Why Did Hollywood Stop Making Comedies? A Statistical Analysis (statsignificant.com) 180
Hollywood comedy production has declined 27% since 1990 despite audience demand ranking the genre second among those viewers "want to see more of," according to Letterboxd genre data and a 68,000-consumer survey. Comedy films average $26.5 million production budgets and double their investment returns at 102%, yet represent just 9.3% of sequel releases compared to action's 27.6%.
The shift reflects studios prioritizing internationally marketable franchises over domestically-focused comedies, which earn most revenue from US and Canadian audiences. Films like 1984's Beverly Hills Cop ($977 million inflation-adjusted) and Ghostbusters ($882 million) remain unmatched by contemporary releases -- with half of Letterboxd's most popular 2020s "comedies" being either non-comedic films like Saltburn or IP-driven movies like Barbie.
The shift reflects studios prioritizing internationally marketable franchises over domestically-focused comedies, which earn most revenue from US and Canadian audiences. Films like 1984's Beverly Hills Cop ($977 million inflation-adjusted) and Ghostbusters ($882 million) remain unmatched by contemporary releases -- with half of Letterboxd's most popular 2020s "comedies" being either non-comedic films like Saltburn or IP-driven movies like Barbie.
Seen South Park lately? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can do comedy if you don't mind offending half of your potential audience.
Universal Resort used to have a comedy show they'd do during Horror Nights with Bill and Ted. Now, you'd assume a bunch of half-drunk adults up past midnight intent on seeing chainsaws, blood and guts would be hard to offend, but one year they actually had to pull a joke because audiences complained.
You've gotta remember that the entertainment industry is still like any other for-profit industry - they want to earn a return on their investment. Putting out something that potentially makes half your customers angry is bad business (and something the richest man on Earth should've known before he did two sieg heil salutes on live television).
South Park is the least offensive thing (Score:2)
I could see some really dumb midwesterners getting offended if they stumbled across an episode and I can see a lot of fake outrage from the classic think of the children / could it be Satan crowd.
But besides that I can't see anyone really getting offended by South Park in 2025. Hell they wanted edgy in the late '90s.
South Park is at its best whe
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It's that kind of fake offensive where it's constantly trying to offend everybody off and on so much that it's just obvious bait.
Bait that the current administration swallowed hook, line and sinker. [reddit.com]
I could see some really dumb midwesterners getting offended if they stumbled across an episode and I can see a lot of fake outrage from the classic think of the children / could it be Satan crowd.
And that's exactly it - they're not watching the show. Alienating half your audience may work when you're producing content for a streaming service where people can just watch something else more to their liking, but we're talking about why Hollywood has cut back on comedy flicks. If you piss off half your audience for a movie, it's going to open to a half-full cinema.
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"You've gotta remember that the entertainment industry is still like any other for-profit industry - they want to earn a return on their investment."
Not according to Disney, but okay.
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Not according to Disney, but okay.
Actually, Disney was so afraid that their recent film Elio was too likely to "alienate" (see what I did there?) their audience, they went back and made several alterations to the script. One major change was that the main character would no longer be queer-coded. The movie still flopped even after taking out everything the woke police might've been upset about, so sometimes Disney just can't win for losing.
They'll probably make bank on Toy Story 5 though, so the profit chasing machine is still alive and w
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In the 1980s the UK had a new wave of comedians who didn't do what you might call politically incorrect jokes. Instead they did political satire, self deprecation, absurdist comedy, that kind of thing. It was a welcome change, much funnier and more interesting. We got some of the best comedy ever from that era - The Young Ones, Not The Nine O'Clock News, The Day Today/Brass Eye, and many more.
We need something like that now, to make it feel fresh again. It doesn't help that many of our politicians are now b
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You can do comedy if you don't mind offending half of your potential audience.
Simply offending people is not comedy. Writing jokes completely at a group's expense isn't comedy either. SouthPark's success at comedy is that it is able to come across as offensive while not offending. The jews can laugh at the Jewish jokes, the blacks at the black jokes, the lesbians at lesbian jokes, etc, it succeeds precisely because it doesn't offend thanks largely due to its own absurdity.
