Edward Scissorhands

The unique use of colour in the movie adds to the different emotions that you feel in each of the different worlds. Colour helps create the interest when the grandmother is beginning her story about the snow. She is wearing a bright red outfit and the girl is in a bed and a room that is very decorative, but with still normal and neutral colours. I think this sets the mood of a fairytale. We move from a world where colours seem normal into a world where the colours become very bright. In this second world the colours give you the feeling of safety and normalcy. The houses are bright, the outfits are bright, and everything is uniform which gives off a feeling of peace and a structured environment. The third world, Edward's mansion, is dark in colour along with his outfit, which is a direct contrast to the town below. At this point you can get the feeling of good and evil although there is a twist because the dark is actually not evil at all. It plays with those emotions. As the story progresses you start to feel that the nice colourful neighbourhood is actually the bad and corrupt. Another use of colour that brings all the emotions throughout the movie to the forefront is at the very end when he is walking through his garden dressed in black and it is dark but the grass and flowers are still bright and he feels comfortable.
The lighting used at the very beginning of the movie also helps give the feeling of a fairytale. The cash shadows that are produced both by the single lamp and the fire bring a feeling of comfort and rest. This helps because as the grandmother is speaking you can feel like you are being taken into a fairytale. The lighting and shadows along with her voice are the perfect combination to begin a story and give the viewers the right feelings and emotions. Also, the lighting ads the emotion of fear for Edward and suspense at the end where they are in the mansion fighting. It is dark with light coming through the broken roof as well as light from the gunshot. All of this keeps the viewer in suspense and locked onto the screen.

The overall soundtrack to the movie helps create the feelings I believe the director was hoping for throughout each scene of the movie. One specific scene is where he pushes Kevin out of the way of the van. You can feel the tension building and a turning point coming with the music as the notes are long and deep and also give a feeling of sadness as you see Edward's decline in the neighbourhood. Also the sound of his scissors both give emotions of happiness and fear depending on when we hear them. When he is cutting bushes or hair we feel happy for him, but as he cuts Kevin you hate that sound and wish it to stop.

Tim Burton & Johnny Depp Interview - Alice In Wonderland

Independent Study

• Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 
• Edward ScissorHands
• Alice In Wonderland
• One of these films are likely to be replaced with a Terry Gilliam film.

For my independent study I will be focusing on three films produced by Tim Burton. I have chosen these three films due to the way colour is used in each film, causing the film to become darker and therefore more interesting. Tim Burtons obscure way of filming entices me with every film he releases. I wish to study the ways colour has been used to create atmosphere and set the mood within the film. Also I will research the techniques used to create the film including stop motion animation, the way everything looks, allowing me to see and write about a variety of features Tim Burton has used, keeping with his style of films within Dark Fantasy genres.

Nightmare Before Christmas Trailer

Amelie

Plot:

Amelie is a French film, about a girl who suffered a childhood of despair and loneliness. She spent only limited amounts of time with her father, who then believes she has heart problems due to her fast hear beat on the occasions that she actually gets to spend time with her dad. Due to this suspected heart defect, Amelie’s father declares her unfit for school. So Amelie does not have any friends, so instead, she lets her imagination take her away to find happiness. Further on in the film Amelia drops something on the floor, revealing a secret tile on her wall, in which contains a small box of treasured items left by a young boy many years prior to her finding it. She is then determined to return the box to the owner, after numerous attempts to find him, she eventually comes across the owner of the treasures. After seeing his reactions, Amelie seems to have a change it thought about life, making sure from then on she helps anyone she can. In a way she becomes a new person, dedicating life to other people. Especially her father, as she did not spend a great amount of time with him as a child, she tries to spend time with him and get him away from his beloved gnome. Once Amelie spends a lot of time helping others, it eventually comes clear to her that she has not thought about herself in a long time, which is depriving her of finding love that she once dreamed about, it seems as though she is too nice to others, that she is unable to find someone as nice as her that she is compatible with. Amelia finds an album of unwanted pictures, again she is intrigued to find the collector of these photos, which eventually leads to her falling in love with him. 

