Comic Relief

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We saw (and enjoyed) 17 Again this weekend, a romantic comedy starring Zac Efron as the main character and Thomas Lennon as the nerdy sidekick. Jay asked a good question afterward: "I wonder how long the comic relief character has been around?" I started thinking about ancient comedy (Greek and Roman) where the slave was always the comic relief to the aristocratic nobleman's son, and then onto Shakespearean tragedy with the Fool and the Gravedigger, tossing around Yorick's skull.

It's funny how the comic relief used to be someone poor, a worker in manual labor, who is set apart from societal strictures due to his low class, whereas the rich man was constrained by propriety. Now the comic relief is just as likely to be the rich man, whose wealth both derives from his eccentricity (e.g., the nerd who becomes the software or gaming magnate) and further allows his eccentricity (because he's dirty rich and can and say whatever he likes, in a world where wealth no longer depends on acceptance within a tightly regulated social world but on creativity).
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