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Have you? Modern South Park is about as funny as a political cartoon.
I've found South Park to have gotten significantly less funny over the past several years, but I have laughed my ass off at the current season.
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Different cultures have different comedic tastes (Score:5, Interesting)
Another factor is probably due to most comedies don't cross across cultures. What the people in a country/culture currently find to be funny tends to be different from what the people in another country find funny. And the modern-day business of Hollywood aims to sell most of their movies in international markets.
Re:Different cultures have different comedic taste (Score:4, Interesting)
This will likely be the most significant reason. After all, comedies are typically much lower budget than an action blockbuster, so even with significantly worse box office performance they can have excellent returns. ...But you're unlikely to cross cultural boundaries with them very often, making your movie regional. Same investment, smaller potential market.
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Came here to say that: Comedies that are funny for US (and, apparently, Canadian) audiences are completely unfunny outside the US. Years ago I did two back-to-back flights to somewhere, one in the US with mostly US passengers, the other outside the US with mostly non-US passengers. The in-flight movie, showing how long ago this was, was some US comedy.
On the mostly-US leg people around me were laughing out loud, including the asshole seated behind me who kept shaking my seat when he laughed. On the mostl
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Airplane! was very funny for European audiences as well, despite many gags being incomprehensible (although, I guess, given the time that has passed since then, many of these gags are incomprehensible to contemporary US viewers as well).
People watch anime worldwide now, and still laugh about the comedy parts of it despite the Japanese culture being far more alien.
Therefore it is perfectly possible to make a comedy movie that will be successful worldwide if the comedy is not about very specific cultural refe
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It's been awhile but I love The Young Ones!
But I get your point as well, not exactly popular over here in the US. I think the only person I know of who is even aware of the show is the one buddy of mine who first showed it to me. No idea where he first heard about the show.
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Oh gosh, it's been since the early 00's when I watched the show and said friend who showed me the show being the type of friend he is I was likely a few drinks in for quite a few episodes. Given this I can't say much about what you're saying here as while I do remember who Viv is I can't recall much about individual episodes.
I should go back and rewatch it at some point though, I do remember enjoying it. Glad you brought it up.
Re: Different cultures have different comedic tast (Score:2)
It didn't stop them from forcing Marvel down our throats. Superhero comics are an extremely niche phenomenon where I live - and most places outside the US, as far as I can tell. They're full of terrible writing, random fan fiction has less cringeworthy multi universe time travel plots. They're very obviously written to answer kids' "who would win" questions first and foremost.
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Spaceballs, Naked Gun, Hot Shots, and many more movies of the 80s and 90s seem pretty well-known in the German part of Europe.
I have to be honest and say I was a tv junkie so my impression is not necessarily indicative of reality but I remember the "inside" jokes in school when those movies ran.
Or what about Police Academy? It didn't even have to be good comedy coming from the US apparently :D.
Educate your fellow alphabet neighbour generations (Score:2)
This is what I do with youtube ;)
Capt. Over - Roger - hÃ, give me the vectors Viktor - Roger Roger - simply hillarious ;)
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Another factor is probably due to most comedies don't cross across cultures. What the people in a country/culture currently find to be funny tends to be different from what the people in another country find funny. And the modern-day business of Hollywood aims to sell most of their movies in international markets.
Last year an American RomCom won Cannes, it's just not one from the major studios. Humour can transcend cultural boundaries, it's just that the one audience Hollywood is most afraid of upsetting are white, male Americans. So comedies are out.
The irony is, whilst Americans are not good with humour it ironically is American humour that tends to translate well because it's incredibly simplistic and often non-verbal, like slapstick. British humour doesn't translate well because it involves a lot of complex m
You can't make those movies anymore!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Well played, but I think you should have included "Blazing Saddles". Not many funny comments for a Funny story. Or so say the moderators.
