Comedy and Tragedy

the clip above uses  and the absurd and unlikely events to satirize the economic crisis which is funny. this clip mocks the economic recession by using foolish economic jargon, "a money market mutal fund" that only results in an imediate loss of money,  and the ridiculous process to return a margaritaville causes further laughter. the people in charge of the money are portrayed as fools, the guy at sur le table who pronounces things in a foolish manner as well as the guy constantly putting on chapstick who also refuses to take the margarita ville.  The lecture on comedy and tragedy was interesting. The structure for comedy was I think is easier to see in modern films and TV shows than tragedy I think. I thought that the concept of the sad clown and the illusion of normalcy   in modern films and TV shows however I don’t think comic heroes necessarily fulfill the archetype described in the article. For example Cartman in South Park is the antithesis of a comic hero and actually seems to fit the profile of a tragic hero. He will go through incredible lengths to get what he wants, like when he went to Somalia for example. He also refuses to listen to any one but occasionally allies himself with Butters but only because Butters will do anything he says. South Park also points out the illusion of order in the conclusions to their episodes. For example there was one episode where the children sent a whale to the moon, and they felt a restored sense order because they thought they had returned the whale to its homeland, when in fact they just killed it. South Park parodies modern issues for comedy but also it parodies the comic paradigm, through the use of tragic heroes and an obviously disillusioned ending. I found it interesting how comedy is similar in all cultures but tragedy isn’t.  Perhaps its because comedic heroes value good of the community and so all communities would like to celebrate that unity. But isn’t the tragic hero, who defends his identity and values individuality also universally relatable? We all like to think that we are special and worthy in some way and we have to in order to appreciate ourselves and life. But we don’t find our selves feeling any empathy for those tragic heroes. Perhaps due to our own insecurity with the fate of the character we tend to distance ourselves from them in order to reassure ourselves that we wont do the same thing. But then again why would the story be a tragedy if we remain emotionally distant from the protagonist?