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Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence or activities (e.g., a character being hit in the face with a frying pan or running full speed into a wall). The style is common to those genres of entertainment in which the audience is supposed to understand the very over-hyped nature of such violence to exceed the boundaries of common sense and thus license non-cruel laughter. Its greatest modern representations lie in cartoons and the simple, film comedies aimed at younger audiences. Though the term is often used pejoratively, the performance of slapstick comedy, based on exquisite timing and unerring calculation of execution, character reaction and audience laughter, is considered among the more difficult tasks facing a live performer.
The phrase comes from the battacchio--called the 'slap stick' in English--a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte. When struck, the battacchio produces a loud smacking noise, though little force is transferred from the object to the person being struck. Actors may thus hit one another repeatedly with great audible effect while causing very little actual physical damage. Along with the inflatable bladder (of which the whoopee cushion is a modern variant), it was among the earliest forms of special effects that could be carried on one's person.
While the object from which the genre is derived dates from the Renaissance, theatre historians argue that slapstick comedy has been at least somewhat present in almost all comedic genres since the rejuvenation of theatre in church liturgical dramas in the middle ages. (Some argue for instances of it in Greek and Roman theatre, as well.) Beating the devil off stage, for example, remained a stock comedic device in many otherwise serious religious plays. Shakespeare also incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies. Building off its later popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century ethnic routines of the American vaudeville house, the style was explored extensively during the "golden era" of black and white, silent movies directed by figures Mack Sennett and Hal Roach and featuring such notables as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, the Keystone Kops, and the Three Stooges. Slapstick is also common in animated cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes.
In recent times, some have criticized representations of violence in a belief that they encourage actual violence, a claim supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics.[1] Slapstick comedy has not escaped negative attention, though its lengthy presence in performance history and obviously fictitious nature protects it from efforts meant to censor video games and action films. Indeed, the uninterrupted modern presence of slapstick comedy--running in film from Buster Keaton to Mel Brooks to the Farrelly Brothers, and in live performance from Weber & Fields to Jackie Gleason to Rowan Atkinson--suggests it will remain a part of the comedic landscape.