During this week, we discussed the concept of the comic frame as well as the structure of comedic story sketches.
As Ben Voth elaborates, the comic frame is intrinsically tied to the media component of context; he states “…The contextual cues leading the interpretation of a message is centrally important to how we make symbolic sense. The symbolic structures humans use to impose order upon their lives are called frames.”(2014:149).
Essentially, the comic frame refers to contextual clues influencing audiences to find something humorous. For example, you might laugh at more moments in a film knowing what you’re watching is labelled as a comedy, than you otherwise might have. This is one aspect of comic frame. Others include Kenneth Burke’s technique that Voth referenced “perspective by incongruity”(Voth, 2014).
Dustin Goltz contends “Tragedy provides no emancipatory power but merely identifies the flawed cycle of human constructed perfection and victimage…Burke’s intention was to promote his comic corrective as a way of dismantling the tragic cycle of human victimage to promote “peaceful social change (2007).
This technique explains that by utilising incongruity and subversion, innate human principles of violence can be challenged to instead emphasise acceptance of the ‘other’ through humour (2014:150).
In comparison, Joe Toplyn expertly lists out a simple formula for how to write comedic story sketches. Toplyn’s experience in late night TV writing was fascinating to endeavour, and I found his direct steps and accompanying notes incredibly helpful in my own aspirations in writing comedy.
I believe my own work corresponds to these concepts by having identifiable character traits and goals as Toplyn notes (2014:237). For example, the character I play, is insecure about what others think; she knows her partner is real, but she needs external validation; for others to know he’s real and how well he treats her. She evidently has dramatized traits garnering on insecurity and wanting external validation. In contrast, my video also encompasses Voth’s theory by creating a scenario that most would find upsetting in a realistic context; the notion of nobody believing your beloved exists would be traumatic realistically and promote many extreme feelings and actions, however, in the context of my film, these feelings are replaced with ones of humour and nonchalance.
Some feedback I received on my previous work denoted that my comedy had good expressiveness, framing, and premise. Some areas identified for improvement included to make the punchline and escalation more dramatic; a classmate quoted that the punchline “felt like it didn’t peak” (personal communication, 2024). Because of such feedback, in future work I will be paying more attention to my structuring and working towards dramatizing my comedy further in order to increase humorous effect and audience understanding of the intended joke and punchline.
References
- Voth B. (2014) Encyclopedia of Humor Studies: Comic Frame, SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346182
- Toplyn, J. (2014) Comedy writing for late-night tv : how to write monologue jokes, desk pieces, sketches, parodies, audience pieces, remotes, and other short-form comedy, Twenty Lane Media, LLC, Rye, New York.