1970’s Comedy Films
Comedy is a genre of film that emphasizes mainly on humor by highly exaggerating the characters attributes to bring out an amusing effect. It mainly draws inspiration from society and thus is liable to change over time. Since the development of sound in the 1920s, laughter could result not only from imitation, but also dialogues which later came to be the defining attributes of the genre for the decades to come. The 1970’s stood out as in the style and content when compared to the previous eras.
The 1970’s comedy industry was marked by the birth of stand-up comedy, controversial sitcoms, and most notably, radical romantic comedy. The radical romantic comedy was mainly influenced by political upheavals at the time and seemed to represent a new period of rejecting established conventions in society (McDonald, 2012). This form of comedy shared visual and thematic aspects with Screwball and sex comedy, although in some works, it seemed to be an entire breakaway genre. The main quality of this style is that it literary inflected social norms. Additionally, the genre shied from exploding and scheming male plot lines which were custom part of comedy structure and humor. By deliberately withholding male deceit, radical comedy gave the impression that everybody lives a lie (McDonald, 2012). For example, in “Heartbreak Kid”, Lenny halfway through his honeymoon, realizes that he does not know anything about his wife; the more he finds out about her, the less he likes it. He meets a new woman, but the deception and lies continue to where he cons his way to marry her. Therefore, the 1970’s comedy films came out as radical while trying to portray love.
References
McDonald, T. J. (2012). Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. New York, NY: Columbia University Press
