The Hangover and the Age of Jokeless Comedy | Hacker News Reader

The Hangover and the Age of Jokeless Comedy

nytimes.com

18 pointstta4 comments

I had never thought about categorizing movies in this way, now that I am it seems very clear. Some comedies revolve around the characters, their interaction and their situation in a funny, yet vaguely realistic way ("The Hangover"). Other comedies are blatantly absurd and ridiculous and are propelled forward by the jokes themselves which are often slapstick, the characters are tend to be flat and their situations simply a frame to hang the jokes upon ("Airplane!" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/).

I agree with the OP, having a mix of these types of comedies is a good thing. Too many of one or the other type wears on an audience. I haven't seen "The Hangover II" but already I have concerns that it will be funny in parts yet depressing overall ("Very Bad Things," http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124198/).

"Very Bad Things" was a much funnier take on the exact same plot as "The Hangover." The latter is almost a bowdlerized version of the former. All the edgy material has been removed for your protection.

Some bros go to Vegas. They cut a little too loose. Consequences and comedy ensue.

In "Very Bad Things," the consequences constitute a hilarious tragedy. The bros' wickedness comes back to bite them again and again, and we laugh as their lives spiral into doom. The laughs aren't in Vegas, they're in the plausible consequences of partying too hard.

In "The Hangover," the consequences are puerile gags featuring overgrown man-children. There is nothing that could possibly depress you in the film. After all the mayhem, nothing happens.

After waking up to the evidence of multiple felonies and life-threatening situations, the broheims just walk back to their old lives. Everything that was funny about "Very Bad Things" is absent. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

Buster Keaton noticed the opposite in his time. He mentioned in his autobiography that there was a silent comedian whose movies got bigger laughs than himself, Chaplin, or Lloyd. Lots of absurd cartoony stuff, like jumping into an empty swimming pool, then coming out of the hole with a Chinese family, or being shot out into space. Keaton noticed that guy's movies got bigger laughs, but audiences didn't remember scenes from his movies like they did for Chaplin and himself.

If people remember lines from Airplane! it's not necessarily due to the absurdity. They could just be good lines. Try remembering a line from any of the Scary Movies.

Excellent article, although a bit too long to make the point.

I enjoy the jokeless comedy a lot, but precisely because of its common irrelevant stream-of-though kind of dynamic and its lack of punch lines or gags in general, I can usually recall very few parts of these movies. I thought I was having memory problems!

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