Wendy Molyneux's "I'm am Sorry that I didn't Write a Comedy Piece" is a short and ironic piece of literature. This piece is greatly ineffective because its theme of irony, while humorous and somewhat entertaining, takes away from the overall message by distracting the audience from her point. When the author introduces a strong indication that his or her piece will be effectively humorous, this hints to the audience that the author is focused on them and their reaction. Comedy is all about how the audience reacts. This allows the audience to relax and try to gain something for themselves out of the experience: a quick laugh or two. Humor and irony are excellent tools to benefit an author's piece; however, an entirely ironic theme is ineffective in portraying an important message because the audience will be focused on themselves and the aspects of humor rather than fully understanding the underlying message. Molyneux's message that stereotypes against women are ridiculously stupid, and that men and women are equal, are overshadowed by the whole ironic theme. Because her message was clearly more important than the humorous side of her piece, Molyneux probably should have taken a different approach altogether.

When the message behind any author's work is not intended to be as significant as Molyneux's, ironic humor works like a charm. For example, the "Scary Movie" series of parody films is perfect for an audience to sit back, have a laugh, and easily understand the underlying message because it's not that deep. The Scary Movie series makes fun of actors and repetitive plots seen in all kinds of actual scary movies in the past. A satirical look at the lack of creativity found in so many repetitive scary movies is a hilarious, interesting insight into the monotony behind the scary movie itself. While it is impossible to draw a fine line between what makes a message important or unimportant, what matters is the author's overall intent with his or her work. A standup comedian doesn't really care about the moral of his story, he cares if you laugh. But a feminist author such as Wendy Molyneux certainly cares more about a message and a much larger movement. Wendy's ironic take on the issues and stereotypes women are facing today was funny but not very effective. Readers were likely looking for a laugh towards the end of the piece because she made the entire thing ironic. Yes, that was the whole point, but it didn't work as well as it should have. Grabbing the reader's attention is only the first step to getting a message across.

Humor is a necessary part of literature. It can and should be used to benefit the author; however, Wendy Molyneux's comedy piece was damaged by the excessive irony she used throughout the piece. Rahj Singh writes in his article "Humor, Irony, and Satire in Literature" that "humor is a general term signifying a non-serious reaction to the literature by the audience  a light-hearted, frivolous, whimsical reaction, caused by an unexpected departure from reason or sense a play on words, a clever analogy, an understatement, etc. It can have a hidden threat or criticism in it but is not to be taken seriously. Humor may be produced from irony as well as satire" (Singh 66). If the goal is to get the message across, irony and humor are not very effective approaches to take. A "hidden criticism" is exactly what her message is. She would have been much better off taking a more academic approach. Molyneux's use of irony may have helped expose the message in her piece in the first paragraphs, but her ideas were quickly swallowed up by the copious ironic remarks seen in nearly every other sentence.   

A comedy piece is the entirely wrong approach to take. Irony isn't the type of humor to always make an audience laugh out loud, but rather to understand an underlying concept. Unfortunately, Molyneux failed to understand this and made it both ironic and funny. Rahj Singh elaborates on the intentions of a successful irony piece: "The role of satire is to ridicule or criticize those vices in the society, which the writer considers a threat to the civilization. The writer considers it his obligation to expose these vices for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas they make fun of. It intends at warning public against and changing their opinions about the prevailing corruption in the society" (Singh 69). Singh essentially describes what Molyneux was doing wrong with this work. Where she went wrong was making the audience laugh at the idea she's making fun of. Her humorous additions, while funny as fuck, ended up hurting the message of this piece in the long run.

Irony and humor are essential keys to literature. Often times they will help an author's intentions by keeping the reader interested, but in the case of Wendy Molyneux's "I am Sorry that I didn't Write a Comedy Piece," these aspects only overwhelmed the reader and drowned out much of what Molyneux wanted to get across. As a whole, satire is much more effective when used in moderation and when making fun of something that is funny. I also showed that a satirical theme can be very successful, as evidenced by the "Scary Movie" series, when the underlying message doesn't carry as much weight as a social movement. Molyneux went wrong by using the oppressed woman as a laughing piece, which accomplishes the opposite of her goal. It's like making fun of yourself so that other people won't do it for you; you're not really accomplishing anything.

