Year: 2021
Type: book-review
Abstract: With a wide array of comedy styles in film, settling on one definition of comedy is virtually impossible.Historically, the "comedy" label has been a product of the film industry's marketing strategy designed to attract audiences and set expectations of a film's content.Whether or not comedy has the ability to cross cultural and geographic borders is a long-standing debate among humor scholars.Many humor researchers have taken on the daunting undertaking of exploring cultural differences.William V. Costanzo embraces the challenge of exploring the portability of film comedy and executes the task with great precision in When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West.He describes the different types of comedy featured in films from around the world, weaving common themes of analysis throughout each region while being sensitive to the variations among and between cultures.Because each culture is different, so too is the definition of what earns a film the moniker of comedy.For example, unlike applying the traditional image of the iconic Greek smiling and frowning masks to differentiate comedy from tragedy, Costanzo points out that there is no clear distinction between the two in some Eastern cultures.The differences call for considerable explanation, which he accomplishes in the book.The book is divided into two sections.Section One introduces frameworks, theories, and foundational tools used to answer "why" audiences laugh in terms of "what" form of comedy the films take, "when" released in terms of historical context, "where" the films originated, "who" are the targeted characters, and "how" various film techniques function.In Section Two, he further addresses those questions of "why, what, when, where, who, and how" in the analyses of films from four countries and four regions around the world.Chapter 1 explores humor theories and includes input from well-respected humor scholars.Costanzo lays out three main humor theories and links them to film comedy: incongruity (including common themes such as mismatched travel companions and fish-out-of-water stories); superiority (which invite the audience to laugh at the fool or dupe); and relief (an offer of release from aggression and suppression).
Author: Patrice A. Oppliger
Institution: Boston University
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4244968519