Leanne Harvey: Proposal--Revival of R-rated Comedies, or Not?

Leanne Harvey
Revival of R-rated comedies or not?


For my term paper I am choosing to looks at the genre of comedy films. These are films that I have always enjoyed and recently have read an article in the newspaper concerning comedy and what is to come of these types of films, what direction they are taking.

In the past few years we have had many different comedy films that have come out that are on the lines of some comedies in the past. For example Wedding Crashers, 40-Year Old Virgin and Old School all mimic the style of Animal House, Caddy Shack and Stripes which all came out in the late 70’s early 80’s. All of these movies being rated R.

Rated R-comedy moves for a few years dwindled away and did not do very good with society and in the box office. This style of comedy movies dwindled away for a few years. Is this the comeback for R-rated Comedy movies? Is this they type comedy movies that society wants? I plan on looking at the different types of comedy, farce, satire and screwball and the success of these and what is more accepted by society now. What type of comedy movies are becoming the big Blockbuster hits now compared to the years ago and what this says about society today.

I have been reading through many different articles and books about comedy films and have found many different views on the topic. Some of these views support mine and some do not at all. I do believe I can use both sides to support my stand on the issues.

My first source is one of the readings from class, Anatomy of Film by Dick Bernard on film genres. This really just gives me a start and backbone on the different categories of comedy films. It goes into explaining about satire, screwball and farce comedy and gives examples of each. Another one of my sources that is part of the backbone is the book Popular Film and Television Comedy by Stephen Neale and Frank Krutink. This books looks at different aspects of comedy films and what all goes into the; different types of jokes and comic events that are involved in comedies and how society plays a role and impacts comedy movies. There is also a journal/study done and published by Media Education Magazine that is titles Comedy Films for GCSE Media by Nick Lacey and Roy Stafford. It seems to by a study that they did through a school or university over in the UK in 2001. It goes into great detail about different comedy and how they are put into films. It gives examples of comedy films and breaks down everything that is in them to help understand what makes a comedy film. It is a very interesting article that doesn’t really leave any aspect out of any type of comedy film. It will be really helpful in breaking down the movies I will include in my paper. There are also a few news paper articles that I am going to include some quotes from. They have some great quotes from the actors involved in the movies and how they feel about the direction comedy films are going in. One if from The Hollywood Reporter, 'Bigalow' set to tap R rated comedy market By Martin A. Grove and the other is from MSNBC, R-Rated Comedy Makes its Comeback. These articles also include some of the gross incomes from different comedy movies that support what I think are happening with the trend of comedy movies. I have also used the IMD online to get information on the movies I plan to include in my paper, These so far include Animal House, Caddy Shack, Wedding Crashers, Old School, Stripes, 40-Year Old Virgin, Something About Mary, and While You Were Sleeping. I am sure there will be a few other movies that I will have to include in my paper to cover all different categories within the comedy genre but I will focus more on Wedding Crashers, Old school, 40-Year Old Virgin, Animal House, Caddy Shack and Stripes in the main “argument” of my paper being that they are the R-rated comedy movies.

I plan to examine the different categories within the genre of comedy and pick a movie or two from each category to use as a reference to that type of comedy movie. The main focus of my paper I want to be on R-rated comedies and their revival that I believe is happening. We had some great comedy movies that are extremely popular that were filmed in the early 80’s and today’s comedy movies are mimicking these lot. I have a feeling this has to do with society. I want to answer the question, Is this the comeback for R-rated comedy movie? To do this I will look at other non R-rated comedy movies and their success and what made the successful compared to these R-rated comedies. I will also look at the different contents in an R-rated comedy opposed to a PG or PG-13 comedy movies, What sets them apart so much. In the end I believe I will see that society has a big role in comedy films and that comedy films base themselves around society.