The film industry is one of the most developed and, as a result, one of the most influential branches of the show business. Discussion of the film industry is a rather interesting topic because of a number of factors. Firstly, because film-making is a unique process and there are no analogous processes in the world as it combines the features of several genres of art and thus creates a completely new and unique phenomenon – a film. Secondly, because products of the film industry become more and more popular with every year. Since television appeared the movies produced by numerous film-making companies attract more and more attention from the audience throughout the world and win new markets for their sale. Thirdly, and the most important, the influence of the film-making companies and of their particular products, i. e. certain movies, is immense on the audience and these are interesting questions to analyze – why are movies or certain movie genres so popular?
What makes them so important for people? How do they influence the masses of people so that the audience keeps attending films and buying them and employs some things from the films in real life? These are the question that we are going to deal with in this essay. The books of such researchers as Michael Petracca, John Lyden, and Wes Gehring will be of considerable help for us in order to achieve the set goal of this work. We are going to analyze one particular film genre – the genre of comedy – and to see all the reasons for the movie’s popularity according to this specific example. To start with, let us take a brief look at the history of such a movie genre as the genre of comedy. It is one of the oldest genres among all of them.
The first silent movies of the end of the 19th century – then the beginning of the 20th century were comedies that is why this genre has a long and rich history. The actors like Charlie Chaplin made a great contribution to the development of the film industry on the whole, and to the development of the comedy genre in particular. From the very beginning of the history of the comedy genre, the movies of this genre attracted wide audiences because they were not definitely oriented and fitted for any age, sex, or social group of people (Bohn, 1975). The main purpose of the films of this genre has always been to entertain the audience, to make it forget all the life troubles, and to have at least a couple of hours of a good time. There were also comedy films aimed in another direction – at laughing at politicians or other famous or notorious people of a certain epoch. The third type of comedy film consists of parody movies that make fun of famous movie masterpieces showing the drawbacks of this or that film and helping the audience to relax (Gehring, 2000). The comedy genre continued to develop and turned into one of the most popular movie genres in the world. Nowadays new comedy films are eagerly awaited all over the world, famous television stars turn into comedy actors and actresses as television now does not give such level of income and popularity as the movie industry does.
Why then are comedy movies so popular? Why not horror films or romantic love stories? In order to answer these questions, we have to find out why people go to the movies at all. The book by Michael Petracca called “Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture Upper Saddle River” gives us assistance with the findings necessary for this research. The author speculates in his book about the reasons for the movie’s popularity and connects it with the worldwide spread of pop culture that has a huge influence on social opinions and people’s lifestyles.
Michael Petracca thinks that there are many reasons why movies are popular and why people do attend them. Among the most important reasons, there is pop culture influence, being addicted to the American Dream or other ideas of this kind, changes in the people’s consciousness caused by various social, economic, and geopolitical events taking place all around the world (Petracca, 2004). All these reasons can easily be applied to comedy movies as well as to any other movie genre. Comedies reflect today’s reality of the epoch, make fun of its drawbacks and sins, and can be spread all over the world for a large audience to see them. Social and political ideas that are nothing but fiction with no practical use also find their place in comedy movies. Finally, in the time of stresses and catastrophes, comedy movies are the only outlet for people’s emotions, they make you forget about the troubles and have a good time.
Another approach to the issue of movies popularity is expressed in the scholarly work by a prominent American scientist John Lyden. His book under the title “Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals” reveals the so-called “psychological” side of the pop culture phenomenon. John Lyden ponders on the topic of movies becoming a new religion for great masses of people in all countries. The impact of mass culture and movies spread over the mass consciousness is immense and the ideology of certain films, Hollywood values, and other pop culture elements become integral parts of human life and people can not find any way out of a difficult situation in life if there is no advice in this or that movie they “worship”. Numerous atheist and anti-religious movements take their roots in the movies becoming a new religion with Hollywood as its “prophet”. Religious conflicts appear here and there based on a certain movie plot or some ideas expressed in this or that movie. Movies, as well as other kinds of art gradually become weapons and can do a lot of harm to mankind if the situation develops according to John Lyden’s theory (Lyden, 2003). Examples of anti-muslim cartoons made by Danish artists and the controversy risen by the film “The Passion of The Christ” directed by Mel Gibson warn the people that they should treat the power of art more carefully. As for the role of comedy films in this aspect, we can state that their influence upon people’s beliefs is not so great as one of “serious” movies but a film with a provoking underlying message of a religious character can have no less resonance than a political speech or an act of racism.
Here comes another aspect of the popularity of the comedy genre – the type of comedy film called parody. They relate directly to the previous, religious, aspect of the topic as the parodies are distinguished by the high level of sarcasm and even offenses of certain people and institutions that their resonance can be unpredictable. But in regard to the popularity of the parody genre, we can say that it has become popular only recently. Earlier, parodies and actors starring in them were considered not very skillful, but then people realized that acting in a parody demands not only a talent but also a rather rare ability to acquire features of other persons. When this became a fact the genre of comedy, and especially parody as its type, became very popular (Gehring, 2000).
All the above said draws us to the following conclusion of this critical essay. The popularity of a film or a movie genre is predetermined by several factors, and one can not underestimate the importance of any of them. Firstly, the popularization of movies, in our case of comedies, is the result of the worldwide spread of pop culture that has a great influence on the mass consciousness and, sometimes, regulates people’s actions and thoughts. Secondly, people themselves search for some outlet for their negative emotions, and entertainment, especially comedy movies, is one of the best ways to find this outlet. That is why, I think, movies are nowadays so popular and influential phenomenon which influences almost all the spheres of human life.
Works Cited
Gehring, Wes. Parody as Film Genre: Never Give a Saga an Even Break. Ball State University Press, 2000.
Lyden, John C., Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
Petracca, Michael and Madeleine Sorapure. Common Culture: Reading adn Writing About American Popular Culture Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004.
Thomas W. Bohn and Richard L. Stromgren, Light and Shadows: A History of Motion Pictures. Mayfield Publishing, 1975.