Black comedy, also known as black humor, is a subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with "serious" subjects – death, divorce, drug abuse, et cetera in a humorous manner.
A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot is a good example of black comedy: A man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. The cartoons of Charles Addams typically display black humour such finding funny business with scenes that would normally be considered horrific.
Harold and Maude, in which an alienated young man obsessed with staged suicides and the funerals of strangers falls in love with a vivacious octonagerian
The Hospital, the story of a chief of surgery who is trying to figure out why a number of hospital employees begin dying under strange circumstances
Heathers, about a disaffected, jaded couple who start killing members of popular cliques at their high school
Ichi the Killer, about a pair of savage killers, one a sadist and the other a masochist.
Life Is Beautiful (Originally La Vita è bella), about an Italian Jew who uses humor and fantasy to hide the truth from his son in a concentration camp.
M*A*S*H, in which the medical staff of a Korean War field hospital engage in silly mischief to alleviate the horror of the bloody carnage of the wounded they must treat
Man Bites Dog, a mockumentary turning the tables on news and documentaries
Meet the Feebles, about a group of animal-puppet performers who suffer terrible human vices.
Roger & Me, in which director Michael Moore follows the tragically ridiculous decline of Flint, Michigan and its effects after General Motors CEO Roger Smith closed the city's autoplants and threw 40,000 people out of work.
Blackhumour is when, for example, a man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down.
Another example of flhumour, "Suicide just isn't funny, no matter which way you slice it," is an effective satire at the way that suicide is treated in mainstream western culture, insinuating that attitudes towards suicide are even more morose or morbid than the act or mental condition leading to it.
Humour is a form of entertainment and also a form of human communication, supposed to make people laugh and feel happy.
Examples of themes which underpin twentieth century British humour are disrespect to members of the establishment and authority, the absurdity and banality of everyday life, the war between parents or teachers and children, and the British class system.
Blackhumour is normally used in satires or glosses.
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