At parts in the film, Amelie actually addresses the audience, choosing to put this in the film helps greatly to involve the viewer to let them know Amelie’s actual opinion on what is happening in the film. 

Most of the film is warmly toned, with reds especially, this helps to create the atmosphere of the film, helping it to stay relatively romantic as well as times when serious moments, as well as funny moments also occur. Also, sepia tones are also used, this helps the audience to know it is set in the past. It makes things seem aged. 

The opening sequence shows Amelie’s childhood and different things that have occurred, a simple and almost unnoticed sound effect used, is clicking, whilst the opening takes place, you can hear the clicking over it just for a few seconds, almost like the film is just getting started up, then throughout the sequence, non diegetic sound is added to add emphasis to what is going on, such as where she makes the line of paper men, you can very clearly and loudly hear them rustle. Also when she puts her finger around the wine glass you can hear the noise it makes easily. 

Depth of field is also used throughout the film effectively, helping you to focus on individual things in the scene. 

Montages and flashback are used at the start, showing Amelie’s childhood, showing many different times of her life, also during the film where Amelie is thinking about how many sexual acts are taking place at one time. There are many different cuts and jerk movements allowing the scene to cut from different places very quickly, as well as this the sound changes are also noticeable for every cut in those scenes. 

Amelie is a young woman, who has not had much experience of life. Her childhood was spent alone with only her imagination to entertain herself. During her childhood her only friend was her per fish. Which just so happened to be suicidal. After her mothers death in Notre Dame, she lived with her father. Who is obsessed with garden gnomes. As life commences, Amelie becomes more and more confident, eventually leading her to wanting to help everyone.

Some Like It Hot

Plot:

Some Like It Hot, is a black and white comedy released in 1959. The film is set in 1929, beginning on February 14th, the St. Valentines Day Massacre. Jerry and Joe, two musicians who are desperate to flee the town, and out of work, go to all lengths to obtain places in a band who are about to leave for Florida. The one problem they face, is that the band they desperately want to play in, is female only. Once the two are informed of this, they then become Josephine and Daphne. 

On the train the two meet Sugar Kane, a beautiful young woman. Joe (Josephine) falls in love with Sugar, but she has no idea that she is actually a he!

Osgood Fielding, an old millionaire, attempts to impress Daphne (Jerry) and tries to get her (him) to take his hand in marriage. 

Spats, and other gangsters from Chicago arrive at the same accommodation Jerry and Joe are staying, so not only are they trying to keep their secrets of cross dressing from the girls, they are endeavouring to be unnoticed by Spats. 

Joe and Jerry attempt to make an escape for the final time, realising the the only route of escape is using Osgood’s boat. Joe finds Sugar, kissing her whilst she realises who he really is, they make their way avoiding the gangsters to the boat, both Jerry and Joe try to explain their doings to Osgood and Sugar. Jerry finally admits to Osgood he is a man, and Osgood simply says, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” 

Characters:

Jerry is employed by a music agency in Chicago which helps him to get jobs as a bass player in bands. A man with bizarre ideas in tricky situations, he is quite confident with women however becomes very distressed and uncomfortable when put under vast amounts of pressure (such as when Joe and him are walking in the train station to meet their new band for the first time dressed as women) Instantly falling in love with Sugar Kane, a woman who is also in the band of women it is clear he falls for her but he is unhappy that Joe manages to steal Sugar’s heart before he can. Somehow Jerry somewhat leads on his new admirer Osgood Fielding, an old billionaire. He does not admit until the very end that he is actually a man, as Jerry was almost influenced to the extreme by money so much to marry Osgood only for his earnings. 

Joe is the more confident one between himself and Jerry, as well as this he is even more confident with women, especially Sugar. As soon as he finds out she adores male Saxophone players, he instantly does whatever he can to encourage her to fall for him, even though throughout the film, she believes he is a woman. Joe seems to have, “the gift of the gab” He is very good at talking his way out of things, for example, he convinces Nellie, a girl for whom his boss employs, to allow him to use her car. 

