COMEDY

GLOSSARY 147Poststructuralism a broad umbrella term that encompasses the work ofa variety of thinkers and theorists, many of whom rose to prominenceas a result of the student unrest of Paris in 1968. Poststructuralism ismost readily associated with the work of Roland Barthes, MichelFoucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and othersof that era, and represents a furthering of the debates begun bystructuralist thinkers (hence the ‘post’), who had posited the idea thatcommunication operates according to systems of signs (known as‘semiology’ or ‘semiotics’). The poststructuralist generation retainedthis interest in the centrality of language to psychological and socialorganization, but dispensed with the systematic approach ofstructuralism, pursuing its investigations in a number of differentareas, including literature, politics, and psychoanalysis.Satire a literary form that aims to criticize or censure people and ideasthrough the use of humour. Satire can take many forms, but is generallyunderstood according to its degree of viciousness.Slapstick physical humour associated with the early twentieth-centurysilent film era and performers such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton,and Harold Lloyd, but still employed in much contemporary comedy.Slapstick involves falls, blows, mishaps, and accidents and demandsconsiderable skill from its performers.Travesty while a ‘travesty’ can refer to something that has been madeludicrous, it also means to alter the dress or appearance of a person,and can refer to cross-dressing. The travesty of dress is a commontheme in comedy.