In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theater, television, film, and stand-up comedy.

The theatrical genre of comedy can be described as a dramatic performance. Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humour largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy, which is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humour, sexual humour, and race humour create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways. less