# Serious reliefs



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Fiction (and not just fiction) can be:

Completely serious
Completely humorous
Mostly serious with some "comedic reliefs"
Relatively balanced between comedy and serious moments, maybe skewed towards either aspect but still there's plenty of both comedy and "seriousness"

All these work fine. But there's one possibility left:

Overwhelmingly comedic yet some rare serious moments as well, "serious reliefs" as I'm calling them

I'm not talking about making serious points through humor; some comedies might be throughoutly serious in this sense. And I'm not talking about seemingly "serious" parts intended to amuse for being so corny or out of place. I'm talking about completely unhumorous moments in an otherwise light-hearted non-satirical comedy.

To me this seems like an inherently bad idea. I remember watching a show (won't mention what it was!) that was obviously very light-hearted comdedy for the most part but during the middle it suddenly got all dramatic for a while like it tried to move me emotionally. It didn't work at all as far as I'm concerned.

What do you think? Can you think of any examples?


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

I say that it is a bad idea, because the readers/viewers will usually either confuse the serious moments for deadpan comedy or feel that the writers/performers are trying to be funny and not successful.

The film 3 Idiots is the only example I've seen where it actually worked. I felt "emotional whiplash" through the middle of the movie which gave me mixed feelings.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Gravity's Rainbow is a good example and it really was awesome.


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## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

In some certain aspects, some of Charlie Chaplin's films are in that category. Especially _The Great Dictator_.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Thanks for reviving this thread that I think is pretty interesting, but perhaps on a wrong forum!


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Haneke films are A1 sauce.


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## GhenghisKhan (Dec 25, 2014)

Yes, the funny scenes are made more funny by the serious moments.

Charlie Chaplin was a master at it. It wasn't the funny scenes that were genuinely funny.
Funny would be Homer S. laughing when the little brown old fart gets hits by by a football in the testicles. 
Funny would be Harold and Kumar riding a cheetah to White Castle.

It was the contrast between the tragic and comedic that made his movies special. Chaplin would be a complete dud if it did not have the few but key tragic scenes thrown in there.

This isn't fiction but I thought that was a good example of overwhelmingly comedic with some serious moment.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

There has been some occasional "serious reliefs" in the Stupid Thread Ideas thread as well


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I wrote a script story about Prokofiev, and it was basically suppose to be funny, a sitcom (I don't know if it really is). But then I give it a sad ending. A scene where Stravinsky gets hit by Prokofiev because he's a terrible driver was suppose to be funny, anyhow, because he doesn't die, he just changes personality after waking up, and thinks he's Mozart.  But then the last phrase of the story, Prokofiev says, "Well, I guess I _am _an idiot after all," and is back in the USSR.


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