Burning Babies

Dark comedy; like dark chocolate, is an acquired taste. Once you learn to appreciate it, regular chocolate tastes like a conspiracy. But if all of art is subjective, what is considered dark; or not, is also relative.

Genre-defining and genre-defying are the two most popular uses of the word genre because squarely within the genre there is only mediocrity. Categories and classifications are for critics, historians and Wikipedia admins. An artist creates what is burning him up the most. What segment of the market the work falls in depends on the prevailing Zeitgeist and dominant market forces.

Yet this fascination persists with dark and abstract forms of art largely among the more privileged sections of the audience while the market still continues to reward basic Mom and wife jokes. What is most regularly or visually identified as dark jokes are what I call the ‘Burning Baby jokes’. A childish vulgarity dressed as irreverence. Topics of violence, sexual perversion and plain death presented without provocation and usually also without nuance and temperament. The fact that the irreverence of the performer also extends to response from the audience or lack thereof explains why Burning Babies will remain the domain of those who are neither interested in serious art nor serious business. But the babies will continue to burn, sometimes after a Priest has raped them, sometimes before.

The very fact that Burning Babies is considered dark indicates that its practitioners or voyeurs are deconstructionists without knowing basic creation first. Off course, this is merely an academic discussion. For the foreseeable future; if not in perpetuity, art that reaffirms or simply acknowledges the idiosyncrasies of mundane life or validates the most basic depravities will sell. It is important then to classify *content* as being separate from art. The pursuit of wisdom should have some demarcation from the pursuit of brand deals. The very term ‘Art Films’ implies that regular films are anything but.

Some self-styled rebels dream of a Utopian future where audience’s taste will improve or more suspiciously, evolve…enough to ask for dark chocolate to go with their keto-shakes. But this is just day dreaming. With time what is considered progressive also shifts further so that the rich kids can continue to feel special about themselves and the babies continue to burn.

Buddha basically said that life is hopeless to the point that even wanting to live it well leads to further strife. All of existence is pain and the best one can do is detach the mind to the extreme of a cosmic coma popularized as ‘Nirvana’. Other wise it is only EAT-SLEEP-REBIRTH-REPEAT! Yet he never gets accused of being depressingly pessimistic. That is; in layman’s terms. In academic terms, it is pessimism 101.

Hence, work that is timeless is free of even the most basic classification. It cuts through an ocean of content, apathy and subversion surviving purely on its inherent brilliance. To call it dark or otherwise remains a Reddit formality. There is no dark comedy. There is only great comedy…and whatever else sells.

So when my writing or stand-up gets labelled as ‘dark’ or ‘mirror to society’ I take it not as a compliment but as feedback that my work is still years away from being truly great!

• Punit Pania