Expert: Barbara L. Baker - 8/2/2002

Question
thanks for your willingness to help! I am doing a paper that attempts to answer the question:
What are the basic elements of comedy movies in the 21st century? I need "scholarly articles" that i can use to support any findings. Would you be able to guide me to any scholarly articles (or anything for that matter) that would give basic categories for comedy, would speak of a progression in comedy movies, or would speak of comedy movies today and what makes them distinctive?
And then could you give your opinion on comedy movies in the last two or three years? How they are distinctive, how they fit in to old forms, any observations.
I know this is a lot, any partial answer would be helpful.
Thank you so much for your time!
Peace,
Mike Finch

Answer
Dear Mike:  Well, I'm answering your question, even though I usually don't do questions that seem to be schoolwork.  You are mostly asking for resources, and an opinion, so I can provide those.

After a quick persual of various on-line sites, I can't really locate any books or scholarly articles on 21st century comedy.  It is probably too soon for any scholarly work on comedies made after 2000.  However, I will be able to do some things for you.  One is to give you a brief list of some books and article on (American) film comedy that I've either used as texts in a comedy film class, or have on my bibliography for my students (their bibliographies might point you into a useful direction, if these don't work out themselves).  I'm also going to give you a couple of websites that might prove useful.  Then I'll try to provide some answer your last question, keeping in mind that I've not really done much thinking on this question yet.

First, here is a listing of some books & articles, keeping in mind that many of these deal with "classic" comedy films:

Babington, B. & P. Evans, AFFAIRS TO REMEMBER:  THE HOLLYWOOD COMEDY OF THE SEXES.  NY:  St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Belton, J. "American Comedy," in AMERICAN CINEMA/AMERICAN CULTURE.  NY:  McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Berger, A.A., "Humor, an Introduction."  AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST (30:1, 1987)

Bergson, Henri, "Laughter," in COMEDY, ed. W. Sypher.  Baltimore, Johns Hopkins UP, 1980.

Chapman, A. J. & H.C. Foot, eds.  IT'S A FUNNY THING, HUMOUR.  Oxford, Eng.:  Pergamon Press, 1976.

Evans, P. W. & C. Deleyto. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT:  HOLLYWOOD ROMANTIC COMEDY OF THE 1980S AND 1990S.  Berkeley:  UC Press, 1991.

Gehring, W.  SCREWBALL COMEDY:  A GENRE OF MADCAP ROMANCE.  Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1986.

Horton, A. S.  COMEDY/CINEMA/THEORY.  Berkeley:  UC Press, 1991.

Karnick, K. B. & Jenkins, H., eds.  CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD COMEDY.  NY:  Routledge/AFI Film Readers, 1995.

King, G. FILM COMEDY.  Wallflower Press, 2002 [I don't have this book yet, so can't verify its usefulness, but the blurb sounds good]

Lang, C.  IRONY/HUMOR:  CRITICAL PARADIGMS.  Baltimore:  
John Hopkins UP, 1987.

Mast, G. THE COMIC MIND:  COMEDY AND THE MOVIES.  Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973 [a classic text]

Matthews, N.  COMIC POLITICS:  GENDER IN HOLLYWOOD COMEDY AFTER THE NEW RIGHT.  Manchester & NY:  Manchester UP, 2000. [on recent trends, focused on gender]

Mellencamp, P. HIGH ANXIETY:  CATASTROPHE, SCANDAL, AGE, AND COMEDY.  Bloomington:  Indiana UP, 1992.

Morreal, J.  TAKING LAUGHTER SERIOUSLY.  Albany:  SUNY Press, 1983.

Neal, S. & Krutnik, F.  POPULAR FILM AND TELEVISION COMEDY.  London:  Routledge, 1990.

Palmer, J.  TAKING HUMOUR SERIOUSLY.  London:  Routledge, 1994.

Paul, W. "The Rise and Fall of Animal Comedy."  THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP, #26, Fall 1990.

Petr, P., D. Roberts & P. Thompson, eds.  COMIC RELATIONS:  STUDIES IN THE COMIC, SATIRE, AND PARODY.  Frankfurt:  Verlag Peter Lang, 1985.

Rickman, G., ed.  THE FILM COMEDY READER.  NY:  Limelight, 2001. [last two sections deal with pretty recent films]

Rowe, K.  THE UNRULY WOMAN:  GENDER AND THE GENRES OF LAUGHTER.  Austin: UT Press, 1995 [also pretty modern; mostly on tv]

Rutsky, R. L. & J. Wyatt.  "Serious Pleasures:  Cinematic Pleasure and the Notion of Fun."  CINEMA JOURNAL, #30, vol. 1 (1990).

Selig, M.  "The Nutty Professor:  A 'Problem' in Film Scholarship."  VELVET LIGHT TRAP, #26 (1990), pp. 42-56.

Wagg, S., Ed.  BECAUSE I TELL A JOKE OR TWO:  COMEDY, POLITICS AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE.  London:  Routledge, 1998.

