What's the difference between comedy and parody?

Comedy


Definition:

  • (n.) A dramatic composition, or representation of a bright and amusing character, based upon the foibles of individuals, the manners of society, or the ludicrous events or accidents of life; a play in which mirth predominates and the termination of the plot is happy; -- opposed to tragedy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A philosophy student at Sussex University, he was part of an improvised comedy sketch group and one skit required him to beatbox (making complex drum noises with your mouth).
  • (2) Corden, a big star in the UK since he made his name with BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey but still a relative unknown in the US, will succeed Craig Ferguson who will step down from the show after a decade.
  • (3) Gola, who gave his first stand-up turn in 2001, has watched comedy in South Africa go mainstream.
  • (4) In a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 comedy Alun Cochrane's Fun House , Cochrane joked of how he sleeps better in the living room.
  • (5) Days and Nights in the Forest , which began as a comedy about Calcuttan gents on safari for aboriginal villagers, before shading into something almost too dark for my comprehension.
  • (6) Comic writing can be a brutal, unforgiving business, yet it can produce great and multi-layered prose, combining comedy, pathos and satire.
  • (7) Castin' makes me feel good: Ghostbusters' diverse team is a victory Read more Dan Aykroyd heralds Ghostbusters cast as 'most magnificent women in comedy' Read more “There’s three drafts of the old concept that exists,” said Aykroyd.
  • (8) The first UK comedy show I ever performed was a total mess.
  • (9) I think the heart of good comedy really lives in truth and reacting to the absurdities, hypocrisies, abuses of power in the world.” Late night television is a no longer a glass of warm milk before bed, it’s a lunch buffet And as TV viewership declines and internet virality becomes as important as real-time eyeballs, cable networks might find that topical comedy is a smart, cost-effective way to grab cross-platform attention.
  • (10) Despite his insistence that comedy should be colour-blind, Amos admits black audiences prefer the black circuit, where "you know the material isn't going to be racist or make you feel awkward, where you feel like you belong".
  • (11) That's in 1888; by 1890 the tone is of comic resignation (there is much comedy in these pages) as Edmond realises that he has devoted the whole of his life "to a special sort of literature: the sort that brings one trouble".
  • (12) He's broken limbs, nearly lost fingers and contracted a potentially deadly bone-marrow infection, as well as performing a string of excellent comedy shows retelling his exploits.
  • (13) Charlize Theron is set to star opposite Seth MacFarlane in the Ted creator's new comedy western A Million Ways to Die in the West, tipped as a homage to Mel Brooks's classic movie Blazing Saddles .
  • (14) The series is widely regarded as the first British sitcom, focusing on characters and situations over a single half-hour sketch, rather than stand-up comedy or variety which was then dominant in British radio.
  • (15) "I was at a comedy club trying to do my act, and I got heckled and I took it badly and went into a rage," Richards said.
  • (16) Fines’ best actor nod fell in the comedy movie category, which he shared with Michael Keaton in Birdman, Bill Murray in St. Vincent, Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice and Christoph Waltz in Big Eyes.
  • (17) His first film appearances had included Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Small Back Room, and the comedy Dear Mr Prohack (both 1949), the latter adapted from an Arnold Bennett novel.
  • (18) Between festivals, Hardee played cameo roles in TV comedies such as Blackadder and The Comic Strip, and ran his own comedy club, the Tunnel, which he had opened at the southern end of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1984; it acquired a fearsome reputation as a graveyard for aspiring standups.
  • (19) Archer, which Reed originally pitched to the FX channel as "James Bond meets Arrested Development" takes this premise – the comedy of displacement activity – and runs with it.
  • (20) 23 May More films to see in 2014 • 2014 preview: thrillers • 2014 preview: comedy • 2014 preview: Oscar hopefuls • 2014 preview: science fiction • 2014 preview: romance • 2014 preview: drama • This article was amended on Thursday 2 January 2014.

Parody


Definition:

  • (n.) A writing in which the language or sentiment of an author is mimicked; especially, a kind of literary pleasantry, in which what is written on one subject is altered, and applied to another by way of burlesque; travesty.
  • (n.) A popular maxim, adage, or proverb.
  • (v. t.) To write a parody upon; to burlesque.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That is the show and that’s the best and worst thing about it,” he says, before using a recent parody of Beyoncé’s monologues in her visual album Lemonade as an example.
  • (2) I felt like a fugitive, a voice in the wilderness of televisual parody.
  • (3) Mohammed Hanif, the award winning novelist, also parodied General Zia and his inner circle in his novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes .
  • (4) I can't find much use for Altmejd's work, other than to describe and parody it.
  • (5) The novelist and critic Tom Bissell has described the protagonist's Jewish lawyer in 2002's Vice City as "an anti-Semitic parody of an anti-Semitic parody", while in the new game one of the main character's daughters has a tattoo that reads "skank", and one mission involves you helping a paparazzo capture a starlet's "low-hanging muff".
  • (6) Skifcha spurned a wave of parody videos and fan art but it’s all been rather quiet over the past few years.
  • (7) Stay (sung primarily by Detroit) became a mutant No 1 hit, a pop culture flashpoint parodied by both French & Saunders and Newman & Baddiel, who likened Fahey's voice to a foghorn.
  • (8) Why Independence Day: Resurgence's gay couple are denied a close encounter Read more While LGBT characters have maintained some form of visibility within independent cinema, they have been parodied, stereotyped and used for tiresome gay-panic humour in their rare appearances in studio films.
  • (9) (The UN speech lives on in several forms; mostly parodies.)
  • (10) Greenpeace energy analyst Jimmy Aldridge said: “The fact that it’s [Defra] that is trying to keep one of the most polluting power stations in Europe open is beyond parody.
  • (11) Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders performed a parody of the smash hit Mamma Mia!
  • (12) President Jonathan wholly shares the widely expressed view that the signs which were put up without his knowledge or approval are a highly insensitive parody of the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag,” his office said.
  • (13) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elizabeth Banks parodies Donald Trump’s entrance at DNC “Some of you know me from The Hunger Games, in which I play Effie Trinket – a cruel, out-of-touch reality TV star who wears insane wigs while delivering long-winded speeches to a violent dystopia,” she said.
  • (14) The works of this period include Revelation and Fall (1966), in which a nun in blood-red costume and a megaphone shrieks expressionist poems of Georg Trakl, the Missa super l’Homme Armé (1968), a parody of a Latin Mass, and above all Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969).
  • (15) Victory is no less assured than it is for Bashar al-Assad, facing his date with Syria's destiny next month – though that exercise has been widely condemned as a parody of democracy.
  • (16) His most popular and best-known work is contained in fast-moving parodies, homages or even straight reconstructions of traditional space-opera adventures.
  • (17) Past posters were defaced with markers on billboards just as quickly, but the parodies had no means of going viral.
  • (18) When the famous Rivels clowns recently came to a leading Berlin music-hall with their act, which used to include a parody of Charlie Chaplin, the clown who played the mock Charlie abandoned his little moustache and bowler and appeared in another disguise.
  • (19) I, of course, told myself at the time that it was because there was something foul about the scene unfolding in my living room; something toxifying in this soft-world parody of the worst, most irredeemable yet persistent aspect of human nature: the unending horror of judgment and mass execution.
  • (20) Broadcaster and football fanatic Danny Baker parodied the BBC's instructions to Neville: "We've an idea tonight's match could get quite heated.