• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1211-1234
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• 2010

Mule Bone (1931), Zora Neale Hurston's collaboration with Langston Hughes, has been credited as the 'first' attempted by African Americans to create black folk comedy. The proposed research is driven from a question to the recent scholarship's tacit consent on such historic importance imposed on the play. This paper suggests a possibility that De Turkey and De Law (1930), Hurston's edition of the collaboration work, could be the truly first attempt in the tradition of American black folk comedy. By illuminating a series of historical moments in which Hurston first expressed her dream for writing a real black folk comedy that would be a really new departure in the African American drama, then collaborated with Hughes on the dream play project, and eventually quit the collaborationship due to artistic dispute with Hughes, this paper explains why Hughes edition Mule Bone came to remain 'unfinished' and, more importantly, fall short of Hurston's original goal and expectation from the collaboration. On the other hand, this paper sheds light on the significance of often-ignored Hurston's edition De Turkey and De Law by demonstrating how this play, compared to Mule Bone, fulfills her original idea of black folk comedy in terms of contents and themes compared with Mule Bone. Adding to the knowledge about little known behind story related to the Mule Bone controversy and the subsequent birth of the two different editions of the Hurston-Hushes collaboration project, supplementing the dearth of the related research with a critical comparison of the two editions, and discussing the validity of Hurston's edition as the real sense of black folk comedy, this paper argues for the necessity of reconsidering the origin of the mentioned genre. This paper finally concludes that De Turkey and De Law, replacing Mule Bone, deserves a right to be truly the first American black folk comedy genre in the sense that it was completed and copyrighted three months earlier than Mule Bone and that, more importantly, it cherished the original aim and artistic vision of black folk comedy Hurston first planned and expected through the collaboration with Hughes.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.243-256
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• 2021

is a film that lifted Director Joon Ho Bong and Korea to the world-class level. A number of researchers have released findings of studies on based on their own interests and perspectives. The current study discussed the historical facts of black comedy in film and how black comedy from play has been used for epic characteristics and formal measures, although it was not a specific rule, through the perspectives of contemporary writers, such as Beckett, Ionesco, Durrenmatt, and Brecht. Some tools used for comedies and tragedies shared the same concept with black comedy in film and black comedy was a unique characteristic of film. The study analyzed how black comedy was signified in for paradox and nonalignment of purpose/intent and consequences as epic characteristics and parody, grotesque, and coincidence as formal measures. It also discussed the meaning of Director Bong's black comedy in and how the audience accepted it. Both the contemporary writers and Director Bong has a compassionate perspective, but the his was different from the work of other contemporary writers. Therefore, the study discussed his creativity behind .

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.399-406
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• 2017

Contrary to the fact that the old films contain artistic and include contemporary literature, religion, and philosophy, latest films are produced with focusing on external interesting composition and sensational scene. A good movie emotionally express the directors' topic message exuding from an interesting story, and empathize with the social agenda which shows a sharp look of the directors' on contemporary social aspect. In the movies of the Coen brothers, it seems like an entertainment movie as typical black comedy genre through irony and happening, but in fact, it inserts a lot of social problems in the film to show that they cynically express their social agenda from a contemplative view. In their movie "The Big Lebowski (1998)", it seems like they are creating comical content through the main characters' unaffected attitude. However, it is director's excellent director of the sub-text that expresses American social issues such as Vietnam war, post-modernism and an obscurantist policy and au fond the comedy about the historical facts of mass production of social maladjustment into black comedy. We expect to contribute to make a step forward in the Korea film industry by analyzing such movies that has the cultural power of influence.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.44
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• pp.143-161
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• 2016

This study was conducted focusing on the role of auteurism animation. The purpose of auteurism animation is to criticize irregularities of a society in witty and fierce way through satires from the sharp perspectives of a animator that is not bound by tastes of people or the interests or standpoints of specific groups, and thus to induce positive changes in a society as a purifier. In the context, this study investigated satires shown in by Jan Svankmajer and by Norman Mclaren among the animators who utilize animation as a tool to produce social meaning. As a result, the following characteristics and meanings were found. First, Dimensions of Dialogue is an animation that satires absurdity and irregularities of a human society in symbolic and exceptional way through directing by segmentations of images and omnibus structures. The satire carries the lesson of improvement in the hidden part of cynical attack to history, society, and human beings. It also maximizes absolute reality and engagement of images of Jan Svankmajer through unique and grotesque images of the animator such as alienated world, confusing shapes, and amusement of irregularities. Second, the movie, is an exemplary animation that applied core concept of animation through pixilation techniques based on an event story structure by causal relationship. It satires the changing process of a good man to violent madness through confrontation and conflicts for material desires, with exaggerated slipstick movements and humors as a black comedy. The satire methods of both animation works are delivered through unique image styles and symbolic wordage of the animators who triggered ironical laughter in attacking humanism and moral insensitivity that might be felt seriously otherwise. That is, the animators try to show the positive will for changing the society to a sound one through the form of negativity in terms of moral perspective in animation rather than destruction against the target. As such, the satires in both works worked as an auteurism allegory that maximizes social functions and artistic influence of animation.