Sugar is a young, blonde woman, who both Jerry and Joe fall for within seconds of meeting her. She joined the all female band to get away from working with males, who seem to just use her for borrowing money and treat her with no respect. Early on in the film, Joe learns she takes a liking to male saxophone players. Which is enough to make him go head over heals for her. 

As the film is a comedy, there is a great amount of action occurring in scenes as well as a lot of slapstick. however, cuts tend to be slower, with the exception of the car chase etc, allowing you to focus on the goings on, rather than every single detail of the scene from different angles creating a dramatic scene. The slow cuts help you to concentrate on what is being said and the general plot, rather than many occurrences which do not allow you to take every single detail in. This is good because when jokes and funny comments are made, it is easier to think about them and know everything that is happening. 

The sounds used are mostly diegetic, however sound effects and non diegetic sound has been put in, it was used during the car chase in Chicago, emphasising the noises of crashes and screeching of the cars. Background music is heard throughout the film.

Comedy Films 

The material 

There is no simple way to approach comedy as a film genre students must grasp the concept of a very fluid genre with several different ways of categorising comedy elements. There are many concepts involved that require quite precise terminology. 

Contents

Student Notes

How to study comedy films

What makes you laugh? 

Gags

Social situation

Different types of comedy 

Gag-related 

Situational 

But what actually makes us laugh? 

Types of comic effect 

Analysing the comedy film 

Representation 

Audience

Student Notes

Introduction

How to study comedy films 

What are comedy films? The term ‘comedy’ has a very long history and is often paired with ‘tragedy’. The two are the basic forms of drama – one in which the outcomes of a story are generally ‘happy’ and the other in which they are likely to cause great pain to the characters. 

We can simplify a definition of comedy films by stating: comedy films are supposed to make the audience laugh. 

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But immediately we need to notice two things 

the actual ‘effect’ of comedy films on an audience can range from a ‘wry smile’ to shrieks of helpless laughter;  different audiences laugh at different types of comedy. We can add a third point:  comedy films can be considered alongside other films that have a distinct ‘audience effect’, e.g. horror, thriller, romance etc. All of these are genres or ‘categories’ of films that we recognise because of what they attempt to make us feel as we watch them. 

Comedy is very important in the cinema, so much so that ‘elements’ of comedy are included in many other types of film and sometimes a film is a very clear ‘mix’ of a comedy and another genre like the gangster film or horror film. To keep things as straightforward as possible, we are going to concentrate on films in which comedy is the most important ingredient, but even so we must recognise that: 

it is important to distinguish between different types of comedy film and the ways in which they make people laugh. 

What makes you laugh?

1. Just stop for a moment and think about the things that make you laugh in the cinema. What triggers your laughter? 
2. a joke told by a character? 
3. an accident like someone pouring water over themselves by mistake? 
4. a realisation that something isn’t as it should be – someone has broken the rules or ‘taboos’¹ and you think to yourself, “Oh, no! What’s going to happen” – and when it does, you laugh? 
5. something or somebody is so ‘odd’ or out of place that laughter seems the only response – you laugh to cover up your confusion? 

Father enters son’s room in American Pie – what will he find? Has he broken a rule? Who will be embarrassed? 

1 taboo: ‘prohibited behaviour’ in any society. Normal bodily functions like belching and farting have become taboo actions in ‘polite society’ in the UK. 

These are all common elements in comedy films. These elements are combined together in different ways and produce very different types of comedy films. It might be helpful to try to define some of these types. 

The comedy effect is produced using these two types of performance skills: 

• delivering the joke or ‘gag’; 
• acting out a social drama or ‘situation’ of some kind. 

Great comedy films use both the ‘gag’ and the ‘situation’ and create a tension between them. 

Gags 

A gag can be either ‘verbal’ (what we usually call a joke) or ‘visual’ – a ‘sight gag’. Sometimes it can be purely concerned with sound effects. Gags are in effect very short stories, usually with some form of dramatic climax – the ‘punch–line’. But it is the performance of the gag that often makes it funny, rather than the story itself. This performance is all about ‘timing’ – in particular, learning when to pause in order to give the audience a chance to laugh and still hear the next part of the story. This is clear in the live performance of a comedian doing ‘stand-up’ before an audience, but how does it work out on film? If you have a comedy film on tape, find a verbal gag and see if the film allows you the time to laugh before moving on. 

