Humor...and the Fantastic

In Rozakis’ “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creative Writing,” she explains how, by placing characters into absurd situations, their realities are switched 180 degrees, and their reactions to it are humorous. Comedy is often achieved by authors who can create fantastic circumstances and place their seemingly mundane characters in the middle of a fantastic mess. This ensemble of reality versus the impossible is ironic, and irony cracks smiles onto the faces of the most fastidious readers. Once readers have dropped their defenses, they are more likely to accept the ideas put forth by what it is that they are reading.

Magical surrealism is one of the fundamental components of the fantastic. By describing a seemingly natural world that the reader will likely be familiar and comfortable with, the story is relatable to the reader’s every day life. However, by adding a completely unrealistic or even “magical” aspect to this otherwise normal world, the reader can consider situations and practices he/she may normally find uncomfortable or immoral, etc. The logic is that the reader will be tricked into considering impossible situations in relation to his/her world. These “magical” absurdities are a major component of the humor of a story. By putting ordinarily uncomfortable situations in the context of absurd, “things that will never happen”, taboo or touchy subjects can be discussed and addressed in a comfortable manner. This shift from the surreal being made acceptable is what makes fantasy such a lucrative medium to address untouchable and difficult issues.



For example, in Aimee Bender’s Ironhead, a short story from Willful Creatures, the characters settle into a stereotypical middle class home and have aspirations for a family, which are fulfilled throughout the story. The setting and atmosphere are easily believable and generally applicable to ever day life. The only catch is the entire family, with the exception of the son, has pumpkins for heads. Bender seems to be using this absurdity to address the serious topic of isolation and rejection in society based on one’s inherited differences. In Bender’s End of the Line, again, a seemingly normal man starts off in search of a pet. He looks at dogs, cats, and finally, he decides on a pet mini man. Absurdity is used to address, with the help of humor, how people deal with the daily struggle for power. Every person would like to think he or she is in control of his or her own destiny, and coming out and saying the reader is not in control of their own reality is taken often taken negatively. However, by addressing the issue with humor, the reader can come to conclusions about his/her own power struggles on his/her own, while being entertained by the story’s ridiculousness

Two twenty-something ethnic Americans (Asian and Middle Eastern) smoke some marijuana cigarettes and embark on a night of fantastic feats all just to get a snack at White Castle’s. Kal Penn and John Cho, the lead roles in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, are perfect examples of how the absurd and fantastic immediately make an audience laugh. They play two of the most boring, mundane men who work boring, mundane jobs. When the directors then take these simple and believable characters and push them through a night that no one would ever believe could happen, the audience has nothing to do but laugh. By laughing we now identify with the characters: a lot of white-collar workers say,”Hey, I smoke pot occasionally. My life is startling mundane. But, you know what, these guys have fun, so when I’m down and out about how boring my life is, I can just think about these guys!”



A space expedition to Mars goes awry and the entire crew is lost, except for the infant child of two of the explorers. The human is raised by Martians and then brought back to Earth by another expedition. In Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein, Valentine Michael Smith (the human/alien) teaches humanity a more human way to live and also discovers himself how to act more “normal.” To anyone it is obvious how fantastic such a story can be: how can an alien teach Earth-humans to be more human? How can a human from Mars be an alien? While the book is more a science-fiction look at human culture, the pairings of reality and unreality make for laugh out loud comedy throughout the novel. Now that things are funny, such unsettling ideas such as how religion dictates how we act, how absurd monogamy can be seen as, and how shallow we as human are, are now more easily accepted.

Through magical surrealism and absurdist fiction, stories can jump from normal and light-hearted to crazy and weird. The use of a realistic world with fictional aspects makes it so serious and uncomfortable issues can be discussed in a comfortable manner. Works of literature such as Ironhead and End Of The Line and movies such as Harold and Kumar go to White Castle can sometimes become too theatrical in how absurd they are, just making an audience laugh can often be enough to change a person’s outlook. Overall, absurdist fiction and magical surrealism are strange and unconventional but are great ways to express views that can not be expressed any other way.