Dr. Strangelove

When thinking about comedy in today's sense, I tend to think of movies that revolve around farce or slapstick humor. When it comes to these types of comedies, I find that people either really like them or absolutely hate them. While some find these movies to be hilarious, others find these movies to have no real meaning.  Whether these films are liked or not, a good portion of them would fit into Aristotle's definition of comedy.

Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) is a 1964 satirical black comedy that differs greatly from the slapstick comedies of today. The movie centers around fears of the Cold War. While most of the modern farce comedies are considered comedies by Aristotle's definition, I don't think that Dr. Strangelove is a comedy by the Aristotelian definition. First, the ending of the movie is not particularly happy. A device known as the "doomsday" machine goes off and sends the world into a state of nuclear fallout. This point, in itself, basically eliminates all possibility of the film being a comedy by Aristotle's definition. The only possible way the film could be seen as having a happy ending is if you recognize the fact that Dr. Strangelove is bound to a wheelchair. At the end of the film, he stand and shouts, "I can walk!" Now, this would be considered a rise in fortune for a central character, but, just after, his fortunes are dashed along with everyone else's because of the activation of the doomsday device. Also, there isn't really a comic hero, and the majority of the characters in the movie are not ordinary people. 

So, I conclude that Dr. Strangelove is not a Aristotelian comedy. However, in my opinion, it is a great example of comedy, and if you have not seen it, you should get around to seeing it!