Black Humour Spaces in Cinema and Literature: Yorgos Lanthimos' <i>The Lobster</i> and Tom McCarthy's <i>Satin Island</i>

Abstract

Maggitti’s essay is focused on two different expressions of black humour in today’s film and literature. After commenting on a recent proposal, by the British writer Jonathan Coe, on the whereabouts of contemporary humour, the author examines a film (The Lobster by YorgosLanthimos) and a novel (Satin Island by T. McCarthy), both portraying the present world through humorous lenses, with a disrespectful attitude to an ecologically correct behaviour. In The Lobster hunting is claimed a universal role in man to animal relation whereas Tom McCarthy turns environmental disasters into acts of worthy ecologism. In his approach to humour, Maggitti draws on its anthropological turn as its most estranging function.

Keywords

• humor nero
• vignette
• straniamento
• antropologo
• critica ecologica