(Actually I'm in the middle of a textbook for standup comedy. There is actually a university course in the UK, and this is the second edition of his textbook...)
(Am I funny yet? I didn't think so. Perhaps I should ask a genAI for help?)
Comedy is hard and not formulaic. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollywood loves formulas. Plug stuff in and get a business success, even if it is not a critical one.
Action movies are easy - get a good special effects guy and tell him to do what he wanted to do before but the tech was not there.
Horror is easy - take something that scares you, translate it into a physical monster and throw in jump scares.
Biopics are easy - take someone famous, show their hard childhood, show them winning, show them dealing with drugs/other problems of winning, show them recovering.
Comedy? Comedy is hard. It can't simply be more than before it has to be surprising and new. You need someone funny to write it and people with good timing and comedy skills to deliver it, all the while ignoring the idiots in charge who are NOT funny and don't get it.
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I think thats the nub of it. When studio execs present their slate of films to the theatre chains and shareholders, its the big IP franchises that get them excited. They know Marvel at least *used* to get butts on theatre seats. They know DC has the potential to. They know Jurasic park has been a consitent earner. They *dont* know what "Funny movie about a cafe owner who falls in love with a horse" is going to get anyone turning up.
The irony is the very thing that they know they can sell is the same thing t
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You bring up a lot of good points. I had not considered the money or the difficulty in selling it.
Comedy is cheaper to do, but like you said, a formula brings in an 'instant' audience, so without the formula/'franchise' management is concerned about filling in seats.
The only thing I would add, that a funny movie will sell itself. Word of mouth, critics, awards etc. can still bring in people as the occasional indie film that hits it big proves.
This may be more about fear / lack of confidence among the pro
Boobs (Score:2)
We have internet now so we don't particularly need raunchy comedies and those were the bread and butter of the genre.
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Nobody was fapping to those women objectifying bro comedies back in the day, either. They had Playboy for that. What changed is just society's opinion on it - it went from "this is hilarious" to "this is kind of cringe".
Write for your audience - and get paid (Score:2)
Most of those old movies were made to resonate with Boomers and Gen-X. The humor is entirely for them, and generally doesn't hold up well today, regardless of the nudity or naughty words.
On the flip side, we let a lot of stuff slide back when that wouldn't be considered OK today. So people have been taking the date rape jokes out of their comedies.
Audiences have changed, rehashing jokes from the minstrel era not only fail to connect with modern audiences, they find them downright offensive. Hollywood was al
How many ... (Score:4, Informative)
That's not funny!
Re:How many ... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm part of a protected class, but you're gonna need a much bigger bulb if you expect me and my partner to screw inside of it.
Thor: Ragnarok - comedy or action? (Score:2)
Marvel has been adding a lot of humour to their MCU movies, so if you count them as comedies it probably affects the numbers.
It's hard to draw the line and assign movies to one category or another.
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Marvel has been adding a lot of humour to their MCU movies, so if you count them as comedies it probably affects the numbers. It's hard to draw the line and assign movies to one category or another.
Marvel humor is... an acquired taste. First off, it mostly revolves around knowing the franchise in and out. And second off, it's mostly violence based. That said, one of the best laughs I've had at the non-Deadpool Marvel movies was Hulk having Thor walk into the force field. "Thor go again! HA HA!"
Stop making != decline 27% (Score:2)
Stop making = decline 100%. Sensationalist crap.
Comedies are HARD (Score:2)
You need actual comedians and those things called WRITERS!
Not enough to put half a dozen actors through training and put them in Pajamas with their underwear on the outside and hang them on a few cords and do the rest with computers.
Not to mention now people get offended if your plane is called Enola Gay.
Woke hollywood is not the biggest factor (Score:2)
There are lots of writers, producers find a script they like, and pitch to it to a studio. Bring in a director, and then fight the studio over the content of the script and watch all the jokes are altered or removed from it.
Hollywood is a business. Films need to make money. And part of that is that the people who invested in a film don't want a lot of risk from unknowns. Jokes they don't understand are going to make the people with money uncomfortable, especially if the writer is not well established.