A sight gag requires similar skills of timing (as well as great athleticism) – a slip on a banana skin is ‘performed’ so that the audience gets the full effect – a totter with arms flailing, a slow slide on the backside, a final collapse in a heap. A ‘real’ slip on a banana skin might be over in seconds and probably look more painful than funny. 

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy developed the best known ‘double act’ in Hollywood, based mostly on visual gags, which invariably saw them suffering terrible humiliation, all summed up by Hardy’s catchphrase “another fine mess”. 

The Irish comedian Frank Carson had a catchphrase, “It’s the way I tell ‘em!” – a reference to the importance of the ‘delivery’ of the gag. 

Gags are generally performed by professional comedians who have built up an ‘act’ – a range of ‘routines’ – over many years of practicing and perfecting. Early film comedy was primarily performed by comedians from the music hall such as Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. Even today, many comedy films are headed by stars who began as comedians telling ‘gags’ or acting out ‘sketches’ (e.g. Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, or in the UK, Harry Enfield and Rowan Atkinson). 

Social situation 

‘Situational comedy’ is all about social conflict. Often, it sees a character suddenly placed in a strange situation, one in which they are uncomfortable because they are unsure of the ‘rules of behaviour’. A good example is in the family or teen comedy when a boy is invited to his girlfriend’s house to meet her parents. He’s nervous and makes mistakes, which we often find amusing.³ 

A similar scenario is the ‘mistaken identity’ situation – a recent Indian film includes a scene where a young woman is expecting the call of a young man who has been picked out as her future husband. But another young man arrives first, trying to rent her house for a film shoot. The scene that follows in which both the characters are puzzled and then shocked by what the other says makes us laugh, partly because we know more about what is going on than the characters do. (In this way, comedy is like a suspense thriller. It is our anticipation of what is going to happen – will he, won’t he? – that pleases us so much when it does.) 

The recent comedy Meet The Parents (US 2000) sees Ben Stiller spending the weekend at his fiancée’s home, where her stern father (Robert de Niro) makes his life a misery. 

Often such scenes are played ‘straight’, so, unlike the gag, the performance emphasises ‘realism’ rather than the extended ‘display’ of the gag. The mechanism that produces the laugh is different. Because the performance skills are different, such characters are often played by ‘actors’ rather than comedians (although they may be well-known as ‘comic actors’, like Julia Roberts or George Clooney). Comedians do sometimes have the timing skills to become good actors – it is more difficult for an actor to become a good comedian.⁴ 

Two other terms that you may come across are also relevant here: 

Observational comedy refers to the realistic portrayal of a group of people with the humour coming from the odd or ‘quirky’ things that people do. (And we all do some strange things at different times.) Comedians and comic actors borrow some of these actions and incorporate them in their performances. 

Character comedy is another description of situational comedy – the humour is in the general interaction of characters, not the visual or verbal gag. It may also centre on one or two characters with strong personalities who become the chief attraction in the story. Many successful television ‘situation comedies’ have a strong central character. In the UK it is often a man who is treated badly by the world, but who deludes himself into thinking that he is important, attractive, clever etc. – David Brent in The Office and Alan Partridge in ‘his own show’ are two recent examples. 

The Marx Brothers were celebrated for the chaos they could cause in any social situation. This is a scene from A Night at the Opera (US 1937) when everyone gets crammed into a small cabin on an ocean liner. 

‘Situation comedy’ is a popular television format, competing with other comedy forms such as ‘sketch shows’ and ‘stand-up’. 

Gag-based comedy and situation comedy can be mixed together in the same film, but they create tension when brought together because:

Situation comedy films are usually concerned with a single extended story, but 

spectacular gags tend to ‘stop’ the main story and take over the film for a time – they are ‘disruptive’ and anarchic (the gag often makes fun of, or even destroys, ‘social order’). 

