# Comedies with slavery **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 3, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379 "2013-05-03T03:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/41 "2013-05-04T23:33:59Z")
The Flashman novels, while not unalloyed comedy, are mordantly funny, and Flashy is frequently - and reluctantly - embroiled in The Slave Question. He accidentally crewed a slave ship in _Flash For Freedom!_, then had to pretend to be an undercover British anti-slave agent to escape the dock when the ship was captured: this unfortunately led to him being recruited by the Underground Railroad - who mistook him for the zealous stalwart he pretended to be - where he was tasked with running fugitive slaves to the North, nearly getting sold down the river himself in the process {for fornicating with someone’s wife, naturally}. Then, in _Flashman and the Angel of the Lord_, he was shanghaied _and_ dragooned into both fighting alongside and betraying John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, by abolitionists and slavers alike. Oh, and in _Flashman’s Lady_ he became a slave in Madasgascar, where he became the demented Queen’s favourite bed-mate and rose to the position of Sergeant-General in her army. And I’ve probably missed a couple of books. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/42 "2013-05-05T03:27:37Z")
“The Legend of Awesomest Maximus” is a truly awful comedy set in the Trojan War … it does not insult your intelligence, it assaults it with intent to kill. However, it does have some humorous play with the concept of slavegirls serving in taverns of the day, drawing parallels between them and strippers at a strip club. It probably got the feel of an ancient tavern down better than most sword and sandal movies, strictly by accident. Now, if we can open up this thread to movies that are UNINTENTIONALLY comedic … boy, have we got some candidates for ya! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/43 "2013-05-05T03:53:03Z")
I’d say The Eye of Argon would qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/44 "2013-05-05T05:12:37Z")
The 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical [The Boys from Syracuse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Syracuse) was a comedy with some lovely songs, but the two Dromios are described in the lyrics as slaves. That said, they move around pretty freely and talk back to everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2013, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/45 "2013-05-05T08:56:06Z")
> [@Mehitabel](#): > > The 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical [The Boys from Syracuse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Syracuse) was a comedy with some lovely songs, but the two Dromios are described in the lyrics as slaves. That said, they move around pretty freely and talk back to everyone. _The Boys From Syracuse_ was based on _The Comedy of Errors_, which in turn drew heavily on Plautus’ comedy [_Menaechmi_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menaechmi). As noted earlier, the [cunning slave](http://www.answersfrom.com/latin-literature-plautus/) was a recurrent character with Plautus, and the servant who is wilier than his master is a tradition that has persisted in literature to this day. ---
**Author:** ![willthekittensurvive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@willthekittensurvive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/willthekittensurvive)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/46 "2013-05-06T14:21:52Z")
there is a new british tv serie called [Plebs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebs_(TV_series)) a comedy about roman nobodys, one of the characters is a slave kinda funny… ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/47 "2013-05-06T14:45:31Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > Mel Brooks’ _History of the World: Part I_. “Do you know the punishment for a slave who strikes a Roman citizen?” _hands raise in the crowd_ “Ah yes, you there!” “Death by torture!” _rolls eyes_ “No” “Crucifixtion!” “Too Jewish…you?” “They shove a living snake up your ass!” “Ah, no, but that’s _very_ creative!” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/48 "2013-05-06T16:55:31Z")
Now _porn_ has some pretty damned good slave related titles, but they probably don’t cross-qualify as comedy in spite of the “acting”. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/49 "2013-05-06T17:32:58Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > The Flashman novels, while not unalloyed comedy, are mordantly funny, and Flashy is frequently - and reluctantly - embroiled in The Slave Question. In the first book he buys a girl who is effectively a slave in India. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379/50 "2013-05-07T02:06:52Z")
Woody Allen wrote a play – GOD, A PLAY – where a slave in ancient Greece gets all the best lines: he wants what all slaves want (to be taller), knows the horrors of war (and so passes up chances for freedom: citizens get tortured and killed by would-be conquerors, but nobody minds people who just keep doing the cleaning) and argues against accepting the Trojan Horse (because, seriously, who needs a wooden horse that big, and what the hell are we even going to use it for?). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedies-with-slavery/657379.md?page=2)