ABSTRACT
Combining low comedy with farce and the breaking of cultural and religious taboos, transgressive comedy showcases characters throughout the history of God's people stretching the boundaries of good taste and common sense. Such comedy becomes carnivalesque in opening up the merrymaking license of the overturning of hierarchies. One such biblical narrative occurs in the erection of the golden calf of Exodus. Many of the most popular transgressive animal comedies are Dionysian, full of wild, almost pagan, energy, where the spectators act like the crazed Pentheus, who hides and spies on the partying maenads in their frenzied ecstasy. Watching a comedy about adultery with someone who has been cheated upon and jilted makes one much more sensitive to the complications of the transgressive comedy. The transgressive category of obscenity derives etymologically from the Latin obscenus, which conveys dealing with filth, what is deemed not fitting for public discourse.