Exercise 

Make a list of all the comedy films you have each seen recently, or favourite comedies that you remember 

which films rely more on ‘gags’ than on an interesting plot (i.e. a ‘situation’) 

Funny People 

Zoolander

The Inbetweeners Movie

The Change Up

which films star ‘comedians’ rather than ‘comic actors’? 

Mrs Doubtfire

Different types of comedy 

So far, we have established that there are two ways in which humour on the screen can be created – through carefully performed gags and the drama of social conflict. 

We can distinguish some more specialised comedy genres based on the initial division: 

Gag-related 

slapstick. Sometimes called ‘broad’ comedy or ‘low comedy’ (as distinct from ‘high comedy’ with witty dialogue, slapstick is the very physical comedy that developed in silent cinema). Without dialogue, the whole story depends on facial gestures and conventional falls, fights etc. As such it is very close to the violent scenes of ‘action cinema’.⁵ 

‘gross-out’. A modern comedy in which the gags are designed to ‘break taboos’ such as the scenes involving semen in American Pie or There’s Something About Mary. 

Runaway Bride (US 1999) with Julia Roberts refers to the ‘screwball comedy’ with various ‘gags’ structured around the means to avoid the final wedding vow.

 In The Mummy (1999), some of the fights with ‘warrior mummies’ are staged exactly like the fights in slapstick comedy. 

‘screwball’. A comedy form first developed in the 1930s in which the central relationship between a man and a woman is so disruptive (often a scatty upper-class woman and a ‘disreputable’ man – or vice versa) that it creates the breakdown of law and order – such films often have crazy car chases and spectacular scenes of destruction. 

farce. A traditional comedic form in which a situation, often involving mistaken identity and sexual infidelity, is pushed so far that it descends into a delirious melée of opening and closing doors, hiding under beds, wearing disguises, undressing etc. Originally a theatrical genre with a single set, later transferring to cinema. 

Situational 

• social comedy. This is a very strong British comedy genre in which the laughs come from the confusions caused by the clash of cultures found in different social classes. For example, in The Full Monty (UK 1997) most of the characters are working-class men, but they are joined by the ex-foreman of the steelworks, Gerald, who is lower middle-class and lives in a different part of the city. The film gets laughs both by showing the ‘lads’ ‘out of place’ in Gerald’s neighbourhood and by showing Gerald in the dole queue. Comedy is often cruel and the ‘out of place’ characters are humiliated. (But The Full Monty is a ‘feelgood’ film, so in the end everyone overcomes the humiliation.) East is East extended the basis for social comedy to include ethnic difference as the basis for comedy. Is this film also ‘feelgood’? Are all the characters treated with respect or are there ‘villains’? Much comedy is about the ‘good guys’ defeating those who deserve to be ‘brought down’. A variation of the social comedy might be described as institutional comedy. This would have a storyline about different kinds of characters in a specific ‘institutional setting’ such as a hospital, prison, army camp etc. The early Carry On films are good examples. The point of such films is usually that differences in class background will mean that conflicts and misunderstandings arise, such as a ‘posh’ prisoner who doesn’t understand working-class prison culture or what a National Health ward in hospital is like. 
• comedy of manners. This is another form of social comedy, but deriving from middle-class literary roots rather than the ‘real life’ experiences of working class comedy. Jane Austen novels like Sense and Sensibility and Noel Coward plays like Brief Lives are ‘comedies of manners’ – how polite people make marriages, fall out and make up. Modern films of such plays and novels carry on the tradition. Four Weddings and a Funeral or Notting Hill might be thought of as modern comedies of manners. Note that part of the fun is the difference between British and American views of social behaviour. 
• romantic comedy. A very popular comedy form, the ‘romcom’ appeals to anyone who has ever been in love or who hopes to be so soon. People in love are distracted and liable to do daft things – the perfect basis for film comedy. The plot of a romcom will see an obvious couple taken through a series of misadventures designed to keep them apart until the ending (usually when they get married). 
• teen comedy. Very popular at the moment, the teen comedy is defined by its audience and its setting – in a high school. It could take the form of a ‘modern comedy of manners’ (e.g. Clueless) or include aspects of ‘gross out’ (e.g. American Pie) or ‘romcom’ (e.g. Ten Things I Hate About You). 

