers
each one when the troubled teen Harold (Bud Cort) repeatedly says that a counseling trio (a priest, a psychiatrist,
and an uncle in the army) do not have a clue about life.
The damaging ‘‘guidance’’ they offer recalls Raymond
Durgnat’s suggestion that whenever sanctimonious society suggests how sacred life is to us, we are drawn to dark
comedies that showcase death and destruction (The Crazy
Mirror).
While there have always been cinematic dark comedies, Dr. Strangelove brought the genre to center stage.
Throughout the 1960s, America’s interest in black
humor was further fueled by growing social disillusionment, and there were dark-humor movements in both
1960s stand-up comedy (Lenny Bruce, George Carlin)
and literature (Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut). But there
was a long tradition to draw upon, given the horrors of
World War II. Chaplin produced two watershed dark
comedies at this time—The Great Dictator (1940),
his take on Hitler, followed by the urbane Bluebeard
tale Monsieur Verdoux (1947). The latter picture was
the catalyst for a series of black-comedy gems from the
genre’s most honored studio—England’s Ealing. From
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) to The Ladykillers
(1955), Ealing specialized in amiable dark humor.
England has long had a proclivity for this genre, from the casual killing of royal wives in The Private Life of
Henry VIII (1933) to the inspired mayhem of the Monty
Python movies—especially Life of Brian (1979), the
irreverent religious parable that parallels the story of
Christ. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), the Coen
brothers (Fargo), and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie
Nights, 1997, and Magnolia, 1999) are the new
American auteurs of dark comedy, and Guy Ritchie
(Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998, and
Snatch, 2000) has continued the tradition in England.