Comedy is rebellion against that kind of piety which we may call the False Piety...against hypocrisy, against pretense, against falsehood and humbug and bunk and fraud, against false promises and base deceivers...against all evils masquerading as true and good and worthy of respect.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Mostel defines comedy as rebellion against hypocrisy and false virtue.
- In plain terms
- He says comedy fights against people who pretend to be good but are not.
- What can you take from it?
- Comedy serves to expose dishonesty and pretense.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What is the purpose of comedy?
- Is truth the goal of humor?
Another view
It excludes comedy that aims purely at entertainment without social critique.
More from Zero Mostel
What was Pearl Harbor doing in the Pacific?
Permalink to quote #8 The freedom of any society varies proportionately with the volume of its laughter.
Permalink to quote #7 Humor is a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside.
Permalink to quote #6
Related quotes
Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime - I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness …
Vincent Van GoghVincent Van Gogh quote #18 Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against thre…
Alexander SolzhenitsynAlexander Solzhenitsyn quote #1 The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still…
David HareDavid Hare quote #1