COMEDY

40 COMIC IDENTITYnows, changing voice, costume, or tactics within seconds. What makeshim funny is the weightlessness of his character, the fact that he is notanchored within an orthodox system of selfhood or responsibility. InRoman New Comedy, character types are so rigidly defined that theirbehaviours are entirely predictable within given situations. The miserwill always be miserly, and the braggart will always boast. In this case,comic identity is derived from a sense of atrophied consciousness. In bothexamples, human identity is stripped of its subtlety or ambiguity,leaving only monstrous activity. While individual comic characters areinfinitely various, it is possible to identify certain features of thecategories to which they belong. This chapter will consider thereasoning behind types of comic character, beginning with the mostimportant, distinct personality types.STEREOTYPESAs we know, traditional comedy is largely plot driven, moving towardsritualistic resolutions such as feasts, marriages, or revelations. Comiccharacterization is usually subordinate to the demands of plot, andtherefore more effectively realized with stereotypes and onedimensionalcharacters than anything approaching the realistic portrayalof human emotions. A play by Molière, for example, relies onmaintaining the tension of the plot rather than the needs of itsindividuals. Accordingly, we see a seemingly endless parade ofcharacters who are utterly dominated by a single prevalentcharacteristic, providing the premise for many popular ensemblecomedies in which each character reliably acts according to theirqualities, such as The Phil Silvers Show (1955–59), Dad’s Army(1968–77), Are You Being Served? (1972–85), The Simpsons(1989—present), or the Carry On series of films (1958–79). Thecomedian Mike Myers has said that the principle of single-mindednessis essential to successful comedy, suggesting that ‘Comedy characterstend to be a—machine; i.e., Clouseau was a smug machine, Pepe LePew was a love machine, Felix Unger was a clean machine, and AustinPowers is a sex machine’ (quoted in Friend, 2002:82). Consciously orotherwise, Myers is adapting the Bergsonian view that ‘what isessentially laughable is what is done automatically’ (Bergson, 1980:155). Automatism, or the channelling of diverse thoughts and feelingsthrough one overriding principle, has been the impetus behind comiccharacterization since the New Comedy of the third century BC, and