Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy

After reviewing the treatment of comedy in the work of philosophers as varied as Aristotle, G. W. F. Hegel, Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and Alenka Zupancic, McGowan, working in a psychoanalytic framework, demonstrates that comedy results from the deployment of lack and excess, whether in contrast, juxtaposition, or interplay. Illustrating the power and flexibility of this framework with analyses of films ranging from Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers classics to and , McGowan shows how humor can reveal gaps in being and gaps in social order. Scholarly yet lively and readable, is a groundbreaking examination of the enigmatic yet endlessly fascinating experience of humor and comedy.