Database and Graphs to Visualize Themes

            For our Application and Integration Project, we will be creating a table in a database that includes information about all the texts we have read in this class.  The table will have the following categories:  Title, Author, Date of Publication, Location, Self-Knowledge, Society, Justice, Green World, Gender Roles, Politics, Lies, Money as a Motivator, Stereotypes, and Patriotism.  Databases are useful because they hold a lot of information and can be manipulated to show only certain entries.  We are only creating one table for this project, but databases can contain many tables and pull related information from all of them at the same time. 

            We are focusing our table on the different themes that were present in the comedies we read this semester.  Each play that is entered into the table will have either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ in the column for each theme, depending on if the play contains that specific theme.  By inserting this information into the table in the database, we will be able to select the criteria that determines which information will be displayed.  For example, we can tell the database to print out a list of titles and authors that have a theme of gender roles.  The criteria can be as simple or as complicated as we choose.  A complicated criteria, for example, could look something like this:  show only titles of all books written in Germany between the dates of 1800 and 1900 that have themes of money as a motivator and lies but not the theme of Green World. 

          

           We will also use the database to create easier to understand graphs or graphics by looking at specific parts of the table and finding relationships or correlations in the information. An example would be a bar graph of how many books have a specific theme. This project will help us answer questions like what role do certain themes play in the plays we have discussed and what does a certain theme being used more often tell us about that theme and the structure of comedies.

Megan Bell

Timmy Eisenbraun

Tropic Thunder--for an out-of-box comedy experience!

My suggestion for a film to watch is Tropic Thunder.


The plot centers around a group of spoiled actors who are lost in the jungle while making a war movie. Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, an almost washed up hero who earlier failed in his bid to win an Oscar while portraying Simple Jack, a character with an intellectual disability. Speedman’s portrayal of Simple Jack is featured as a movie within a movie. There were even fake websites and a “mockumentary”--Rain of Madness (which parodied the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse) for this movie, which was loosely based on the filming of Apocalypse Now, and how difficult the filming was for Francis Ford Coppola in 1979. 

The word “retard” is used 16 times in this movie. 

Also in the movie: 

• Mocking references to gay and fat people. 

• One character portrayed as a white man who has darkened his skin to play a black man. A black character criticizes him several times for impersonating a black man. 

• Extensive use of vulgar humor and profanity. 

• Many jokes about the shallowness, self-involvement and ignorance of actors and Hollywood executives in general.

I thought the film was hilarious, but I am sure many, many people might not like the film.

I was inspired to choose this movie after I saw an article on the news this week about people being outraged over Nick Cannon wearing white-face.

Nick Cannon on CBS

Seriously?!?!?

In the 1800s, play authors were ridiculing the government and the justice system, making fun of women and children being assaulted and potentially raped, and laughing at people dying, but there are still people in society today who make a big deal out of comedy and theater. Shakespeare performed plays dressed as women because females were not allowed on stage, and yet many people still criticize and alienate cross-dressers. How does that happen, when a society seems too go backward instead of progressing forward?

I think the lines are blurred as far as comedy and what is real for people. In today’s society, we mock people for everything. Our motto in comedy is pretty much ‘anything goes’, but there are always those 'political correctness' nazis who say, “The nerve of you people!” Needless to say, hypocrisy runs rampant in modern culture, and is widely acceptable, but a good comedy, created just to make people laugh is horrible! (insert sarcasm here).

Tropic Thunder breaks every ‘politically correct’ rule known in our culture, and I think this is an interesting movie to analyze for our class, because it gives us a hint of how viewing audiences may have felt during the eras many of our class plays were written.

I enjoy stepping out of my box, and I feel we have done that several times in this class. Keeping with the spirit of out-of-box experiences, I think this movie has all the awkwardness and uncomfortableness in the name of comedy that we can stand, and that many plays we have studied exemplified at the time they were performed.

My only concern is, this movie is quite vulgar. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone.

Comedy, Frye's Causes, and The Beaver Coat

The text that has helped me expand on my knowledge about what comedy is Frye's "The Argument of Comedy," which is quite surprising considering it was probably the piece I hated to read the most too. Particularly, I like the four causes presented by Frye, and I enjoy trying to fit the plays we read into the mold Frye has given us.

Just for a refresher, here are the four causes:

1. The Material Cause: the desire and driving force of the main character; mostly it's motivated by the body, i.e. sexual desires.
2. The Formal Cause: the coming to terms with the social order, usually represented in the form of an older wiser character, like an older man; it's the opposing force to the material cause.
3. The Efficient Cause: the natural course of events, usually brought about by a lower more humorous character, like a slave.
4. The Final Cause: the audience's applause and approval validates the final resolution of the main goal.

As much as I like to apply these causes to the play we read for class, I have had a hard time doing it for "The Beaver Coat."  Going through all four causes is fun but frustrating because the play does not fit the typical mold.