It is important to stress at this point that very few films fit into only one category – most films draw 

on at least two different categories. A ‘screwball comedy’ will also usually be a romantic 

comedy. A teen comedy will always draw on the other categories.

Exercise 

Write notes on what kinds of different comedy genres each of these films might draw on (you could look them up on the Internet Movie Database at uk.imdb.com as a start): 

• Superbad

Teen Comedy 

Gross Out 

Social Comedy

Realist

• Sweet Home Alabama 

RomCom

Comedy of Manners

Realist

• Juno

Teen Comedy

Drama

RomCom 

Realist 

But what actually makes us laugh? 

This is a very difficult question and various scholars have spent decades trying to come up with answers. All we want to do here is make some very general points: 

• Laughter is a physical expression of an emotional response to an experience. It’s a natural thing to do and that is why comedy is a fundamental element of cinema. The effect of laughter is heightened by being in a large audience, just as with horror, 

romance etc. We feel the effect along with everybody else. 

• Often the emotional response is to a fear – of the unknown or of a recognised enemy or a potential humiliation. You have probably heard people refer to ‘nervous laughter’. They might say “laughter is the best medicine” or “I have to laugh or I’d cry”. Most jokes are about the most important things in life – money, sex and death. We all want the first two and we can’t avoid the third. Many films offer us the chance to ‘enjoy’ the predicament of characters who face at least some of these predicaments. Seeing other people suffer is often oddly comforting. 
• Not all laughter is about an immediate emotional response. Certain kinds of comedy work because of our ‘intellectual’ response – we are amused/pleased by the breaking of rules in quite sophisticated ways. This leads us to consider comedy films categorised not by their narratives (how the stories are told) or by the settings, but by the comic effect they hope to have on an audience – or to put it another way, the purpose of the comedy. 

Types of comic effect 

We began by pointing out that different audiences react to different kinds of films and that the effects on audiences can range from belly laughs to a knowing smile. Here are some examples of different types of comic effect: 

• physical comedy. We’ve already recognised this in slapstick (a word which refers to the sound a clown made with a stick as part of his act). Physicality involves some form of violent activity and highly skilled performers who can give the impression of being attacked, falling from heights etc. without suffering great harm. 
• spoof, parody etc. A ‘spoof’ was originally a ‘hoaxing game’. A parody is an ‘exaggerated imitation’. In both cases laughter depends on recognition of the object of the spoof or parody, which is mocked. Many comedies rely on spoofs of very well known films or characters/events e.g. the Naked Gun series from the makers of Airplane. The Austin Powers films offer a spoof/parody that works on several levels from the well-known to the relatively obscure. ‘Art’ films can depend on parodies of little-known films (because the audience is very specialised). 
• ‘black’ comedy.⁶ A great deal of comedy depends on challenging ‘taboos’, but a black comedy goes much further and may include actions that don’t seem to be part of the comedy genre at all. Death is the taboo that is perhaps most difficult to challenge. Plenty of films deal with death as drama or ‘action’, but making jokes about death is another matter. We don’t expect anyone to be killed in a romantic comedy – but they might die in a black comedy. Sometimes people might be murdered, sometimes they might be accidentally killed in comic circumstances. A ‘black comedy’ will usually have a ‘serious’ underpinning (e.g. making some kind of criticism of society) – otherwise such a 

6 ‘black comedy’ is a European idea, because ‘black’ was originally associated with ‘evil’ or ‘death’. In Asian societies ‘white’ is the colour associated with death. Perhaps in a multi-racial, multicultural Europe, we need another term? 

film could be a comedy horror or a spoof. If most comedy is ‘feelgood’, black comedy is ‘feelbad’. 

A good example of a black comedy is To Die For (US 1995) in which Nicole Kidman plays a tv weather girl 

who will consider anything that will help her to become a reporter, including murdering her husband. 