It's m
It is not their business model (Score:2)
They have no interest in making movies at all any longer. There are no drama's either. It is not their business model to find good material and tell stories.
People miss the obvious issues (Score:3)
What we have are bean counters who don't understand the business being allowed to be in control. We see this with the PC/console games industry as well, and the wealthy people in charge are running the businesses into the ground. Now, going into the reasons for this, when there were a LOT of movies(or games) being made, you would have your lower budget, you have your medium budget, and then the big productions. There is always some risk on something new, or different, but the smaller productions that are DIFFERENT will bring in a different audience than those for the big productions. Bringing in those who wouldn't normally play games or go to the movies makes them more interested in seeing what other movies will be coming out, so while not as profitable, they encourage future spending. Even if there is a bit of a loss, the long term health of the industry makes it so these losses can be acceptable when you consider the profits of the big productions, and it ends up being a positive thing.
This approach only works when you have many different productions going on at the same time, so there will always be enough of the big money makers and even those that are somewhat profitable to offset any losses. Long-term revenues also need to be looked at. The Rocky Horror Picture Show....think about that for a moment, how cult classics can explode in popularity after a bad initial release, but the modern era in business is always to focus on stock holders and short term profits over long term health and growth.
Every company that is run by a CEO who cares ONLY about the stock price and not about the true health of the company itself are to blame, it's a culture that is broken. Yea, bring in $100 million in the first quarter and $1 million for Q2, Q3, and Q4, compared to $50 million in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. All of these CEOs go for the first option, making only $103 million for the year, vs. $200 million for the year because of looking at the overall health of the business. What happened to Intel is a good example as well. Bad management at the top trickles down to long term problems as people just stop playing games or watching movies, because there is no originality and zero reason to get excited about anything new.
Hollywood Despises Fun (Score:2)
Hollywood has an obsession with the idea that dark and gritty is better than light and fun. While a comedy can be made that's dark and gritty, it would likely not be free from complaints because dark and gritty in a comedy tends to lead to someone saying or doing something that's open for protest among the screaming "do nothing but complain about everything" crowd that seems hell-bent on making sure that if something is enjoyable, you should feel horribly guilty about it.
Hollywood, or the leader of our ente
Not all Hollywood's fault.. society changed.. (Score:2)
I've been in a movie theatre maybe twice in the past decade. Spending (god knows how much now) on tickets, only to have to watch thirty minutes of adverts before the actual movie starts, and not having any control of what rude people show up to the theatre fiddling with their cell phones the whole time is no longer fun. After 9/11 and the endless wars and corruption that came from it, both movies and TV became a lot darker. I miss the days when the only actual presidential scandal was a blow job. Things
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I miss the days when the only actual presidential scandal was a blow job.
Oh dear, the Cold War just flew by for you didn't it? We covered up so much shit back then.
More to the scandals of that era, did you consider Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay? The Keating Five and the S&L crisis? Scooter Libby lying about the Bush administration outing a CIA operative through journalist Robert Novak in order to retaliate against Joe Wilson? How about the House Bank scandal that allowed members Of Congress to overdraft on their bank accounts without facing a penalty. (it's good to be the king
Rant of the day (Score:2)
What's the deal with the way movies are being increasingly badly miscategorized by movie theaters and on platforms like Prime? I mean the "Comedy" category gets applied to just about everything now, very little of it actually funny.
Worse yet is what they've done to Sci-Fi category. It's become a dumping ground for all the worst dross from the Horror and Fantasy categories that have literally nothing to do with actual Sci-Fi at all.
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Sci-Fi was always a bit campy, and a common setting for horror going back to the very early days of the horror genre. Turns out the strange and the unknown, such as there being creatures from outer space or another dimension, suits horror very well.
P.S. I consider Howard the Duck to be horror and not a comedy. It's the only way to explain it.
Fuck Hollywood. Find some damned writers with idea (Score:2)
Fuck superhero crap. Fuck franchises.
