Comedy as Structural Revelation
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.32
Lack and Excess > The Exigencies of Social Coherence
Theoretical move: Lack and excess are not opposed but structurally co-constitutive: the subject's primordial lack (produced by entrance into language/signification) is the very condition of possibility for excess/enjoyment, and social cohesion is maintained precisely by keeping the two experientially separated — a separation that comedy momentarily undoes by revealing their identity.
Comedy strikes us with a momentary insight into this structure by throwing out the referee... The comic occurs at those moments when excess and lack collide.