Dark Laughs: Australian Comedy Noir from the Outback to Tassie

However you choose to identify noir – as a genre, style, or cycle – over its 80 years from classic American film noir to neo-noir, neon-noir, national noirs, and television noir, it has undeniably seeped into popular culture. Exemplary of this is the way noir has hybridised with other genres and styles, true of comedy as much as its more serious pairings with science fiction, Western, and Gothic. This is not a new phenomenon: Sue Short points out that pastiche noir began appearing at the end of the classic cycle, citing Kiss Me Deadly (1955) as an example that noir has always had “a sense of exaggeration and self-consciousness” (185). Successful parody relies on a shared understanding of visual motifs, narratives, characters, and iconography. As Dahlia Schweitzer indicates, “we take the rules of genres so seriously that we even call attention to them for the sake of comedy … even when poking fun, the rules are still being followed” (117-118). With so many easily identifiable features, noir has enjoyed homage and parody in sketch comedy, films, animation, and the ‘noir episode’ in television over the years. There are also comedy-noir hybrids that don’t solely rely on parody but rather weave the style into the fabric of their narratives and visuals.