Do Film Critics and Scholars Ignore Most Comedy Movies?

     I do not want the reader to misinterpret the above statement as claiming “critics and scholars determine comedy to be bad”; however, by ignoring its significance, they seem to argue that it is not good enough to have aesthetic value.  To demonstrate to the reader how comedy is left out in much of the literature of film criticism, I have compiled data from a variety of film associations and media publications.
    In 1998, to mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of the motion picture, the American Film Institute decided to create a list, ranking the 100 greatest films of the first 100 years of filmmaking.  They clearly touched on a popular idea, for many other institutions and publications followed suit.   In the list of the 100 greatest films of all time, AFI only includes ten comedies: Some Like It Hot (#14, directed by Billy Wilder 1959), Dr. Strangelove (26, Stanley Kubrick 1964), Annie Hall (31, Woody Allen 1977), It Happened One Night (35, Frank Capra 1934), Tootsie (62, Sydney Pollack 1982), The Gold Rush (74, Charlie Chaplin 1925), City Lights (76, Charlie Chaplin 1931), Modern Times (81, Charlie Chaplin 1936), Duck Soup (85, Leo McCarey 1933), and Bringing Up Baby (97, Howard Hawks 1938).  To clarify, The American Film Institute has determined that of the 100 greatest films ever made, only 10% are comedies.  Notice also that three of the ten films are works of Chaplin.
    In 2008, AFI decided to update their original list to 13% comedies, including The General (#18, Buster Keaton 1926), The Philadelphia Story (44, George Cukor 1940), and A Night At The Opera (85, Sam Wood 1935).  Some Like It Hot (now #22), Dr. Strangelove (39), Annie Hall (35), It Happened One Night (46), Tootsie (69), The Gold Rush (58), City Lights (11), Modern Times (78), Duck Soup (60), and Bringing Up Baby (88) return to the list, though in a different order than in the previous list.  Once again, the reader may notice that Chaplin still has the most entries.
    On American Movie Classic’s Filmsite, editor-in-chief Tim Dirks compiled a list of the 100 greatest films that appear on many such lists.  He elected to include 13 comedies: Annie Hall, Bringing Up Baby, City Lights, Dr. Strangelove, Duck Soup, The General, The Gold Rush, His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks 1940), It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges 1941), Modern Times, A Night At The Opera, and Some Like It Hot.  Apparently, he was feeling more generous towards comedy when compared to other critics.  Critics at Yahoo.com include 11 comedy films in their list of the “100 Movies To See Before You Die”: Annie Hall, Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks 1974), Bringing Up Baby, Dr. Strangelove, Duck Soup, Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis 1993), It Happened One Night, M*A*S*H (Robert Altman 1970), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones 1975), National Lampoon’s Animal House (John Landis 1978), and Some Like It Hot.    
     When Time Magazine set about to declare the “All-Time 100 Movies” in 2005, critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel decided to include only 6 comedies: The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey 1937), City Lights, Dr. Strangelove, His Girl Friday, It’s A Gift (Norman Z. McLeod 1938), and Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer 1949).  According to these two critics, of all the greatest films, only six of them are comedies.  Only 5% of Total Film Magazine’s “Greatest 100 Movies of All Time” list from 2010, are comedies: Annie Hall, Dr. Strangelove, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, and Some Like It Hot.  The lowest blow to film comedy came from The British Film Institute, which did not include a single comedy in its Top 10 Films list in 2002.  
     If we were to create an aggregate from the percentages of comic films represented in these lists, we would find that the general consensus among the critical community is that only about 8% of the most significant films are comedies.  Also, consider that from the above examples, the same handful of films appears on multiple lists—indicating the small canon of currently recognized comedies.  These facts suggest the clear state of the current critical and scholarly view of film comedy.
     The lack of study of comedy indicates that many academics feel that it is not worthy of study, not that there is a lack of comedy films to analyze.  As we look further at the state of comedy film criticism and research, it will become quite clear that a lack of a clear critical language specifically crafted for the analysis of comedy is one of the leading causes for critics to overlook comedies: they simply do not know how to write about it. 

The Current State of Film Comedy Research

   Many before me have written about the history of film comedy, the significant comic minds of the Twentieth Century, and how the films are a reaction to the times. The significance of the historical and cultural contexts in which films exist cannot be overstated.  The effect of historical events and changes in the culture are important to the comedies that appear at specific times, and sometimes the films themselves may influence the culture.  Some academics catalogue the various comic styles, defining them as “comedian comedies”, “slapstick”, or “Screwball”, among others.  Although a few scholars have tried to discover what makes a comedy funny or to compare or contrast comedies to non-comic genres, to the best of my knowledge, no scholar has ever tried to determine why critics do not give comedies the recognition that I argue they deserve.
    Viewing comedy as a social activity is much more a component than with other genres,  For example, with a gathering of friends, it would be commonplace to watch a Pink Panther or a Marx Brothers picture.  This situation could possibly be due to the fact that a comedy (which can be quite episodic) can withstand an interruption such as a conversation during a viewing, which could be disruptive to the viewing of a non-comic film.  It would be rare for friends to gather as a social activity and then view a tragedy like Love Story (Arthur Hiller 1970) or Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli 1968), although I do not wish to negate the ability for people to bond through watching a tragedy.  The idea of comedy as a communal experience helps explain what makes comedy unique.

