ICLS1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Reception Theory

• School: University of Sydney
• Department: International Comparative Literature
• Course: ICLS1001
• Professor: Benjamin Nickl

Document Summary

Tutorial week 7 dark humour comedy and reception theory. The film industry stayed away from creating comedies of the holocaust. Parody is what turns humour into creative criticism. Can be used to laugh at, controlling the situation. Humanisation effectively creates empathy - why hitler is often represented as goofy in parodies so that the audience does not feel under threat by the comedy. Make a point of distancing humour with the actual horrors of the holocaust and representing hitler as a lone figure to be made a mockery of. Parody engaging cultural coping mechanism of humour. (we need to think about who"s coping with what?) Goes into a meta-discourse on the parodies of hitler and what his character was used for. Germany taking a step back and looking a the way in which other countries represent and characterise hitler. Germany has (or has one of) the strictest gun laws in the world.