William V. Costanzo: When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West

With a wide array of comedy styles in film, settling on one definition of comedy is virtually impossible. Historically, the “comedy” label has been a product of the film industry’s marketing strategy designed to attract audiences and set expectations of a film’s content. Whether or not comedy has the ability to cross cultural and geographic borders is a long-standing debate among humor scholars. Many humor researchers have taken on the daunting undertaking of exploring cultural differences.

William V. Costanzo embraces the challenge of exploring the portability of film comedy and executes the task with great precision in When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West. He describes the different types of comedy featured in films from around the world, weaving common themes of analysis throughout each region while being sensitive to the variations among and between cultures. Because each culture is different, so too is the definition of what earns a film the moniker of comedy. For example, unlike applying the traditional image of the iconic Greek smiling and frowning masks to differentiate comedy from tragedy, Costanzo points out that there is no clear distinction between the two in some Eastern cultures. The differences call for considerable explanation, which he accomplishes in the book.

The book is divided into two sections. Section One introduces frameworks, theories, and foundational tools used to answer “why” audiences laugh in terms of “what” form of comedy the films take, “when” released in terms of historical context, “where” the films originated, “who” are the targeted characters, and “how” various film techniques function. In Section Two, he further addresses those questions of “why, what, when, where, who, and how” in the analyses of films from four countries and four regions around the world.

Chapter 1 explores humor theories and includes input from well-respected humor scholars. Costanzo lays out three main humor theories and links them to film comedy: incongruity (including common themes such as mismatched travel companions and fish-out-of-water stories); superiority (which invite the audience to laugh at the fool or dupe); and relief (an offer of release from aggression and suppression).

Chapters 2 and 3 introduce comic forms (e.g., slapstick, face, satire, and parody) and archetypes of comedy (e.g., clowns, tricksters, and comic duos). In later analyses of different geographical areas, Costanzo identifies specialized formulas that expand and combine these forms and archetypes. Chapter 4 addresses the history of how comedy has evolved over time from culture to culture. Beginning as far back as prehistoric, ancient, and medieval times, he describes precursors of today’s film comedy such as drawings or comics, novels, and stage productions. A brief introduction into movies as an art form follows, which he fleshes out region by region in subsequent chapters.

The final chapter in Section One, “Technique and Style,” is perhaps overly ambitious. Following an all-too-brief paragraph introducing the art and craft of making people laugh, the author launches into a detailed analysis of a scene from the film Waking Ned Divine. In the scene, a husband tricks his wife into thinking they have won the lottery. Although the analysis is interesting and accompanied by black and white frames of the scene for reference, it appears to lack sufficient context for readers unfamiliar with film studies. Since elements of style are covered in greater detail in subsequent chapters, it is questionable that this introduction is needed, or that it fulfills its intended purpose. The chapter then rather abruptly turns to advice from academics, film industry practitioners, and comedians. In a book of this scale, it is a stretch to do each of these areas justice and thus this chapter falls short in comparison to the other well-developed chapters.

Section Two is made up of a series of chapters covering individual countries and geographical regions around the world. Setting up a West versus East paradigm, Costanzo takes readers through a global tour of comedy films where politics, social history, and aesthetics differ. Noting that there is no single framework for comedy, he is careful to use terms consistently throughout the book with just the right amount of repetition for comparing and contrasting films without tedious redundancy. The cultural and historic contexts he establishes are helpful to readers, as he claims that much of film humor is in-group joking or humor that is “intimately shared by different groups.”

Costanzo brings an interesting perspective to each country or region, beginning with Britain. While it shares a common language with the United States (aside from spellings such as “humor” and “humour”), Britain has long struggled to find ways to distinguish itself from American films and Hollywood domination. British films tend to focus on class distinctions and celebrates elite eccentricities where social status has been passed on from generation to generation, unlike the American model of meritocracy. Costanzo warns that much of British humor may be “too British” to be funny to a wider audience.

