What’s so funny about getting punched in the face? Slapstick in ancient and modern comedy
Mezzetin and Harlequin Use the Picture Frame to Catch Pantaloon and Pierrot, Johann Jacob Schübler, c. 1729, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (public domain).
It’s probably fair to say that nobody likes getting punched in the face. Why is it so funny, then, when it happens to someone else? Sometimes the element of surprise, or a case of a mistaken identity, transforms a violent act into something absurd and laughable. At other times, we laugh because we feel the victim is getting what they deserve; poetic justice can be amusing as well as satisfying. This might be the punishment of a villain or 'agelast' (one who does not laugh), or the simple pratfall of a clown. The stylization of the violence (through sound-effects, props, the victim’s comic invincibility) is an important aspect but ‘realistic’ violence can still be comic.
These are all cues for us to laugh in both ancient and modern comedy, whether violence is inflicted on a character we sympathise with, or on one we despise. But what about the status of the puncher and the ‘punchee’? Does it matter who is punching whom? We are more likely to laugh at something which confirms our own values, but laughing at a joke which subverts our beliefs can also be a way of reasserting them. So, what are we doing when we laugh at someone getting hurt?
I take humour very seriously. I believe in its liberatory potential, but I am also painfully aware of its ability to dehumanise its targets. To claim that a joke cannot be harmful because ‘it is only a joke’ tragically underestimates the power of one of our defining features as human beings. While some might be worried — and I think their anxiety is misplaced — that changing social norms will put ancient comedy at risk of being ‘cancelled’, now is the probably the best time to show just how much the study of ancient comedy has to offer. We often react with disgust or dismay at much of what is to be found in Greek and Roman comedy. Although it is always good to defamiliarize the ancients a little, such a reaction assumes a certain superiority: ‘oh, we are not like that.’
By comparing ancient and modern comedy, I want to question that sense of superiority. I have chosen comic violence over verbal humour for three main reasons. 1) It is more accessible. Physical comedy can also be culturally specific, but we generally understand it without translation. 2) We sometimes forget that the tragedies and comedies we read were performed. Reconstructing on-stage comic violence in Aristophanes or Plautus requires a sensitive understanding of difficult evidence, but also creativity and imagination. Modern comedy can help us to think about these problems. 3) Focussing on comic violence brings the very real, material consequences of humour to the fore; sticks and stones, as any practitioner of physical comedy knows, really will break your bones.
Let’s take a look at Aristophanes’ Frogs and John Cleese and Connie Booth’s 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers. In Frogs, Dionysus (disguised as Heracles) has journeyed to the Underworld with his slave Xanthias to bring Euripides back from the dead. When they arrive, they are confronted by Hades’ porter (sometimes identified as Aeacus). Heracles is still wanted for the dognap of Cerberus, so Dionysus forces Xanthias to swap clothes with him. When Xanthias-Heracles is then invited to a party, Dionysus makes them change back again and so on. This farce comes to its logical conclusion when Xanthias-Heracles is arrested by the porter who has returned with some muscle. Xanthias-Heracles denies any wrongdoing and offers to have his slave (Dionysus-disguised-as-Xanthias) tortured to prove that he is telling the truth. It is important to remember that in classical Athens a slave could only give evidence in a lawcourt under torture. Dionysus protests that he is a god and that Xanthias is the slave, so the porter decides he will simply have to beat both of them to find out the truth. To help visualise this, consider the interpretation offered in the 2013 Cambridge Greek Play performance of Frogs.
This is a particularly light-hearted staging which opts for visual excess over the literary and topical jokes in the original play-text. The mistaken identity trope aside, the core of the humour is the competition between Dionysus (a pampered god) and Xanthias (a hardened slave). Xanthias is the forerunner of the cunning slave of New Comedy and Roman comedy. He is clever, likeable, wants to party, and he is allowed to get one back at his master. An Athenian audience can laugh at a farcical representation of the brutal reality of a slave’s life not simply because they do not disapprove of slavery, but also because this farce purges any doubts, anxieties, or feelings of guilt about that reality.
But what about Fawlty Towers? Scenes in which Basil Fawlty (a significant name if ever there was one) strikes or otherwise abuses his Spanish waiter and bellhop, Manuel, are different in context and in tone, but I believe the underlying dynamic is similar. Here are some brief highlights with commentary from John Cleese.
And see some more below:
Basil often strikes Manuel offhandedly, or in an attempt to shift the blame onto him. In other cases, the violence is more calculated, more cruel, and unfortunately more comical: ‘This Basil, this Basil’s wife, this smack on head.’ The interesting thing is that Basil is victim to one of the most extended beatings in the whole show.
The framing of Fawlty Towers implicitly condemns Basil and holds him up for ridicule. He is the perfect poster boy for Aristotle’s definition of comedy as a representation of men who are worse than us. He is a coward, a class snob, and a sycophant. He is rude and quick to anger. Yet we also sympathise with him. He is witty and self-deprecating and one begins to hate his equally unpleasant guests along with him. We feel sorry for him only because he is never rewarded. His schemes always end in disaster and embarrassment. Most importantly, Basil also gets hurt as much as Manuel. In some ways, this is all part of the trick. That Basil is punished for his follies makes us feel better about laughing when he slaps Manuel.
This is not to condemn Fawlty Towers nor Cleese and Booth for writing it, but rather to show how comedy as a genre can persuade us to laugh at an employer beating his employee or a master beating his slave. Similarly, I do not mean to excuse ancient comedy’s abhorrent slave-whacking humour. The violence inflicted on Manuel is suspended in the conventions of the world of comedy. Manuel is slapped, picked up and thrown around, poked in the eye, hit on the head with a spoon, and locked into a burning room. We can laugh at this not simply because ‘it is not real’, but because we are drawn into a complicated set of sympathies, both with Manuel and with Basil. We identify with them at turns, and laugh when both of them get hurt. So it is with Dionysus and Xanthias. But when an ancient comedy’s licence expires, when the curtains come down, slaves are still beaten and masters are not. Trying to think about modern comedy in similar terms can help us grapple with the problems ancient comedy presents. Hopefully it can also teach us a bit about ourselves.
Alastair Daly (he/him)
Alastair is a postgraduate researcher in the Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin.
His thesis is on ‘A New Epic Humour: The Influence of Comic Literature on Apollonius’ Argonautica’.
He is funded by the Irish Research Council.
Alastair’s research profile, and his own Blog on Classics and comedy.