Peer Reviewed Proceedings of the 4 th Annual Conference, Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ), Brisbane, Australia, 24-26 June, 2013, pp. 71-79. ISBN: 978-0-646-91561-6. © 2013 71 ALEKSANDR ANDREAS WANSBROUGH University of Sydney Tragedy and comedy in Lars von Trier’s The Boss of It All ABSTRACT Through examining conceptions of tragedy and comedy, this paper argues that Lars von Trier’s film, Direktøren for det hele/The Boss of It All (2006), challenges the dichotomies of G.W.F. Hegel’s and George Steiner’s analysis of comedy and tragedy. For example, Hegel conceives of classical tragedy as a conflict between two characters that embody universal ideals. However, comedy, according to Hegel, concerns people who cannot live up to their ideals. Most of us cannot embody transcendent ideals, so comedy clearly resembles ordinary life more than Hegelian tragedy. As with the hero of tragedy, the protagonist of The Boss of It All divides the harmony of the good, and in staying true to his ideal, betrays himself. In this way, the film suggests a transcendent pathos that is connected with the comic failure of ordinary life. Contrary to Steiner’s notion that tragedy presents an ‘aristocracy of pain’ and a sense that life’s cruelties cannot be overcome, this reading of von Trier’s film maintains that tragedy appeals to us because it indicates our desire for our surroundings to be different. This paper concludes, following Eagleton’s analysis of the tragic, that tragedy is connected to hope. In so doing, I will argue that The Boss of It All, indicates that art can survive the dissolution between tragedy and comedy that Hegel claims would dissolve art. KEYWORDS Hegel Steiner Eagleton tragedy tragicomedy comedy There are a number of connections between comedy and tragedy. These ‘genres’ share such themes as reversals in fortune, the collision between the real and the ideal and, often, a fate obverse to the protagonist’s intention. Yet, according to George Steiner, it is seldom that the tragic and the comic actually converge (Steiner 2003: 534-535). Steiner claims that the terrain of the tragicomic is a separate artistic mode incapable of encompassing works that are