COMEDY’S FIRST REQUIREMENT?
To be nice and fun ? No. To have a big complaint. About anything.
COMPLAIN
Is the river dirty? Make the Mork river almost solid enough to never sink in it. Do we dislike the snobish hat? Let’s have it punched out from a head.
This is Robert McKee’s image of comedy. A frontal disappointed attack AGAINST anything that could be… Better. Anything the frustrated idealist of a writer hates.
Comedy is there to have us, flex our brains and reflect in front of the mirror of denounce that quickly turns sour as drama and boring or cringey as documentaries (depending the person, remember not everyone likes the same stuff).
Maybe these frustrated idealists should manage the chaos in their own rooms before criticizing. Maybe. Nuval Yoah Harari says we can believe in contradictory systems of ideas and it is in us to spot the contradictions since every single art work is based upon struggle. I would tell him the struggle is disappearing little by little but that is a different business.
TENSION RELEASE, CHANGED WORLD
According to Robert McKee, comedy is the way creators have to try and change the world at the same time the audience releases tension and that’s why critics hate it.
You can’t positively criticize something that either makes us laugh or not…
Such affirmation reminds me of a French movie I and my mother started watching in a bus [Serial (bad) weddings]. No further five minutes and the whole bus knew someone was laughing in the front seats… Unfortunately we started it half an hour from reaching destination; thus, I had to look it up later. It was in doing so that I found the most ridiculous critic I’ve read (104 million dollars raised in France).
The critic suggested that given the fact the three Verneuil (originally Catholic) sisters had married each a Jew, an Arab and a Chinese; why wouldn’t the fourth arrive with a professional well bred Catholic Caucasian… woman?To me, it was pretty obvious. The problem was racism. There’s nothing worst than to derise someone who meets the requirements: male, good looking, Catholic, hard worker ( tough an actor) just because the guy’s skin is different. That and that the sisters plot against the marriage whilst the Verneuil couple falls out for being unable to get their children to do as supposed.
A lesbian daughter certainly would be uncomfortable but not overwhelming. It can easily be dismissed as a phase by square minded audiences and wouldn’t embody the main problem since the other woman would still be… yes! A Caucasian woman.
Concluding, comedy can and will be criticized so no, McKee is not quite right about that.
POINTLESS SCENES?
Comedies and dramas are different… Because in comedies, social institutions are plastic chicken hit attacked or because comedies are free from narrative rules?
Let’s say it is because the rules are a bit more relaxed… If we believe what Robert McKee says about the Marx brothers’ movies. I have never watched any ( or I don’t remember watching any). Henceforth, I’ll have to take McKee up for his word, about 88.88% of the 90 minutes of the Marx brothers’ movies being pointless ( mathematics applied).
Pointless in the sense Sarah Domet says; we shouldn’t bother with any scene which purpose in the story is not clear or fundamental to causality.
Thus, the Marx brothers must be genial to sustain a movie with that little 11.12% of conventional narrative. Anyways, I think I have an idea about what stands for useless or pointless.
In Love advice from the Duke of Hell, there’s a scene with a one eyed octopus pouring tea just about the Hell’s gates, unconnected to any other plot’s moment of importance. And it is delicious ( or was at the moment).
That’s it about comedy for today. Pasto kalo.
