Elouisa Cairns

In “This Is Awkward” Plakias mentions that the possible scenarios for awkwardness to arise is near endless, but one interesting scenario is the plot of… Read More »Kimmy Schmidt? I hardly know her!

As Carrol mentions in ‘Horror and Humor”, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one show that frequently danced between genres, with fantasy, action, romance and of… Read More »Horror and Humour Gone Wrong: Buffy Season 6

Freud makes the distinction between dark humour and dark jokes as follows: humour is what happens when the unconscious mind finds something funny, it is… Read More »Why a Free Churro is Funny

2003 saw the release of Down with Love, a quirky romantic comedy starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor that parodied 1959’s Pillow Talk. Featuring Rock… Read More »Down with Love, Up with Camp

Mikhail Bakhtin explains how the carnivalesque in comedy stems from the jesting that took place at medieval feasts and markets. Comedy fit into these occasions… Read More »The Grotesque and Carnivalesque Butler

In “Chuckle, Chortle, Cackle: A Phenomenology of Cinematic Laughter” Julian Hanich discusses all of the different causes and types of laughter an audience can experience.… Read More »So Bad That It’s Good: How To Enjoy The Next Step

In “The Argument of Comedy”, Frye refers to classical and Shakespearean comedies to explain his point that the same situations can be portrayed in both… Read More »My Best Friend’s Tragedy…? *spoilers*

In Andre Jolles’ chapter “Joke”, distinguishes satire and irony through the way in which they mock. Satire mocks by critiquing and distinctly separating the audience… Read More »Gay as a punchline: Satire vs Irony

In “Machine-age comedy”, Michael North explains how formulaic and repetitive comedic artforms can be perceived as a machine, exemplified by Charlie Chaplin’s unchanging character mannerisms… Read More »Phoebe Waller Bridge’s control of “the machine” – Elouisa Cairns

“Spy” (2015) uses Melissa McCarthy’s skills in comedy acting to present an array of gags, much of which would be considered slapstick. One particular scene… Read More »Spy and Chase (Elouisa Cairns)