Fuck trying to avoid offending anyone. No one's holding a gun to their heads.
Grow some balls, Hollywood. Stop pumping out the same fucking garbage.
Stop the fucking remakes, reboots, reimaginings, or whatever the fuck term you want to call them, this week.
Give us a new fucking story.
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because (Score:2)
Why? A couple of reasons:
1. Recent Hollywood comedies are not funny, because Hollywood is completely driven by the left and bean counters.
2. Hollywood depends on global sales for profit, and comedies are very language and culture dependent, whereas superhero movies and shootemups are not.
I'm tired of "action/adventure" (Score:2)
It seems that most movies are now action/adventure or crime dramas.
I'm really tired of these genres.
Looking for good comedies but hard to find.
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wokeness (Score:4, Insightful)
Robin Williams adlibbed a lot of material to make the films he was in "work". Like look at Aladdin and look at Ferngully. Do you think either of these films work when the character Robin played is just an unapologetic jerk? No, they do not. Most of the "comedy relief" characters in an otherwise serious animated film are present so the audience doesn't get bored of being preached at.
Robin Williams was great to the point that he could never take off the clown mask. So It's unfortunate that he did eventually pass on his own terms, but I've run into people before that can do the same kind of rapid-fire adlibbing routine, so it's not exactly a unique skill, but it is one that you only have with experience. A lot of people can't do it, because they surround themselves with yes-men, so they never learn about anything outside their comfort zone to poke fun at.
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
Robin Williams was great to the point that he could never take off the clown mask
Yes, One Hour Photo had me rolling in the aisles, as did Dead Poets Society and What Dreams May Come.
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Robin Williams was great to the point that he could never take off the clown mask
Yes, One Hour Photo had me rolling in the aisles, as did Dead Poets Society and What Dreams May Come.
His Scottish act is great as well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9oKdUFCoVo. Warning he says bad words.
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Don't forget The Fisher King! It's an underrated gem from Terry Gilliam and Robin Williams, but it's not exactly a comedy.
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In addition - you need someone that can steal the show (Robin Williams). Writing 80+ minutes of comedy may be the most challenging genre for a writer. If you don't have just the right person delivering the lines, it won't work.
By and large, America doesn't do comedies. This is why most of your shows have canned laughter. That is practically unheard of on British or Australian TV, with the exception of shows from the US.
Just to demonstrate, Q: what do you call an American with a sense of humour? A: Canadian.
Probably going to get hatemodded into oblivion for that one by people with no sense of humour.
Which is kind of the point, in order to make comedies, you need comedians. The US isn't on the stand up comedy scene, the th
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In addition - you need someone that can steal the show (Robin Williams). Writing 80+ minutes of comedy may be the most challenging genre for a writer. If you don't have just the right person delivering the lines, it won't work.
Funny, I have. Sirius and despite your insecure "What is one more thing I can shit on the USA about? Sorry, there are plenty of American comedians.
I've figured out Europe has a really big inferiority complex. To bitch about US comedians as yet another example of the European ubermenchen has no other explanation.
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I was thinking this while watching School of Rock with my 10-year-old. I had to look up the development history and see that Jack Black was the writer's neighbor and worked directly with him on it, because there was no believable way this was just some script that was written and financed independently and they then auditioned a bunch of other people for the role.
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
Hollywood just needs to go full throttle and not worry about what is acceptable or not in a modern movie. I miss good comedies, the best ones are the one's that offend everyone.
Sanitized for foreign audiences (Score:5, Insightful)
Comedy does not translate well to other languages and cultures.
Hollywood making films solely based on what will sell enough to foreign markets and take what it can for the domestic box office.
Net result, thin plots, easy to understand dialogue, one dimensional characters and cliche tropes instead of movies.
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Slapstick does. I remember Airplane and Top Secret did quite well because the comedy was easy to translate.
Forgot to add Blumhouse films (Score:2)
The $5 million budget film with nearly no sets, one or two shooting locations and maybe 5 actors and actresses in it.
