Slapstick

[rosco rathbone]

I was watching Charlie Chaplin movies and thinking about how, in the absence of dialog, the communication with the viewer was all in the form of a vocabulary of exaggerated gestures. These gestures are all familiar to the modern viewer because they've been handed down in cartoons (Dagwood's boss lifting him off the ground with a kick to the ass) and animations.

But there had to be a starting place for these stereotyped actions. Was there ever a time when men rolled up their sleeves prior to strangling an adversary in anger? Or threw bums out of a door by the seat of their pants? Or literally "shook their fists in rage"? Has anyone actually "tore their hair?" Held one arm out parallel with the shoulder, elbow bent at 90 degrees, one finger in the air as if to say "....and furthermore!"

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

vaudeville is where slapstick originated

 

[HoHoBomb]

Classic Slapstick

 

[SalviaDivinorum]

Rowan Atkinson did a program on visual comedy which might interest you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fsn6lQBV4 (there are another 4 parts)

 

[Colonel Hogan]

It also makes sense that in the days before electronic PA systems, tent preachers and political stump speakers would have to shout and gesture histrionically to ensure that the gist of the message was received on the back row of those assembled.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Rowan Atkinson did a program on visual comedy which might interest you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fsn6lQBV4 (there are another 4 parts)

awesome

It also makes sense that in the days before electronic PA systems, tent preachers and political stump speakers would have to shout and gesture histrionically to ensure that the gist of the message was received on the back row of those assembled.

Good point.

 

[marshalt]

Buster Keaton > Charlie Chaplin

 

[Angeline]

Col Hogan's point makes great sense. Maybe courtroom trials were a place to see it, too, or any place where guys wore suits, so the expressions and photos worked their way into the culture. Newspapers and magazines helped. And didn't they show silent newsreels, too? (Just speculating.)