Cringe comedy
Encyclopedia
Cringe comedy is a comedy
genre that uses awkward and embarrassing situations to cause audiences to feel uneasy. This genre is particularly prominent in British comedy and has been popularised by comic acts such as Rowan Atkinson
, Harry Enfield
, Steve Coogan
, and Ricky Gervais
.
as the likely origin of the concept, as it is often intended to provoke a similar response. A movement toward this style of comedy began in earnest with the television series Monty Python
, and their film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is generally considered to be a masterpiece of the genre. Countless films employing this style of comedy were made during the 1980s and 1990s (including There's Something About Mary
). More recent examples include Sacha Baron Cohen
's Borat
and Bruno
.
) version of The Office
. The series often captures excruciating moments in the lives of employees of a Slough
-based paper firm, including, but not limited to, overheard conversations that suddenly become explicit in nature, office party dances so bad they literally leave the viewers speechless, and, frequently, boss David Brent
's inability to censor himself or even understand that he is being offensive. This approach can also be seen in Gervais's more recent series, Extras
, although Gervais's character is generally the straight man in the show. One also finds frequent examples of this in the Larry David
-created series Curb Your Enthusiasm
. David stars as a version of himself who is unable to censor his feelings and does not believe that he should have to follow social rules he does not like, but also feels that everybody should follow the social rules he likes (which he usually invents himself). The result is often unfortunate, and nearly every episode ends in humiliation for Larry. This is a style that was previously used in the UK sitcom I'm Alan Partridge
in which the title character, portrayed by Steve Coogan
seemed inept at being able to keep his thoughts and emotions to himself and constantly spoke his mind. Another British show, Peep Show
, took a different slant on this, by actually showing the audience the character's thoughts, often their most embarrassing and awkward ones.
Larry David had begun to explore the bounds of traits generally regarded as socially unacceptable years earlier with a character loosely based on himself, George Costanza
on Seinfeld
, which he had co-created and served as an executive producer. Costanza's character storylines often revolved around extreme selfishness and blatant disregard of others, but portrayed more explicitly than David's Curb Your Enthusiasm
version of himself.
Another show which can be closely identified with this trend is Da Ali G Show
. Sacha Baron Cohen
's crossover UK hit often featuring cringe comedy. This can be seen with two characters in particular: Borat
, whose frequent anti-Semitic and misogynistic remarks generally make the audience uneasy, but often not the interviewees themselves, and Bruno
, whose extravagant homosexuality often drives his subjects' homophobia to the surface. The central character on the show, Ali G
, often says things that are cringe-worthy in their stupidity, but whether his material can be considered "cringe comedy" is debatable.
Comedy Central
's own take on roasting events
frequently uses offensive and shocking comedic remarks on every roastees' career, controversies and personal lives.
Cringe humor.net
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
genre that uses awkward and embarrassing situations to cause audiences to feel uneasy. This genre is particularly prominent in British comedy and has been popularised by comic acts such as Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, Harry Enfield
Harry Enfield
Henry Richard "Harry" Enfield is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
, Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
, and Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...
.
On film
Humour based on uncomfortable situations is not a new concept. One can point to black comedyBlack comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
as the likely origin of the concept, as it is often intended to provoke a similar response. A movement toward this style of comedy began in earnest with the television series Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
, and their film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is generally considered to be a masterpiece of the genre. Countless films employing this style of comedy were made during the 1980s and 1990s (including There's Something About Mary
There's Something About Mary
There's Something About Mary is a 1998 American comedy film, directed by the Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter. It stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller, and it is a combination of romantic comedy and gross-out film....
). More recent examples include Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
's Borat
Borat
Borat Sagdiyev is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen...
and Bruno
Bruno
Bruno is a male given name. It is derived from the Germanic word brun meaning "brown". It is also one of the most frequent Italian surnames. It also occurs very frequently in continental Europe and parts of Brazil as a given name for men and boys...
.
On television
The label has been applied most frequently to the original (BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
) version of The Office
The Office (UK TV series)
The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious...
. The series often captures excruciating moments in the lives of employees of a Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
-based paper firm, including, but not limited to, overheard conversations that suddenly become explicit in nature, office party dances so bad they literally leave the viewers speechless, and, frequently, boss David Brent
David Brent
David Brent is a fictional character in the BBC television mockumentary The Office, as well as a recurring character in the NBC series of the same name, portrayed by co-writer and director Ricky Gervais. Brent is a white-collar office middle-manager and the principal character of the BBC series...