Each one more or less makes its money back and the occasional one makes tens of millions in profits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Interesting)
False. The best ones were the ones that even the receivers of the supposed offense could laugh at. The problem these days is that people equate offending one group with comedy. The reality is far more nuanced than that for all but (and sorry this may offend you) the most simple minded of people. It's one of the reasons self deprecating humour is so simple to execute.
Re: Wokeness (Score:2)
So yeah, maybe there is something to be said for just producing movies, shows, and other media without giving a shit if people like it or not.
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I miss good comedies, the best ones are the one's that offend everyone
Why does comedy have to be offensive? In the examples mentioned in the article - Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills' Cop - these are what I would generally consider unoffensive movies. Naked Gun (2025) is also quite inoffensive, and has done well enough (made a profit) at the box office.
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
When I watched Airplane! [wikipedia.org] with my kids, we all agreed it was the greatest movie ever made.
But much of the humor is unwoke and would not be acceptable in a modern movie.
I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
To the extent that some of the jokes would no longer be acceptable that's just shifting standards. It would be far from the first comedy to fall victim to that [wikipedia.org].
And as you reference with the Shirley joke the bulk of the humour would still be fine today.
The fact is there's still plenty of sitcoms suggesting that humour as a genre is far from dead. The reason there's fewer comedic movies isn't "wokeness", it's demographics.
Modern movies are made to appeal to an international market, and comedy as an art form does not travel well between cultures.
Thus studios invest in the films they can sell not only in North America, but in Europe and China. And these aren't comedies.
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Modern movies are made to appeal to an international market, and comedy as an art form does not travel well between cultures.
I'm not sure about this. I know Asian people who laughed their arses off while watching good Hollywood comedies. I laughed a lot while watching Asian, Indian, Italian, German, French, British, American, South American, Australian, New Zealand comedies, to name a few different styles.
Yes, some subtle humor might be lost, or difficult to get, but most of it would be clear. Airplane has a mix of the two. You don't get one, you'll get the other and it's still going to be funny.
Maybe the reason is society slowly
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Cultural references often don't carry over and translation ruins wordplay, rhythm, and things along that line. If you find you take really well to foreign comedies then good for you but I don't think that's terribly common. I watch a good bit of foreign movies myself but generally gave up on comedies some time ago as most foreign ones didn't work for me. There are of course a few outliers though.
I'm not the only one to find this too
https://rephrasely.com/blog/ch... [rephrasely.com]
https://dillo.org/translating-... [dillo.org].
https://w [theatlantic.com]
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and as you reference with the Shirley joke the bulk of the humour would still be fine today.
Actually, I think part of the difficulty of recognizing all the offensive tropes in that film is being part of the generation that grew up with them being normalized. Of the top of my head, I was just going to say the queer stereotypes and the "jive talk" scene stand out the most as being what I remember most, but then I asked ChatGPT to list all the things younger audiences would find distasteful - it really does end up being the bulk of the gags in the film. Another comedy film that aged like milk is Caddyshack. That's another one where you'd have no movie left if you took out everything that wouldn't fly today. Could probably say the same about most of Revenge of the Nerds, too.
Even if you look at films geared towards children, the Goonies had fat shaming, racial stereotypes, drug humor, and that whole teenage girl kissing a prepubescent boy thing played for laughs.
If "Jive talk" is offensive then what about this sketch [youtube.com]? There's some fundamental differences (Key and Peele being the authors, and black), but it's the same basic premise.
And I'm honestly not sure "jive talk" would be considered offensive now. The characters in question were wearing suits and treated respectfully. I could see it being cut for risk of being offensive, but I think it would be possible to pull off safely.
There's definitely jokes from the past that you can't really salvage, fat jokes for insta
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some fundamental differences (Key and Peele being the authors, and black), but it's the same basic premise.
That's the thing with comedy bits that involve race. If you're part of the race you're poking fun at, generally you'll get a free pass because then it's self-depreciating humor.
