Linked from

The 44 pages that link to Black comedy, each with the reason it gives.

• Samuel BeckettRelated: His comic exchanges often arise directly from suffering, dependence, and the prospect of death.

• Luis BuñuelRelated: His comic treatment of religion, sex, and death sharpens the films’ critique.

• British comedyRelated: Its deadpan treatment of discomfort recurs in British stage, television, and film comedy.

• Comic reliefCompared with: Black comedy makes grim material itself comic; comic relief may simply interrupt it.

• Eddie MurphyRelated: Murphy's work reached mass audiences while drawing on traditions of Black performance and comic storytelling.

• Richard PryorRelated: Pryor’s work expanded the visibility and expressive range of Black stand-up.

• Roman PolanskiRelated: Some films combine menace with absurdity, complicating their tone rather than releasing tension.

• The JokerRelated: The Joker’s jokes make violence and suffering part of his deliberately unsettling performance.

• Roald DahlRelated: Dahl uses it to make danger and punishment entertaining without removing their sting.

• Women in comedyRelated: Black women comedians have developed humor that engages racism and gender together.

• American humorCompared with: The label describes a comic mode, not the distinct history of Black American humor.

• Park Chan-wookRelated: The collision of brutality and absurdity gives many of his revenge stories their unsettling tone.

• Surreal humorCompared with: Black comedy’s defining transgression concerns subject matter, not breaks in reality.

• Yorgos LanthimosRelated: His films often make cruelty, grief, and coercion sources of uncomfortable humor.

• Czechoslovak New WaveRelated: Its tonal collisions let filmmakers satirize power without conventional solemnity.

• Thomas PynchonRelated: Pynchon’s jokes keep violence and historical catastrophe in view without solemn narration.

• Dave ChappelleNarrower topic: Chappelle’s work belongs to a tradition whose forms and audiences shape its satire.

• The TenantRelated: The film’s grotesque humor makes its social discomfort sharper rather than relieving it.

• Thomas BernhardRelated: Bernhard makes cultural shame and personal despair comic without softening their bite.

• A Modest ProposalRelated: The essay’s deadpan treatment of cannibalism creates its unsettling comic force.

• Martin AmisRelated: Amis often makes brutality and moral failure targets of comedy without softening their stakes.

• Charles AddamsNarrower topic: Addams’s cartoons use death and menace as sources of deadpan humor.

• Coen brothersNarrower topic: Their films often make violence and failure funny without removing their consequences.

• Dark humorBroader topic: It develops dark humor into sustained dramatic works and comic situations.

• Glengarry Glen RossNarrower topic: The film’s cynical jokes arise from desperation, humiliation, and workplace cruelty.

• Redd FoxxNarrower topic: Foxx’s success brought a Black comic voice to a national sitcom audience.

• Desperate HousewivesRelated: The show treats death, betrayal, and scandal with comic irony.

• Luis García BerlangaNarrower topic: Berlanga uses comic situations to expose the cruelty hidden inside respectable social arrangements.

• Michel HouellebecqRelated: His bleak accounts of sex and social decline often rely on deadpan, unsettling humor.

• Moms MableyNarrower topic: Mabley's career is a landmark within Black American comedy.

• Bill HicksRelated: His jokes about death, violence, and religion rely on this deliberately unsettling register.

• Gravity's RainbowRelated: Comic songs and grotesque scenes disrupt the gravity of war and mass death.

• It's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaRelated: The series turns cruelty and moral collapse into comic material.

• Joe OrtonNarrower topic: Orton makes crime, death, and sexual exploitation sources of laughter rather than moral instruction.

• Takashi MiikeRelated: The Happiness of the Katakuris turns death and family crisis into musical comedy.

• Tig NotaroRelated: Her work finds humor in cancer and grief while acknowledging their seriousness.

• Bohumil HrabalRelated: His jokes often expose the absurdity of violence and political power without denying their cost.

• BugoniaRelated: The grotesque mismatch between an abduction and comic treatment shapes the film’s tone.

• DBC PierreNarrower topic: Pierre’s fiction uses this broader mode to make violence and misfortune sources of satire.

• Lyudmila PetrushevskayaRelated: Her characters' hardship often becomes the source of unsettling comedy.

• Muriel SparkRelated: Spark’s comic narration makes grave events startling without turning them into sentiment.

• Nathanael WestRelated: West’s laughter at suffering and violence helped establish a distinctly dark comic tone.

• Thea AstleyRelated: Its collision of wit and cruelty captures a recurring tonal tension in Astley’s fiction.

• Victor PelevinRelated: Its deadpan tone lets his fiction satirize violence, propaganda, and spiritual delusion.