's inability to censor himself or even understand that he is being offensive. This approach can also be seen in Gervais's more recent series, Extras
Extras (TV series)
Extras is a British sitcom about extras working on TV and film sets and in theatre. The series was co-produced by the BBC and HBO, and is created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, both of whom also star in it...
, although Gervais's character is generally the straight man in the show. One also finds frequent examples of this in the Larry David
Larry David
Lawrence Gene "Larry" David is an American actor, writer, comedian and producer. He is best known as the co-creator , head writer, and executive producer of the television series Seinfeld from 1989 to 1996, and for creating the 1999 HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, a partially improvised sitcom in...
-created series Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...
. David stars as a version of himself who is unable to censor his feelings and does not believe that he should have to follow social rules he does not like, but also feels that everybody should follow the social rules he likes (which he usually invents himself). The result is often unfortunate, and nearly every episode ends in humiliation for Larry. This is a style that was previously used in the UK sitcom I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge is a BBC situation comedy starring Steve Coogan, of which two series of six episodes each were produced — the first in 1997 and the second in 2002...
in which the title character, portrayed by Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
seemed inept at being able to keep his thoughts and emotions to himself and constantly spoke his mind. Another British show, Peep Show
Peep Show (TV series)
Peep Show is a British sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The television programme is written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb themselves, amongst others. It has been broadcast on Channel 4 since 2003. The show's seventh series makes it...
, took a different slant on this, by actually showing the audience the character's thoughts, often their most embarrassing and awkward ones.
Larry David had begun to explore the bounds of traits generally regarded as socially unacceptable years earlier with a character loosely based on himself, George Costanza
George Costanza
George Louis Costanza is a character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Jason Alexander. He has variously been described as a "short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man" , "Lord of the Idiots" , and as "the greatest sitcom character of all time"...
on Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
, which he had co-created and served as an executive producer. Costanza's character storylines often revolved around extreme selfishness and blatant disregard of others, but portrayed more explicitly than David's Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...
version of himself.
Another show which can be closely identified with this trend is Da Ali G Show
Da Ali G Show
Da Ali G Show is the name of two related satirical TV series created by and starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and featuring the character Ali G....
. Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
's crossover UK hit often featuring cringe comedy. This can be seen with two characters in particular: Borat
Borat
Borat Sagdiyev is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen...
, whose frequent anti-Semitic and misogynistic remarks generally make the audience uneasy, but often not the interviewees themselves, and Bruno
Bruno (character)
Brüno Gehard , sometimes written as Bruno and Brueno, is a fictional character portrayed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. The character, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter, first appeared during short sketches on The Paramount Comedy Channel in 1998, before reappearing on Da Ali G...
, whose extravagant homosexuality often drives his subjects' homophobia to the surface. The central character on the show, Ali G
Ali G
Ali G is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Originally appearing on Channel 4's Eleven O'Clock show, Ali G is the title character of Channel 4's Da Ali G Show, original episodes of which aired in 2000 and on HBO in 2003–2004, and is the...
, often says things that are cringe-worthy in their stupidity, but whether his material can be considered "cringe comedy" is debatable.
Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's own take on roasting events
Roast (comedy)
A roast is an event in which an individual is subjected to a public presentation of comedic insults, praise, outlandish true and untrue stories, and heartwarming tributes, the implication being that the roastee is able to take the jokes in good humor and not as serious criticism or insult, and...
frequently uses offensive and shocking comedic remarks on every roastees' career, controversies and personal lives.
In comedy
Some examples of comedians who often use cringe comedy:- Jimmy CarrJimmy CarrJames Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr is an English-Irish comedian and humourist. He is known for his deadpan delivery and dark humour. He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television....
- Tom GreenTom GreenMichael Thomas "Tom" Green is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, talk show host and media personality. Best known for his shock humour brand of comedy, Green found mainstream prominence via his MTV television show The Tom Green Show...
- Opie & Anthony
- Jim NortonJim Norton (comedian)James Joseph "Jim" Norton, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, radio personality, author, and actor. He is an on-air personality, often dubbed the 'third mic' on The Opie and Anthony Show, which airs on Sirius XM Radio...
- Bill BurrBill BurrWilliam "Bill" Burr is an American stand-up comedian, radio host and actor.-Life and career:Burr was born in Canton, Massachusetts. His father was a dentist, and Bill worked as a hygienist for a short time. He began stand-up at age 23 after attending Emerson College. In 1995, he moved to New...
- Matt PintoMatt PintoMatt Pinto is the former radio play-by-play voice for the Seattle SuperSonics for KTTH-AM 770, the flagship station for the Sonics Radio Network...
- Frankie BoyleFrankie BoyleFrancis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a British comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour...
External links
Examples of Cringe ComedyCringe humor.net