Black humor is a literary term that refers primarily to a kind of bitter and often outrageous satire. Much black humor is directed against greed, narrow-mindedness, complacency, and hypocrisy. Black humor frequently satirizes society's institutions, including government bureaucracies, the military, and large corporations, depicting them as dehumanizing organizations. Black humorists often attack the absurdity they see in life itself, as well as society's ills. The awareness of human mortality is basic to black humor, giving many of the works a desperate, even hopeless attitude.