Greek Comedies
For centuries, scholars struggled to find something similar to Greek comedy. Luckily for us, Matt Stone and Trey Parker createdSouth Park. Despite nearly 3,000 years separating the two, South Park is almost identical to Greek comedy. At the heart of both is the lampoon. To lampoon means to criticize using ridicule or sarcasm.
Just as Matt and Trey mock celebrities they hate, like Bono and Tom Cruise, so the comedians of Ancient Greece poked fun at the celebrities of the day, making them look selfish, haughty, petty and stupid. We actually get the word lampoon from the statesman Lampon, who was viciously ridiculed in several plays by the Athenian comedian Aristophanes.
Like South Park, Greek comedians did not limit their lampooning to people. They also targeted ideas. Both used a method called reducto ad absurdum, literally, 'a reduction to absurdity'. We see the same pattern unfold in Aristophanes' The Birdsand South Park's 'Margaritaville'.
Step 1: Take a common idea you find stupid.
The Birds: The gods eat the smoke of religious sacrifices
'Margaritaville': The economy is punishing us
Step 2: Break that idea down to its most basic concepts.
The Birds: You could starve the gods by blocking the smoke
'Margaritaville': The economy is a god of some sort
Step 3: Show how that basic idea becomes absurd if taken too seriously.
The Birds: Peisistratus convinces the birds to build a wall between heaven and earth and charge taxes on smoke
'Margaritaville': Stan's dad starts a cult of the economy, in which everyone wears sheets and plays with squirrels
In short, Greek comedy displayed the same irreverence, the same scathing criticism, the same subtle moralizing and even the same tendency toward toilet humor that characterizes South Park.
All this comedy might not sound very religious, but passing moral judgment on ideas and people is essentially a religious matter. In this way, comedy was the most current and up to date branch of Greek religion.