Winokur, M.  "Modern Times and the Comedy of Transformation,"  LITERATURE/FILM QUARTERLY, #15 (1987), pp. 219-226.

I also found an article by director Cameron Crowe, from the March 2001 issue of "Written By," called "Leave 'Em Laughing" (www.wga.org/WrittenBy/0301/mentor.html) that might prove useful.

You can continue this search yourself, by going to google.com and typing in "Film Comedy" (or other search engines).  There are other film journals; you can access a list of them from ScreenSite (www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite)--there are numerous ones, including some on-line.  You can also try your local library to see if it can provide you with more help.

As for my own opinion, hm.  That is harder, since it isn't very well formulated yet.  

First, we are in a period that many scholars call postmodern, in which all the old forms theoretically are questioned, and either discarded or combined into new pastiches.  Following this theory, one would assume that film genres, as coherent categories, are disappearing (because there is too much combination into hybrids).  There is some merit in this argument, but comedy is not really a specific genre of films, it is a mode of storytelling that dates back into pre-history.  Many of the specific forms have generated genres, but even in the early days of filmmaking, it was hard to separate out "pure" comic genres.

Oh yes, one could talk about the silent clowns (and comedian comedy in general), the screwball comedy, the buddy comedy, etc., but even those early comedies combined various comic forms and techniques (i.e. Chaplin films combined slapstick with pathos, Lubistsch could be satirical as well as lyrical, as could Capra, etc.).  In fact, if you go back into the history of theatre, you can see that comedy types have often been blended, and that certain forms of comedy (e.g. burlesque, farce, slapstick and crude humor in particular) are nothing new--for example, one can find toilet jokes and bawdy sex humor in ancient Greek plays, as well as in later texts.  Indeed, the very earliest films, growing out of stage burlesque & vaudeville performances, were pretty crude and sexual, but all that was stopped by the Hays Office & the Production Code in the 1930s (even then, comics like Mae West were able to get around the code, and be pretty risque).

In that sense, I think I would question whether there is a "progression" in comedy movies (a "progression" to what? Or away from what?).  I'm not sure I would argue that comedy films of the past three years or so are even that distinctive from earlier forms.

Having said all this, however, I think modern (postmodern?) comedy does have some trends, which I believe date back to the 1960s (and the breakdown of the production code).

One is the dominance of what I call "Stupid Comedy" (esp. in the U.S., but not completely).  This type of comedy, centered around a comic like Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Tom Green, etc. shares some elements of buddy comedy, comedian comedy, farce & slapstick.  It particularly appeals to the young (esp. males, but increasingly, females), in part because of its focus on gross, crude humor (what some call "adolescent humor," although certainly people past adolescence find such comedy funny!).  Although forms of studid comedy have existed since story-telling began in the ancient world, one possible difference today is that audiences are presumably less shockable, and so the language and visuals in mainstream films (enhanced by modern film technology) are more graphic (keeping in mind that some of the films from the 1960s are very graphic).  

Such comedies, like many films of today, are also very intertextual.  That is, they make reference to many other texts--not just films, but also television, ads, pop culture, history, etc. (this, by the way, is considered a characteristic of postmodernism--the borrowing of many different ideas and the mixing of different texts).  In comedy, the intertextual references tend toward parody (as opposed to homage, for example, the current "Austin Powers in Goldmember").

Another trend is romantic comedy, which shares some elements with the screwball comedies of the past, as well as what were called "women's pictures" (melodramatic stories or what we'd call today "chic flicks").  Even some of those have elements of gross humor in them, though (witness "There's Something About Mary," and "Meet the Parents").  

Finally, the past few years are often considered to be indicative of an "age of irony" in art.  There are some films (mostly independent, low-budget films) that reflect such irony, often combined with satirical looks at modern life (one that immediately comes to mind is "Dogma," but also "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" can be viewed this way, despite the fact it is disguised as a "stupid comedy").

Such films may be considered an updated form of black comedy (comedy that deals with taboo subjects, usually not seen as funny, such as murder, suicide, incest, cannibalism, etc., along with stabs at religion, the gov't., etc.).  Black comedies and satirical films (which are usually quite intertextual) often aren't seen as comedies, esp. to the general public, and thus often fail at the box office.  Some are discovered (either by young people or by intellectual audiences later) and turned into cult films.  Some that come to mind include Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux," Lubistch's "To Be or Not to Be" (the original, with Jack Benny), Kubrick's "Doctor Strangelove" & "A Clockwork Orange," Altman's "M.A.S.H" (although it was fairly popular with the youth of the 60s), Ashby's "Harold & Maude" (also seen by some as a romantic comedy, included on the latest AFI list), etc. up to the present day "Dogma," "Fargo," Cecil B. Demented," etc.

I hope this provides you with some answer.  I do encourage you go look for some of these resources as you do your paper.  I also suggest looking at older comedies and current ones to make your own comparisons, after doing some of this reading.  Good luck with your paper.