What’s up, guys? Michael here. I have a question: When’s the last time you went
to the movies specifically to see a comedy? What about a rom com? If you’re like most
Americans, it’s probably been a minute. People in general are skipping out on your
classic funny-bone-tickling films, and comedies that succeed at the box office are becoming
the exception rather than the rule. We’re seeing lots of comedies flounder this year,
from Booksmart to The Beach Bum to The Long Shot to Late Night and on and on and on. Even
Men in Black: International only pulled in 250 million, a pale comparison to the 624
million its predecessor Men in Black 3 made. Indeed, you could almost hear the industry
breathe a collective sigh of relief when the recent comedy Good Boys hit 21 million in
its opening weekend, making it one of only two comedies to hit #1 in the box office this
year. Comscore media analyst Paul Dergarabedian summed up the situation, saying, “This is
like a unicorn sighting.” Even so, 21 million is a sum that probably wouldn’t have even
made us blink circa the summer of 2009, when the The Hangover pulled in a cool 45 million
during its opening weekend.
If you scan a list of top performing films of the late 90s, or even the early to mid
aughts, a whole lot of them are comedies. What happened to the days when Austin Powers
ruled the box office? Where’s our 2019 Pretty Woman? And, just for argument’s sake, why
no Hangover IV? The truth is traditional film subgenres like the rom com or those gross
out comedies of the 1990s seem about as culturally relevant as a late night sockhop at a high
school gymnasium.
But before you grab that comedy-shaped casket from your closet, let’s look a little closer.
Is comedy really dead? What if it never even existed in the first place? Let’s find out
in this Wisecrack Edition on the maybe death of comedy?
We think a quick recap of the current comedy landscape is in order. News outlets like The
Hollywood Reporter have made a habit of sounding the alarm about the death of comedy films.
We’re treated to ever more dire statistics showing comedic box office flops, And we’re
seeing fewer laugh out loud comedies Total box office revenue for comedies shrank from
2.5 billion in 2009 to just 1 billion in 2018. In 2018, comedies accounted for just 7.2%
of all domestic box office revenue.
So what made traditional comedy films an endangered species? You the easy answer might be the
ever-proliferating streaming services, but the answer is a little more complicated. Also,
it involves China.
As you, a presumable human being watching YouTube, certainly know, consumers have more
entertainment options than ever before. You can stream anything your heart desires on
10 different competing platforms or watch your bestie eat tide pods on YouTube. Note
that these alternatives are typically cheaper than a movie ticket.
And how does a studio deal with the competition from all these sick TikTok compilations? They’re
going international, or at least, MORE international. Studios are coping with domestic losses by
trying to maximize their profits in places like China, Japan, India and France. Indeed,
in 2018, Warner Brothers earned just $1.9 billion dollars in North America, compared
to a hefty 3.6 billion dollars overseas. Across the board, international audiences are booming,
and the Motion Picture Association of America predicts that China will soon overtake the
US as the largest movie market in the world..
But how does one make an American film with widespread international appeal? It’s not
necessarily Meg Ryan really enjoying this sandwich. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Instead, it’s usually fast cars, big guns, and a superhero or two or three… or ten.
Indeed, comic book films and action flicks are a perfect fit for the international audience,
as they peddle largely in special effects that can be appreciated regardless of your
language or culture. As non-dialogue heavy films, they also require less pesky dubbing
or subtitles, while offering the universal appeal of watching shit blow up.
In contrast, comedies are NOT as easy to port over to a Bangladeshi theatre screen. That’s
because comedies rely a lot on cultural specificity. Just think of how different the British Office
is from its American counterpart. Or, how the show also spawned iterations in places
like India, Chile, and Finland - all with their own cultural quirks. If you’re still
thinking comedy can transcend international borders no problem, peep this 1996 Chinese
comedy God of Cookery. If you’re not from China - is this funny to you? Probably not.
The Rock breaking out of a cast with his bicep might be universal, but it’s hard to make
a comedy that really appeals to the international masses. Thus, studios aren’t really investing
in developing new comedy scripts the way they used to.
Judd Apatow, the literal creator of the modern Ford assembly line of comedies, echoes this
argument, telling Indiewire that comedy film basically died after the last writer’s strike,
which ended in 2008. Apatow says “I feel like the studios don’t buy as many scripts
now…. As a result, a lot of great comedy writers are going to television instead…”
So there you have it, our investigation comes to a close. Say goodbye to all your favorite
forms of comedy, from star vehicles for people like Will Ferrell and Meg Ryan to quality
parodies like Scary Movie to delightful gross out comedies like There’s Something About
Mary. Instead, if you feel like laughing, looks like you’re going to have to stick
to TikTok.
But wait… what about this? “As far as I’m concerned, that’s America’s ass”
That line brought the house down. Or take this moment from Get Out “I’m TS mother***ing
A, we handle sh*t” That’s genuinely funny, right? Indeed, comedian Jordan Peele’s seamless
transition into the horror genre hasn’t stopped him from showcasing his sense of humor.
Even though we’re buying a ticket to see a horror film, we also walk in pretty sure
that something’s going to make us laugh. “By the way I would’ve voted for Obama
for a third term if I could.” Has comedy just undergone some kind of metamorphosis?
To understand the cosmic forces at play in a Marvel movie like Endgame or a horror
film like Get Out, we’ll need to take a look at film scholar Geoff King. In his
book Film Comedy, King basically says that the term “comedy” can’t be fully understood
as just a genre, arguing that it is “so widespread as to be difficult to locate as
a single or stable generic… form.” Instead, he suggests looking at comedy as a mode. But...what’s
a mode - and how is it different than a genre? Simply put, a genre is a category of film.
