The Tragedy Of Comedies
Hahaha. And other things.
My sense of humor has never been more broken.
Perhaps it’s the TikTok algorithm that makes me laugh at the most fucked up or random things or maybe it’s a “things aren’t as good as they were back in my day” mentality, but it’s been a rough time at the movies lately when it comes to finding something to laugh at.
I’m not here to say that there hasn’t been anything good but some of my favorite comedic moments in theaters over the last few years have come from some of the bleakest and more dramatic material. Outside of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, I don’t see a single full-fledged comedy on my Top 20 list from last year, and some of my favorite laugh lines and sequences came from dramatic fare like TÁR, Babylon and The Banshees of Inisherin.
When asking a group of friends—Jake, Erica and Ben, so they get credit—what the best recent comedies have been, it didn’t go very far. The Nice Guys was brought up, which is one of the funniest (and best) movies of the last 10 years, but certainly far from a straightforward studio comedy. Just thinking through this, The Death of Stalin and Game Night were two of my first ideas, but those were both from 2018. Maybe Palm Springs, but that’s ultimately a 2020 rom-com with an outlandish sci-fi premise. It’s certainly far from the Judd Apatow era.
We now have Bottoms, which I’ll discuss more later, but it’s not like we’re swimming in rewatchable comedies over the last few years.
I think there are a few reasons for this. Let’s count the ways.
Stratification and TV
We’ve never had more options for things to watch. Or how to watch them. Just the other day I found myself watching clips from In Bruges segmented on TikTok. Now I’ve seen this movie plenty of times, so why was I watching a 43-second clip of it in a feed? I don’t know. And yet, there I was. With algorithms so prescient, it’s tough to get people on the same page, especially when it comes to what’s funny.
Movies are targeted now at international audiences and as many people as possible, so action is a more natural fit when it comes to hitting every quadrant as opposed to very specific references, jokes and bits that may only work if you have a certain type of knowledge heading into the movie. Especially when different languages are involved.
With movies becoming segmented blockbusters, the best comedies have found their way to television. If you want raunchy prestige, we’ve seen Veep and The Righteous Gemstones from HBO in the last decade. There are absurd sitcoms like What We Do in the Shadows and Superstore. Ted Lasso became a cultural phenomenon. Only Murders in the Building is a hit across all age groups. The Other Two and The White Lotus are both popular, well-regarded contemporary satires. Even more intricate, postmodern works like How To with John Wilson or The Rehearsal gravitate towards television as there’s more room for that type of indie work. Schitt's Creek, huge. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, closing in on its 20th season.
There’s more room on television nowadays for comedy as movies have been hierarchized into either big-budget superhero dramas, Oscar-centric films or independent projects.
With all of these streaming services, 10-20 episodes keep you on the platform for a lot longer than a two-hour movie. It’s all about holding your attention, not about what makes the most sense.
When these streaming services do decide to make a movie, it feels like they’re thrown together as quickly as possible and shoddily to say the least. Netflix, in particular, has a similar sheen to all of their comedies. Netflix products like You People and You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah or even studio comedies like Cocaine Bear feel like there was a premise and then a bunch of studio heads in a room just chucked ideas at the wall seeing what would make the lowest common denominator chuckle. The metaness of these projects lowers the stakes dramatically and every line is played as if the characters are in The Big Bang Theory, with a wink, a sly grin and very little else. I really, really hate these movies that feel more like pushing out content than actual moviemaking.
Growing up on laugh-a-minute comedies like those of Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow is a thing of the past. It’s not shocking that Pete Davidson turned to TV after middling fanfare for The King of Staten Island. Now he’s doing Bupkis for Peacock.
$$$
It’s kind of shocking to look at the domestic box office for 2003 compared to what we’re used to now. Of course, there’s Pixar (Finding Nemo) and Disney (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) at the top, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find quite a few comedies. Bruce Almighty and Elf, both original comedies centered on a massive star, are in the top ten U.S. movies, and Anger Management, Bringing Down the House and Freaky Friday all made the top 20. No. 21? Scary Movie 3.