And I shouldn't have to say this, but I don't make the rules, so don't shoot the messenger. The fact that people get bent out of shape even over simply pointing out that comedy in modern times is a touchy subject further just goes to prove that it is, in fact, a touchy subject.
Re: Wokeness (Score:2)
... Until you're Dave Chappelle.
One of the rumors about why he vanished during his "crazy time" was that his own heroes (senior members of the black entertainment community) were going after him and criticizing him for making blacks look bad.
Re: Wokeness (Score:2)
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The vast majority of the younger audiences wouldn't find anything distasteful. The woke scolds would, just like the moral majority scolds did in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Difference was, they were ignored. The most prescient movie made was PCU.
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Caddyshack aged like milk because it was a poorly made drug fueled trainwreck. The best parts of the movie were always Dangerfield playing himself and Bill Murray because his storyline had little interaction with the rest of the movie, with Murray on set for all of 6 days because he rightly despised Chevy Chase and didn't want to hang around.
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Informative)
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"I would like the omelet with no salt. And no pepper. And no eggs because I'm allergic."
Re:Wokeness (Score:5, Insightful)
In a world where It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and South Park (both far more racy than Airplane!) are alive and well and shown during prime time TV hours I have a hard time with blaming this all on "woke".
The summary mentions that comedies are out of style because studios are focusing on movies that will be more successful internationally and comedies are not this. Combine that with studio's making less movies now then they used to and you get the perfect recipe for very few comedies.
Re: Wokeness (Score:2)
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The more racy shows like South Park, Family Guy etc. make socially progressive aesops on a regular basis and thus get away with it. They also have a writer stuff full of minorities that can do respective jokes unhindered. And if they make fun of a minority they usually make up for it in some way. For example they have an episode that ridicules the Mormon faith but the Mormon boy gets to berate the main character for intolerance.
There are only few people who get the ridiculed without sympathy like Paris Hilt
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The more racy shows like South Park, Family Guy etc. make socially progressive aesops on a regular basis and thus get away with it.
TV shows are ordered and paid for by the network or streaming service and have made their money at that point. Movies on the other hand, are a gamble if the audience doesn't materialize. This difference gives a TV show's creators more leeway to push boundaries and also unfortunately, sometimes to put out entertainment that totally misses the mark.
Take Star Trek Discovery as an example. Would you have gone to the cinema to see that badly written slop? I sure wouldn't have.
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I didn't even watch Discovery at home. I can't imagine paying to watch it in a theater.
I am watching Strange New Worlds, minus the unwatchable ones (like the Musical episode).
Re: Wokeness (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like Netflix does with its standup comedy specials all the time?
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There are plenty of other examples. How about most of Netflix's standup comedy specials or shows like Bad Thoughts which is the most recent example I can come up with off the top of my head for a scripted show (it came out this year).
I can find good comedy I enjoy everywhere but at the theaters, if it was the conservative's boogey man that is "woke" this problem wouldn't be just with movies.
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Well, just watched the new Naked Gun with Liam Neeson two weeks ago. And you know...it's Good. Liam doing the whole "Straight man in wacky world" bit like Leslie Nielsen used to, all the background jokes, heck, even the absurdity of the plot. Of course there are the old favorites like "Have a seat" - "No thanks, I have several at home", Frank's driving skills updated to use EV.
By some definition it's probably woke - I mean, there is no comparable joke to e.g. the one in NG 33 1/3 where Frank Drebin finds ou
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Then explain how The Naked Gun just got remade as it's the same style of humor.
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Sadly, I think there's something to that. Comedy tends to be transgressive in a variety of ways, but even then it stays within certain boundaries, certain taboos. As those boundaries tighten, the scope for good comedy does as well.
Consider Mel Brooks. Springtime for Hitler in The Producers would be beyond belief today. Blazing Saddles even only considering the N-word, likewise. Yet, it's not unreasonable to suggest both films were transgressive and challenging in their way, in their day.
There are of course
Re: Wokeness (Score:2)
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When I watched Airplane! [wikipedia.org] with my kids, we all agreed it was the greatest movie ever made.
