‘Live. Laugh. Loathe.’: Cosmic humour and contemporary pessimism in literature and on screen (1969-2019)

Rendle, Oliver M. (2022) ‘Live. Laugh. Loathe.’: Cosmic humour and contemporary pessimism in literature and on screen (1969-2019). Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis theorises a mode of humorous discourse which has enjoyed increased popularity between 1969 and 2019 and embodies the fears and values specific to this period. During an era marked by economic instability, socio-political crises and climate catastrophes, a period in which neoliberal governments appear more concerned with preserving profit margins than the security of human life, philosophically bleak humour represents an increasingly popular means of engaging with the anxieties engendered by this context. The form of humour in question, conceived here as ‘cosmic humour’, expresses the same philosophically pessimistic worldview as cosmic horror fiction, a subcategory of the Gothic mode popularised by such authors as H.P. Lovecraft. By synthesising a functional definition of philosophical pessimism from the contemporary theories espoused by Thomas Ligotti, Sarah Perry and Eugene Thacker, this thesis demonstrates that the same themes and tropes underscore both cosmic horror and an increasingly diverse body of humorous texts. My analysis uses a trans-medial, cultural materialist approach to interrogate this intersection between horror, humour and contemporary pessimism and draw together disparate texts which have engaged with notions of futility and defeatism since 1969. After foregrounding the philosophical pessimism in Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974) and The Meaning of Life (1983), I outline how cosmic humour developed through the work of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. Having thus differentiated the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ and ‘Discworld’ series, this thesis demonstrates how Jason Pargin’s John Dies at the End (2007) reflects the appropriation of similar humorous techniques within the context of a post-millennial, cosmic horror boom. Finally, I present cosmic humour’s turn towards direct and topical satire after the millennium by identifying its mechanics at work in Paul Beatty’s The Sellout (2015). Through these texts, cosmic humour is shown to be indicative of the Gothic and popular humour’s critical and cultural value, a politically engaged interrogation of pervasive existential anxieties and a timely site of intervention with the crises that loom over the twenty-first century.