Laughter and Culture After reading this section, you should be able to:
examine the psychoanalytic theory of the function of jokes, both on an individual and social level.
discuss the relationship between film comedy and the repressed truths of American culture.
describe the history of racism in American comedy.
discuss comedy as the integration of an individual into society, and list several ways in which individuals can be integrated into social groups.
describe the sub-genre of comedies based around the cultural assimilation of immigrants, with attention to films such as The Circus and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
describe the sub-genre of comedies based on the integration of disparate social classes or professions, with attention to films such as It Happened One Night and Pretty Woman.
describe the sub-genre of comedies based on the integration of children into the world of adults, with attention to films such as Big.
Comic Disintegration and Disorder After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the genre of comedy as engaging forces disruptive to society, with reference to the films of the Marx Brothers.
discuss the genre of comedy as an attempt to regulate forces disruptive to society, with reference to the film Bringing Up Baby.
Containing Chaos After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the ways in which comedies simultaneously raise as a topic and solve social problems, with reference to the films Trading Places (urban poverty) and Pretty Woman (the subjection of women).
Comedy, Class and Democracy After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the class status of comedy as a historical genre as well as that of comedy as an American film genre.
examine the reasons behind the concentration of social mobility plots in the genre of comedy.
describe comedy's attitude toward change, and the relationship between change and narrative.
A Short History of American Screen Comedy After reading this section, you should be able to:
briefly discuss the history of both short and feature-length comedies in the silent era.
define "slapstick," and discuss the uses to which slapstick is put in silent comedy.
outline the characters, characteristics, and values of silent comedies starring the following actors, and discuss each of their relationships with technology, modernity, and urbanism: Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd.
discuss the ways in which the films of the above three actors serve as a cultural history of the 1920s.
Early Sound Comedy After reading this section, you should be able to:
examine the transition in actors as well as character types from silent to sound comedies.
discuss the hybrid form of the romantic comedy of the early 1930s, and consider the genres from which it drew its inspiration.
Screwball Comedy After reading this section, you should be able to:
examine screwball comedy as a genre merging "high" and "low" comedic styles, as well as describe what was considered to be "high" or "low" comedy.
discuss several goals of the Catholic Legion of Decency's campaign to reform the morals of film, and examine the effects this campaign had on the Production Code of 1934.
discuss the romantic comedy's strategy of internalizing the Code, with reference to Clark Gable's character in It Happened One Night.
discuss the effects the Code had on sexuality in the screwball comedy, with attention to both the suppression of sexuality as such and the display of sexual desire by other means.
examine the ways in which the screwball comedy proposes variations on the comedic theme of integration.
analyze the political stance of screwball comedy, both as a genre and in terms of the politics of films by various screwball comedy directors.
After the Screwball After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the politicization of comedy in Hollywood in the late 1930s and early 1940s, with attention to the films of Frank Capra and the later films of Charles Chaplin.
list several names associated with wartime comedies, and discuss the social and political function of comedies during wartime.
discuss the growing sexual explicitness of comedies of the postwar period.
analyze the films and characters of Jerry Lewis as figures for the suppressed anxieties and neuroses of conformist 1950s America.
discuss the relationship between comedies and consumerism in the 1950s.
Alienation and Self-Reflection: The 1960s and Beyond After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the sub-genre of black comedy, and discuss several of the black comedies of the 1960s.
discuss the relationship between parodies and mass culture, with attention to the works of Andy Warhol and Mel Brooks.
describe the characteristics of the characters and films of Woody Allen, with attention to both parodic and self-reflexive elements.
From Animal Comedies to Home Alone After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the characteristics of the sub-genre of animal comedy, and discuss several films in this genre from the late 1970s to the present day.
discuss the ironic appropriation of previous genres of comedy in comedies of the 1990s, with attention to films such as Sleepless In Seattle (romantic comedy) and There's Something About Mary (animal comedy).