1. The Material Cause: Usually this is a bodily desire for sex with someone. For example, in "The Venetian Twins," the material cause was easy enough to spot because it was Zanetto's desire for Rosaura. The desire in "The Beaver Coat" is not for sex, but for wealth and material gain. The main character is not a male in this case either, but Mrs. Wolff.

2. The Formal Cause: As far as I can determine, the efficient cause, the wise older character, in this case is Krueger. His influence doesn't stop Mrs. Wolff's desire for wealth of course, so he isn't a very effective formal cause. A case might be made for Von Wehrhahn to be the formal cause, and although he fits the bill for the highest placed member of society over even Krueger, he in his determination to week out political criminals overlooks the criminals right under his nose. Krueger is a much more likely character to personify the formal cause, but in the end, he goes the same way as Von Wehrhahn and doesn't properly pursue the criminal activity under his nose. If he had only looked more closely at Mrs. Wolff, he would have caught his thief.

3. The Efficient Cause: Here is where I start to run into trouble. As far as I can see, the efficient cause is what is missing in the play. There are lower characters, of course, but they do not bring about any natural course of events. Justice is not done in the play; the efficient cause could even said to be MRS. WOLFF herself. She is a lower level servant like character, and she does push the play to its end, by making the higher level characters not suspicious of her or her family when she is the very person they should be looking at.

4. The Final Cause: The final cause is of course the audience, including myself. Obviously justice is not served to the actual sense that the thief is punished. But perhaps justice is served in the fact that the two members who were supposed to be the efficient cause failed to gain any justice. Their neglegence and the fact that they both failed to open their own eyes to see the real thief in their midst cost them their chance at justice. They deserved what they got and so the audience claps at the end of the play.

The Venetian Twins: Timeless Comedic Themes

While reading The Venetian Twins, I kept coming back to the idea that its humor seemed oddly familiar. There was something about the hit-or-miss way the Twins narrowly avoided each other, something about the comedic structure of the play itself that made it feel modern, rather than something written over two hundred years ago. Though there were many humorous moments throughout the play, certain themes kept jumping out at me, such as...

Twin Mix-Ups

"TONINO: And who do you think I am, then?" (p. 77)

Premeditated misconceptions.

(vid: source)

From Sister, Sister, to The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, twins (and getting them mixed up) have been a common theme in comedy. Though I'm not entirely certain why twin-related mishaps have adopted their own trope in our society, I have a hunch it has something to do with the humor in misunderstandings (re: my last post about this topic). It becomes an inside joke for the audience/reader. We know who's who -- it's obvious to us, their names are right there, written on the play we're reading. We are fully aware of the tension, of how close everything is to being resolved, and that everything is just a simple misunderstanding between characters that aren't privy to the big picture.

This use of mistaken identity (whether accidental, or on purpose) seems to originate from (you guessed it) misunderstandings. And this sort of comedic topic has no expiration date. It's an overarching theme that can be recreated in all sorts of scenarios.

Speaking of overarching themes...

Making Fun of the Government/Corrupt Law Enforcement/Lawyer Jokes

"ZANETTO: I don't care if I'm robbed by thieves or by the law." (p. 67)

Be it laughing with the government...

(vid: source)

... or laughing at it.

(vid: source)

There's something about authority that makes us want to trip it and laugh when it falls. Is this a unique brand of the everyday man expressing his opinions? Is it a sad state of awareness that notices corruption in higher power? Is it meant to humble our betters, or improve younger generations with cynical thinking about when and where to elect officials? I'm not sure of the exact purpose, but politics is a hot-button topic for current comic appeal. There even are two different shows dedicated entirely to political humor, that I know of.

Political humor in and of itself does have a time stamp. There are certain events more relevant to one particular time than to others. But the theme of political humor -- the very foundation of it -- has an ever-prevalent, ever-evolving quality. Political humor tends to play on the ironies and stupidities of authority. Even though I know nothing about Italy in the 1740's, Zanetto's displeasure with the local authorities veritably stealing from him via their layers of red tape was something even I could connect with.

As for universal connections...

Love

"ZANETTO: I love you so much; without you I'm like a bird without a nest, a rooster without a hen, a stallion without a mare, a little pig without his own little sow." (p. 74)

"I need you like a voyeur needs a branch."

(vid: source)

"If you're in here tonight, and you've never contemplated suicide...

Then you've never truly been in love."

(vid: source)

Love. Probably the most universal theme of all. You see it in RomComs, plastered all over popular music. It's in most of the stories you read, sometimes blatant, sometimes hiding out in the shadows. Love, human connection, draws people in, and I think its magnetism is ageless. Love has potential -- it can be morphed into a silly, comical thing (like Bo Burnham's video up top), or even make its rounds in the world of tragedy (Christopher Titus, above).

When you take a premise like in The Venetian Twins, love becomes a source of humor (the twins' constant rejection) or a remedy for tragedy (Zanetto and the poison). Love can be a catalyst for a bigger theme (like in Lysistrata, and the wives manipulation of the husbands for a political end), or the theme itself. Which makes love a topic with timeless comedic potential.