A Definition of the Comedy Film

   I must begin this section by reiterating that there is no universal, unified definition of comedy, While dozens of scholars have attempted to craft definitions of comedy since the earliest days of Greek comedy, it is difficult to even gauge what the components of a successful comedy are. 
     To help me in the study that I did, I found common things among the comedy films I watched, I dub them the Four Principles of Comic Effect.  Together, these Principles do not form a universal definition of comedy, rather they reveal the themes and conventions that make comedy what it is—which is perhaps the closest one can get to a functional definition of comedy.  
    First, is The Principle of Comic Timing.  This Principle includes the elements of surprise, discovery, revelation, and anticlimax—shown so well through the medium of film with which a filmmaker can disclose or withhold information through shot choice. Expectations and assumptions of the audience—either previously held or encouraged by the filmmaker’s use of patterns—fuels the Comic Timing, 
     Here is where comedy and horror films diverge.  Both rely on the unexpected, but comedy uses an aspect of surprise for its comedic absurdity, while horror uses it as suspense.  The surprise of comedy occurs when the comic performer goes against the viewer’s conception of what is socially permissible.  However, for the suspense of horror to work, the viewer must anticipate that something horrific will happen—the unexpected occurs because the viewer does not know when the horrific thing will happen.  Some may argue that the surprise of horror results in a more predictable outcome of fright or shock, while the surprise of comedy may lead to many things such as absurdity, unpredictability, chaos, a pause, or even a shift in the narrative.  One may see a great example of the element of surprise as a narrative shift in comedy in the “and now for something completely different” style of the Monty Python pictures.  
     Following expectations, points of coincidence fall under Comic Timing.  At its greatest extent, this Principle can totally catch the viewer off guard with a total reversal or opposition of what the viewer expects.  Through this Principle, the comedy may go against socio-cultural expectations, entering the domain of taboo.
    The second Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Logic.  Under this Principle fall the comic methods of exaggeration, excess, caricature, imitation, and mockery.  Exaggeration follows as a product of the logic of the absurd by functioning in a way that makes sense within the frame of the comedy, but seems ridiculous outside the comedy. Following these methods are the complementary methods of repetition, recurrence, and intensification.    As I shall demonstrate using the case studies, recurring events and repetitive actions and motifs result in a compounding of the actions or motifs, intensifying with each repetition.  
    The third Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Experience.  Comedy brings attention to the external, physical, and literal. Under this Principle, we have the comic trait of impersonation and disguise—most commonly seen by the cross-dressing gags in movies like Bringing Up Baby and Some Like It Hot.
    The last Principle of Comic Effect is The Principle of Comic Sense, which describes the lack of awareness featured by so many comic characters.  Comedy often comes as a result of absent-minded characters, From Cervante’s Don Quixote to Peter Seller’s Inspector Clousseau, a character that is unaware of his own flaws makes us laugh. Physically enacted, this absentmindedness leads to clumsiness.  As for a comic character’s traits, her precipitance, or penchant for jumping into situations without any forethought of consequences comes from this Principle—best shown by Katharine Hepburn’s character of Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby.  In terms of interaction among characters, comic sense leads to the possibility of misunderstanding, confusion, and deception—again seen in Bringing Up Baby, as well as in The Ladykillers.  
    Following the Four Principles of Comic Effect, I shall now present the first four themes that I have identified as commonalities across many comedies.
     First, I find that comedy goes against the conventions of filmmaking.  1) Comedy can break the Fourth Wall. In comedy, the narrative is no longer the be all and end all, as gags often exist outside of the narrative.  2) A film comedy does not require closure—the resolution necessary for a fulfilling dramatic narrative.  The comic heroine or that comic heroine’s situation may appear at the end of the film exactly as it had appeared at the beginning—with no apparent transformation within the heroine or with her situation.  3) In comedy, when one actor can play several roles, it not only works, it shows true comic merit.  Often, the comedienne takes precedence over any character she may be portraying.   As I stated above, in addition to these broken film conventions, comedy is the only genre of film that comfortably, and frequently, addresses social taboo.
    The second common theme among comedies is that comedy is a struggle between limiters and disruptions;  In comedy, gags may upset the narrative structure with no undue consequences.  It is up to the filmmaker to craft a narrative that makes it possible for other narrative events to keep the gags in check.  Typically, every comedy has at least one comic character and one serious character, or ‘straight-man’, in order for the comedy to work.  As part of this balance, we often see comic characters that are ‘The Other’, one who does not fit into the preexisting social mold.   This is frequently true in the films of Chaplin as well as the anarchic comedies.  
    The third common theme is that comedy is an essential part of humanity, marking us as distinctly human.  Comedy gives us the opportunity to deal with life honestly, because with comedy we are forced to laugh at ourselves, no matter how uncomfortable.  It causes us to drop our guard in order to deal with truths that might otherwise be painful,  Comedy forces us, as viewers, to acknowledge the flaws that we all have. The nature of comedy allows us, as individuals, to lower our defenses and to address issues openly and honestly.  In this sense, comedy is necessary for a fulfilling life.  I would even argue that life is the great comedy—if we allow it to be that by acknowledging and expressing our genuine selves, flaws included.