One of the most common ways of understanding how comedy functions—in film, literature, social and political discourse, and in all cultural artifacts—is that it relieves us of serious, even tragic, matters. It is sweet but brief respite from serious, critical engagement with matters we deem of importance. What this implies is that comedy cannot, or should not, try to tell us anything about serious, even tragic, matters. Looked at another way, "comic relief" is a reductive formula that gives short shrift to the force and reach of comedy and, at the same time, serves to reinforce cultural and academic attitudes that only sober matters are worthy of critical attention. Such is our shared, automatic thinking—or non-thinking—when it comes to comedy. What would it mean to do away with the idea of "comic relief" once and for all? What if we were to question the trivialization of comedy and argue instead that this trivialization is related in some way to the fear that, if left to its own devices, comedy will tell us what we simply do not want to hear?
