It's dark comedy - it treats the subject of cancer with the gravity and seriousness it deserves, yet 'liberates' the topic from usual, fully dramatic narrative concerns through humor.
Call me heartless, but your mother's condition (which is serious and deserves more attention than movie boards) does not have a relationship to this movie; the subject matter remains serious and no one is attempting to label cancer inherently comedic. If that were true, would that mean that the award-winning 2010 COMEDY Four Lions, about suicide bombers, is attempting to say that suicide bombing is funny? No.
What it does is mitigate the tension, tread controversial ground, decrease stress derived from the subject, find the irony in the bleak, MAKE THE TOPIC EASIER TO HANDLE. It alters our perspective, it affects our mentality - a study about emergency-care personnel showed that the workers who enjoy black humor at the workplace are less prone to stress and use it as an effective defense against the very gravity of their everyday life. It is not about making fun of the topic, it's finding whatever fun is left despite it or around it.
A film like 50/50 is a comedy. A dark one, sure, but it fits every single description of a comedy film. A damn good one at that.
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fatpie42
12 years ago
"A Serious Man" is a black comedy. This is most certainly not.
Black comedy is when the humour is almost cruel. In 50/50 any humour (and it didn't exactly come quick and often, did it?) is lightening the cancer scenario, not making us laugh at the tragedy itself.
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