111-465 Comedy, Cult and the Carnivalesque

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Subject Description:

This course will focus on approaches to and definitions of the comedy and cult in film and television (keeping in mind the flexible and indefinable nature of both these forms), with particular focus on the carnivalesque aspects of both forms. Areas to be explored will include: early film comedy; comedian comedy; sitcoms and female comics; characteristics and definitions of the cult text; South American cinema and the carnivalesque. In particular, students will be expected to consider various interpretative issues centring around these two forms - comedy and cult - including: the ability of comedy and cult to violate generic boundaries and rupture classical narrative form; pleasures of comedy and cult; the carnivalesque and liminality; comedy and the grotesque; the cultish nature of bad taste films (the films of John Waters, low budget monster films from the 40s-50s, serial films, Ed Wood classics); and cult, ritual and the cult spectator.

Assessment:

Prescribed Texts:

• Jenkins H and Karnick (eds), Classical Hollywood Comedy, American Film Institute Routledge New York 1994.
• Neale S and F Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy, Routledge London and New York 1990.
• Telotte J. P, The Cult Film Experience: Beyond All Reason, University of Texas Press Austin 1991.