• satire. This involves what is in many ways a very ‘serious’ attack on a particular society and its values (or more properly its vices). A satire will usually be a black comedy. Many satirical films were made criticising the American military in Vietnam in the 1970s. Usually these were ‘disguised’ attacks since the films were set in another time period. M*A*S*H (US 1970) was set in the Korean War of the early 1950s and showed complete contempt for military discipline with ‘liberal’ doctors fighting to save lives in an ineptly-run field hospital, while openly challenging the basis for the war. 
• surrealism and the absurd. Some films that have had a comic effect have achieved it by moving away from ‘realistic’ situations to obviously impossible scenarios with characters acting in unusual ways and/or events that seem unconnected by any logic. Surrealism is a movement in art which attempts to represent the world of dreams rather than reality. The ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ was the name given to many plays written in the 1950s and 1960s which portrayed human life as essentially meaningless or at best irrational – these plays could be seen as ‘black comedies’ exposing the meaningless lives of people in contemporary society. Modern films don’t go so far but do draw on surrealist and absurdist humour. 

Being John Malkovich (US 1999) is an absurdist comedy in which a secret floor in an office block gives access to the inside of an actor’s head. 

One way to think about these different kinds of comic effects or as one writer puts it “different ways of inducing laughter” (Neale 2000) is to consider the tension between ‘realist’ and ‘surrealist’ films. A great deal of comedy is based on ‘real life’ experiences that everyone has. In the classic short film The Music Box (US 1932), Laurel and Hardy try to deliver a piano in a wooden crate to a house at the top of a very long set of steps. This is a ‘real’ situation – you may have got stuck yourself moving furniture through a door etc. What is ‘unreal’ is the physical abuse the pair sustain – the piano is dropped on Ollie several times without any noticeable damage to piano or man. In other films, like Monty Python’s Holy Grail (UK 1975), the setting may look ‘real’ enough but the absurdity of what happens (animated dragons, silly voices, spoofs of other films etc.) pushes the film towards the absurd and ‘anti-realism’. 

Analysing the comedy film 

You should now have at least two ways of analysing comedy films. You can discuss in formal terms how much they depend on gags or situations, you can suggest different genres and different types of comic effect. In your exam, you will have to show that you can deal with comedy films in relation to the Key Concepts of Media Studies. So far, we have discussed aspects of Narrative and Genre. The remainder of this pack looks at the other Key Concepts. 

Representation 

Comedy, like drama, depends on conflicts, in particular between weak and strong characters. Much comedy arises from the success of the weak in deflating the powerful. On the other hand, comedy is also a weapon against fear of the unknown. At one time, anyone who was unlike ‘us’ was to be feared, and in these situations the basis for comedy could be racism or sexism (you may be surprised at how racist and sexist some films from the past can now seem). It is perhaps a sad reflection on the human condition, but most comedy is ‘offensive’ to someone. If it wasn’t the film, play, novel etc. would be bland and not very funny. How do you think a word like ‘wicked’ could come to mean ‘excellent’? 

Heroes and protagonists 

Comedy is the opposite of drama in the sense that the conventional hero type is unlikely to be the focus of attention – the protagonist of the story (the character who ‘drives’ the story along). The hero of the comedy is unlikely to be conventionally handsome or strong and brave if a man or attractive and poised if a woman. The comedy hero is usually ‘flawed’ (which makes them more ‘human’) and subject to various kinds of abuse. The great comic creations in cinema are very often ‘put upon’ and downtrodden – Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp, Stan and Ollie, Woody Allen etc. One of the biggest contemporary comedy stars is Jim Carrey, a ‘funny-faced’ buffoon. Women are loud like Whoopi Goldberg or ‘ditzy’, ‘dumb blondes’ like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde (US 2001). Comedy films are not ‘politically correct’ and they get away with characterisations that probably wouldn’t be possible in dramas. However, as we noted above, comedies usually have ‘happy endings’, in which the unlikely hero triumphs.⁷ 

Comedy and stereotypes You will have come across stereotypes⁸ elsewhere in your course. Comedy uses stereotypes more than most other forms of narrative. Partly, this is because the gag works so quickly that it must introduce a character who is instantly recognisable – an exaggerated type. It is worth looking at examples of early film comedy to see this at its most obvious. Women are either young and beautiful or old and ugly. Men are pompous officials, gruesome criminals, innocent fresh-faced youths, dirty street urchins etc. We don’t need ‘characters’ as such, merely ‘symbols’ or ‘types’ that we recognise immediately. The stereotype might also refer to ‘national identity’, ‘ethnic identity’ etc. as well as age, gender etc.⁹ 