There’s no thread holding these films together other than the fact that they made people laugh (hopefully), but the average American film-goer expected comedies on the big screen and actually went to them. These movies were made for mid-tier budgets and made back their money and then some. BUT they didn’t have the potential that a Jurassic World or Avengers could potentially earn, and that’s where the studios gravitated.
There should be more comedies budgeted and released in the vein of horror movies. Perhaps the most flexible genre, horror is the only place right now where something could be released by a relatively major studio and expect to do well. Talk to Me from A24 had a $4.5 million budget and has already grossed over $67 million worldwide. That’s pretty damn good.
And it’s not as if people aren’t showing up for comedies. Something like No Hard Feelings was budgeted for $45 million and has made just under $90 million worldwide. I’m not running a studio, but doubling my investment seems like a pretty good day at the office.
I’m fine with big-budget movies, but there should be room for these low- and mid-tier efforts that bring in general audiences and make their money back. It’s not that complicated. Whoever’s in charge needs to get their shit together. And pay the writers, but that’s a separate conversation.
Laziness
Okay, let’s (finally) talk about Bottoms, an American teen sex comedy distributed by MGM.
It’s so damn good.
There are actual laugh lines and outstanding set pieces and bravura performances. It’s a real movie that feels like it’s formulated by creatives as opposed to an AI program and it’s shot with care as opposed to comedies lately that feel like there’s only one camera and the entire team is constantly running out of time.
It’s nearly from a decade ago, but the above film-analysis video on Edgar Wright and how filmmakers should do visual comedy has really stuck with me. It shows how lazy the production of most comedy is. It’s one wide shot and then a close shot. Rinse, repeat. There are very few background gags or reasons to watch on a big screen as opposed to an iPhone. Edgar Wright has made a living out of world-building and Emma Seligman of Bottoms definitely uses similar tricks and techniques.
Of course, along with the directing, there’s the writing. And Bottoms is a sharp change from similarly-themed high school comedies. I’m thinking of Booksmart in particular, which was fun, but also felt a bit like a New Yorker essay on “what the teens are up to.” It was raunchy but only to an extent and its archetypal characters were all ultimately good souls that deserved only the best.
Bottoms may also take place in high school, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Bottoms is about a bunch of fuck-ups that know they’re fuck-ups and are just trying to be themselves (and get laid). Despite the heightened reality, it feels more real than most modern-day portrayals of teenagers. The characters are serious and the jokes come from how far they’ll go to get what they want.
Critic Vince Mancini wrote about this in a piece on Bottoms, which I really agreed with. He goes into detail on the concept of clapter, which is essentially when the audience claps at a joke because they agree with it instead of laughing because it’s actually funny.
In recent years, comedy movies have mostly been either too lazy or too mannered. We’ve gotten lots of half-written improv-as-streaming-company-loss-leader or neoliberal circle jerks like Booksmart, in which aspirational characters trade progressive memes we’re meant to nod at in recognition, but not much genuine laughter. 2016 scared the shit out of much of the artistic class, and comedy largely pivoted to affirmation in response (think: Kate McKinnon singing “Hallelujah” on SNL). Trouble is, the act of affirming is diametrically opposed to the kind of surprise on which most comedy relies.
When the girls in the club, which becomes a surprise hit at the school, sit in a circle cross-legged to pour out their hearts to one another, John Hughes-style, PJ casually begins the discussion, “So, who here has been raped?”
Many of the jokes in Bottoms are like this, clever and au courant, but delivered almost in the form of a challenge. Good luck trying to clap at this one, fucker.
Bottoms is the first comedy I’ve seen in theaters in a number of years that didn’t feel made for everyone possible in mind. It was made by a creative team for themselves. It’s a real “we love this thing and that love will translate” ethos and I appreciate that so much more than something market-tested into oblivion. There’s real care put into it despite its free-flowing mentality and anything-can-happen feel. It’s a great movie and a minor miracle that it was released in 2023.
Comedies can be fun. This is proof. Let’s make some good stuff again.
Please.