Tending to excite laughter or contempt by extravagant images, or by a contrast between the subject and the manner of treating it, as when a trifling subject is treated with mock gravity; jocular; ironical
a theatrical entertainment of broad and earthy humor; consists of comic skits and short turns (and sometimes striptease) relating to or characteristic of a burlesque; "burlesque theater
An ironical or satirical composition intended to excite laughter, or to ridicule anything
a theatrical entertainment of broad and earthy humor; consists of comic skits and short turns (and sometimes striptease)
A burlesque is a performance or a piece of writing that makes fun of something by copying it in an exaggerated way. You can also use burlesque to refer to a situation in real life that is like this. The book read like a black comic burlesque. a trio of burlesque Moscow stereotypes. In literature, comic imitation of a serious literary or artistic form that relies on an extravagant incongruity between a subject and its treatment. It is closely related to parody, though burlesque is generally broader and coarser. Early examples include the comedies of Aristophanes. English burlesque is chiefly drama. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728), Henry Fielding's Tom Thumb (1730), and Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Critic (1779) are parodies of popular dramatic forms of the period. Victorian burlesque, usually light entertainment with music, was eclipsed by other popular forms by the late 19th century, and burlesque eventually came to incorporate and be identified with striptease acts (see burlesque show)
A work which is intended to ridicule by the use of grotesque exaggeration or by the treatment of a trifling subject with the gravity due a matter of great importance (See also Hudibrastic Verse, Lampoon, Mock Epic, Parody, Pasquinade, Satire) (Compare Antiphrasis, Irony)