A History of Hollywood Comedy

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at comedians from the silent era such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the early talkies such as Mae West and the Marx Brothers, as compared to actors such as Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber" and Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty" and attempts to analyze why comedies from a long time ago may not be considered as funny by modern audiences.

From the Paper:

"In the past hundred years, the comedic motion picture industry has gone through a drastic change in the way movies are written, acted and structured. What began as silent black and white shorts has turned into colored films with sound, lasting up to three hours. While most of these changes came about with improved technology, changes in the way these films have been written have come about with a change in society as a whole. What people found to be funny and comedic in the past has dramatically changed from what people find funny today. Despite this, comedic critics today still consider works of Chaplin and Keaton and such to be masterpieces, even though the majority of "general" audiences today wouldn't find them as funny as a Jim Carrey. Alas we come across the question of why people have been finding different things funny as the times go by, and the main answer to this is that society's idea of what is funny has changed. However, the critics' idea of "good comedy" has not changed, and thus critics still consider the older silent films masterpieces."

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