Take, for example, the Western. Nearly all films within a genre will share certain essential
narratives, characters, or other features, like setting. Westerns typically have a rugged
cowboy, an expansive dusty American landscape, an aesthetically unappealing villain and some
form of a gun fight. Both the classic High Noon and the unclassic Wild Wild West share
these features and thus, both are westerns.
In contrast, a mode is a “manner of presentation.” It’s a mood or feeling, and all the choices
that contribute to that mood. It’s helpful here to think of how mode works in music.
A musical mode is a scale with specific notes and melodic features. Take the Dorian mode,
made up of these notes arranged in this manner. Both the traditional hymn “Drunken Sailor”
and the Latin Jazz songs “Oye Como Va” are written in the Dorian mode, though the
two songs belong to radically different genres. Similarly, in film, both Shazam and Once Upon
a Time in Hollywood use a comedic mode, though the former is also a superhero flick and the
latter is also a thriller and a drama. Got it? So, King’s argument goes, because “any
genre may be treated as a subject for comedy,' it's more accurate to see it as a mode, a
modifier of other genres rather than simply one in its own right.
While Film Comedy was published back in 2002, we’d argue that King’s point offers a
lens to look at comedy that is even more relevant today. Fewer comedy movies are made than ever
before, and the ones that are made fail at the box office. But we might still LAUGH at
the movies just as much. So, King’s diagnosis of comedy as more of a mode than a genre rings
truer than ever before. But how exactly does this “mode” of comedy manifest in movies?
At first glance, that seems simple: Comedy’s what makes you laugh. But what if, say, in
the cinematic masterpiece The Room, the filmmaker wasn’t trying to make you laugh? And what
if a comedy film like Bad Santa doesn’t make you laugh, even though it’s trying
to? It’s more complicated than just eliciting a laugh - it needs to be intentional. King
expands his definition of comedy in film as a mode that “tends to involve departures
from… what are considered to be the normal routines of life of the social group in question.”
Take a normal situation - You’re at the grocery store. Then add a departure from
your norm - You’re wearing a bathrobe and sandals and have to write a check for $0.69
- Tada! You have comedy.
The form of comedy can vary, it can result from incongruity - like a superhero hanging
out in a convenience store. Or it can result from exaggeration, like the Dad’s over-the-top
attempt to sound like a tough guy in Us: “So if y’all wanna get crazy, we can get crazy.”
Ultimately, King says, comedy results “from a sense of things being out of place, mixed
up or not quite right.”
Furthermore, modality isn’t just in the tone of the words being spoken or images being
shown. King notes that modality can be “complex and multi-dimensional”, and include elements
like the use of music, sound, or opening sequences. For instance, we can see how music is used
when Alison Williams’s character hilariously drinks a glass of milk segregated from a bowl
of fruit loops while listening to the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life.” Both sound
and even the use of color are funny in context. The cheery tune calls attention to the incongruity
of a diabolical character drinking a wholesome glass of milk while literally looking for
the next mark for her parent’s weirdo gang of brain-swapping yuppies. At the same time,
the flat-out bizarre method of cereal consumption defies common sense. Seriously - she doesn’t
even eat an entire fruit loop in one bite.
Or let’s look at how characters, narrative and tone can combine to create a comedic mode.
Take the opening scenes of last year’s Halloween reboot, in which a couple of true crime podcasters
attempt to interview Michael Myers. The whole sequence is full of self-aware commentary
on true crime culture and the commodification of popular criminal personalities. “We’re…
we’re making a podcast.” “We’re investigative journalists!” This scene feels decidedly
more comedic than anything we saw in the film’s 1978 predecessor. You can see the modality
of comedy working its way in, even as the film prepares us for lots of bloodshed.
And, of course, we can’t talk about modern comedy without dealing with Marvel, which
has basically turned the superhero film into a debatably knee-slapping comedic experience
with silly one liners, absurdist situations, and all the self-aware humor you could want.
Now one caveat - We think it’s reasonable to assume that, in simpler times of filmmaking,
it would have made more sense to view comedy as a genre. That’s because before the late
1950s, films typically conformed pretty neatly into defined categories, and were less likely
to borrow from one another. It was unlikely that you would see a sci-fi - drama like Arrival
or a funny drama like Juno. As a result, comedy may have acted more like a consistent genre
and less like a mode. But today, we’re seeing genres becoming increasingly more unstable.
Indeed, films today are more likely to take a buffet style approach to genre. Oftentimes,
these are used to appeal to more media-savvy audiences who have come to recognize tropes
in a more conscious way. As this happens, we see comedy becoming almost like ambient
background music.
Once we start thinking of comedy as mode rather than a genre, it becomes clear that our comic
sensibilities are not only alive, but perhaps even thriving. With the world an ever-larger
dumpster fire, maybe we’re more in need of a laugh than ever - even if we’re not
seeking it in the form of a washed up newscaster and his accidental profanity “Go f**k yourself
San Diego”
And of course, if you’re looking for a laugh, just turn on the TV, where comedy is more
than alive and well in the form of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, South Park,
Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, Silicon Valley and on and on and on. Even still,
we’d say comedy is also surviving on the big screen as a mode, and if you agree with
King, that’s all it ever was in the first place.
So what do you guys think? Is comedy in film deader than Uncle Ben after another Spiderman
reboot, or totally alive and well in unexpected ways? Are you digging Jordan Peele’s brave
new world of horror comedies or do you miss the days of Tom Cruise running a brothel in
Risky Business?? Let us know in the comments. And a big thanks to all our dope patrons who
support the channel and our podcasts. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button -