Friday, October 30, 2015

Absurdism as an Artform

I've always felt as though absurdism is the black sheep of the comedy family. People look at something that's purposefully designed to make no logical sense and mark it off immediately as random or ant-intellectual. I feel as though random humor has far too often gotten the short end of the stick when really so many classic comedy films have built their legacy of of scenes featuring logical abstraction.

Take for instance the killer rabbit scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It's absurd that this rabbit is capable of murder on this scale and that's what makes it funny. It's not random because the joke lays in the fact that rabbits are generally fairly sedentary while this one is anything but. I don't want to come across as come sort of Victorian comedy critic but I think it's important to highlight that one of the most prevalent  forms of visual comedy is on the decline. Now in terms of absurdism the clip above is pretty tame but I feel a though it does a good job in illustrating my point. Now if you wanted an example of extreme absurdism I'd advise checking out the film "The Holy Mountain", that films a trip unlike anything I've ever seen.


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