But much of the humor is unwoke and would not be acceptable in a modern movie.
I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
Airplane has aged like a fine wine. Definitely one of the best movies of all time. Comedy in movies does not fit into Modern day Hollywood, where a sense of humor is repression somehow.
As Mel Brooks noted in an interview, his classic "Blazing Saddles", which is so important a work it is included in the Library of Congress, yet he would not even be allowed to make it today. That was a few years ago - at 99 he's doing a new Spaceballs movie. I suspect he's going to treat us as a person who doesn't care wha
Funniest movies ever made? (Score:3)
When I watched Airplane! [wikipedia.org] with my kids, we all agreed it was the greatest movie ever made.
But much of the humor is unwoke and would not be acceptable in a modern movie.
I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
Can't remember your reputation but I dislike the censors with mod points.
However I have to ask if "we all" includes anyone who has seen "Blazing Saddles"? I think it was funnier than "Airplane". I also think if you go beyond comedies there are a number of "greatest" candidates above both of them...
Unfortunately, I am not really qualified to participate in this conversation. I am unable to recall the last time I watched an entire movie, even on TV... What year did that little guy do the CIA assassin thing? M
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*smile* Heh. Ok, educate us.
Re: Wokeness (Score:2, Interesting)
Does anyone know what woke means other than a generic placeholder for things that make conservatives feel uncomfortable?
Re: Wokeness (Score:5, Interesting)
Woke means "I don't like something but I'm not intelligent enough to articulate why so I'll blame it on the woman or the colour of an actor's skin." The reality is Hollywood has always been "woke", hell they produced movies transgender protagonists back in the 1930s. They included black actors before it was considered okay to recognise black people are human, hell the first homosexual relationship was hinted in a silent movie from 1895.
But now people don't understand movie making. They don't understand plot or character development. They don't understand what makes a script good or bad. And when they come across an incompetently made film they blame the size of the actor's tits and call it "woke".
So that's the definition of woke. And if you want an example use in a sentence consider this: Instead of saying "I'm a clueless idiot" instead say "It's woke!"
Re: Wokeness (Score:3, Insightful)
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And yet very few productions do this, yet every other film is accused of being woke. You think it's about making sure people aren't offended yet the reality is you can make sure people aren't offended and do it competently with a good story. When you do that the concept of woke isn't mentioned. Diversity and inclusion is only considered woke when it is poorly executed. As is comedy, which is an art form. Simply trying to offend someone isn't comedy, it's low brow humour that doesn't age well, and doesn't se
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And again, forced equitability has been a mainstay of Hollywood for over 100 years. The fact that people are making it an issue *now* is a reflection of a) poor writing / directing etc, combined with b) the stupification of audiences.
Why do you think modern fiction, art, and movies have lost their luster? Fifteen plus years of gatekeepers.
You're begging the question. I don't think modern fiction, art, and movies have lost their luster. I think we have a bunch of morons firing an echo chamber through a megaphone. There's always been good and bad examples of all forms of art. There's no evidence that it's any wors
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Do you think Tropic Thunder would be released today?
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Yes, probably.
Mel Brooks is releasing Spaceballs 2 in time for his one hundredth birthday. And good on him! Do you think he gives two shits what Gen-Zee thinks about political correctness?
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Given The History of the World Part 2, yes.
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Jaques Tati's M. Hulot and Rowan Atkinson's Mr Bean show it's possible to be funny without any words. Ditto all the silent movie greats such as Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. All the above work around the world.
I guess the problem for a modern comedian is finding someone it's safe to make fun of. W. C. Fields was challenged to make an acceptable funny sketch with a blind man as the butt of the jokes. He succeeded - your favourite search engine will locate it.
How do Puritan Calvinist Athiests work? (Score:2)
Predestination, but everyone is already in Hell because there is no God?
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Maybe it's not the movies, maybe it's the merchandising: "where the real money from the movie is made". The action figures, the movie sound track, the video game(s), the coloring books...