Comedy and national culture 

The cultural basis for comedy also throws up the contradiction of ‘international comedy’. Early cinema stars such as Chaplin were hugely popular in every country across the world, but there are now assumptions that comedy doesn’t travel and massively popular films from Germany, Spain, France etc. are rarely released in the UK. The ‘language of comedy’ is no longer ‘universal’ – what makes us laugh is tied into an understanding of our popular culture. Even when two countries share the same language, like the UK and 

Jim Carrey and the late John Candy were both born in Canada. Many US comedy stars were either from 

immigrant families or grew up in specific ethnic communities – what advantage is there in being an 

‘outsider’ if you want to become a comedian? 

A stereotype is a representation of a whole group of people by means of a single person who displays easily recognisable personal qualities or behaviour. 

In the UK, comic stereotypes were for many years the basis for the seaside postcard, with rednosed drunk men leering after busty young women and being held back by their ‘battleaxe’ wives. 

the US, the types of comedy associated with each culture are different. American comedies are more about success and achievement whereas British comedies tend to be about ‘muddling through’. 

Exercise 

Think of any recent American comedies you have seen – could they be re-made in the UK? 

 Choose just one film and write an outline of 150 words describing the characters, location and plot. 

Inbetweeners Movie - 4 ‘lads’ who have just left school set out on their first holiday away from their parents, seeking nothing more than sun, sea, booze, minge, fanny and sex.  However they are new to the party scene, meaning they fail to attract any girls whatsoever for a large chunk of the holiday as well as being stuck in an unexpected dirty, old motel which is far from any sign of party life. After many attempts the boys all find a girl to be ‘friends’ with, some may not be the same as they first imagined, but with their luck they would take anything. After having a rough time for most of the holiday, by experiencing things such as being conned into an empty bar, being declined by many girls, and also getting clothes stolen, being left naked to walk around the party island in Crete, the boys get lucky when they end up on the party boat for the last event of the holiday, however this may not have been the best decision for one. In the end they all find love, and end up coming home with their new lovers and introducing their new friends to the parents.

Realism and fantasy 

If you are asked to write about representation in a comedy film, it is worth considering whether the film uses ‘realism’ (shooting in real locations with believable characters who could live in the setting) or ‘fantasy’ in which ‘larger than life’ characters have impossible adventures such as those of Austin Powers. Most comedy films fall somewhere between the two extremes with recognisable characters in exaggerated situations. If you want to describe a comedy film as ‘realist’ or ‘fantastic’, make sure that you can provide some evidence from the film to back up your assertion. Remember, even if a film is a fantasy, it can still offer some kind of commentary on life as we know it, reinforcing or subverting ideas about what ‘normal’, ‘acceptable’ etc. 

Whose joke? 

Another important representation question is “who writes the script, who is the joke aimed at?” This often means looking at who has the power in the film production – the director, the writer, the star, the producer? There are far fewer women working as comedians or in lead roles as comic actors in films (although there are plenty of successful women in American television comedies). The same gender imbalance is also found in the case of directors, writers etc. So, even if women form the majority of the audience for comedy films, men still tend to control the films’ production. 

There are several successful African-American comedians who have become stars of comedy films. Are there also African-American producers, writers and directors? It may be interesting to find out how much control the performers have over there own material. 

The UK Cinema Audience in 2000 according to CAVIAR (Cinema and Audio Visual Industry Audience 

Research).¹¹ 

Many films made for African-American audiences (and some Black British films) are eventually shown on the Black Entertainment Television (BET) channel on American cable television. The recent success in the UK for British Asian comedy performers and comedy films prompts similar questions about the UK film and television industry. What kinds of representations of ethnic cultural differences are shown on cinema screens in the UK? Have they changed since writer-performers like Meera Syal became successful?