Costanzo describes the French’s taste in humor as “run[ning] the gamut from sophisticated satire to mindless slapstick.” Critics have long been puzzled by the French people’s love of American comic actor Jerry Lewis. What they may be overlooking is that Lewis acts out the frenetic “shock of modernity” present in many French films. Costanzo notes that many popular American films are remakes of French comedies: The Dinner Game (Le Dîner de Cons) became Dinner for Schmucks; La Cage aux Folles became The Bird Cage; and Three Men and a Cradle (Trois hommes et un couffin) became Three Men and a Baby.

When one pictures Italian comedies, Dante’s Divine Comedy often comes to mind. In this context, comedy is defined as “a drama or narrative with a happy ending or non-tragic theme.” Like many other regions around the world, the Italian film industry has been sensitive to economic forces, particularly the post-World War II boom and bust. Over time, Italian filmmakers established a successful formula of sex and comedy, as well as a blend of dark comedy and relief. Costanzo describes the best Italian comedies as “uncomfortably funny,” while shadier forms of comedy have come to be known as “comedy Italian style.” Traditional comical characters evolved as they migrated throughout Europe, helping shape theatrical performances such as British “Punch and Judy” puppet shows.

Historical events are particularly influential in Russian films. Costanzo notes the impact of the Russian Revolution, the rise of the Communist Party, and the reign of Stalin on early film production. During these times, comedy was seen as an escape from oppressive governments. As the Cold War thawed in the late 1980s, movies began to “reflect leadership’s guarded openness to change.” With the collapse of the Soviet-style economy, filmmakers faced new challenges such as commercialism. This trend of producing films driven by the market initially motivated Russian filmmakers to adopt Western and American models. Subsequently, films have become more global while still reflecting the traditions of Russian oral and literary storytelling.

According to Costanzo, Scandinavia’s long dark winters and high suicide rates may explain the macabre, twisty, and morbid gallows humor in its comedy films. Because of the region’s sparse population and thus limited number of potential ticket buyers, the government has played a crucial role in the viability of the region’s film production through its financial support. One might assume that such a small region would have significant similarities; however, the chapter contains analyses of comedy sub-genres specific to Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian films.

One of the factors that makes this book superior to others of its kind on the market is that it includes often-overlooked films from Africa and South America. Costanzo takes on the challenge of defining the film industry for entire continents while grappling with artificial constructs such as borders. As for the chapter on Africa, he begins his analysis with the influence of the rich history of sub-Saharan Africa’s oral storytelling. He then focuses on one of the most prolific producers of comedy films, the Nigerian movie enterprise, which is affectionately referred to as “Nollywood.” The absence of theaters and the vast number of different languages spoken throughout the region have presented challenges for African filmmakers.

South American comedies reflect a variety of ethnicities in the region stemming from a blend of ancient civilizations, colonization, and an influx of European immigrants. South American filmmakers have an advantage over other regions such as Scandinavia and Africa because most of the population has Spanish as its common language, with the exception of Brazil’s Portuguese. While initially imitating and later mocking Hollywood movies, South American films have shifted to reflect global currents, adopting a “greater range of styles and aesthetics.” Costanzo argues that the South American culture’s sense of self is reflected its comedies.

In the final chapter, Costanzo describes East Asia as “worlds apart” from Europe and the Americas. He notes that the traditional western distinction between comedy and tragedy does not necessarily apply to this region. He explains, “The individual hero’s fight against adversity tends to be minimized by a culture of collectivism in which suffering is considered a natural part of life rather than something to fight against, and where the prevalent social ethos supports a community-oriented comic vision of existence.” While early Chinese films followed the West’s “recipe for physical comedy,” filmmakers began to add local flavoring. The author notes that verbal humor is abundant in East Asia, particularly in China, in part because the limited sounds and systems in the language make it easy to create puns. This type of word play can be an issue for comedy on a global scale since the humor can be lost in translation. This chapter highlights the films of individual countries such as Mainland China, Korea, and Japan. Greater freedom and prosperity in Mainland China became “productively intertwined” with Hong Kong and Taiwan over time. Korea, heavily influenced by the Japanese occupation, had very few comedies until the “New Wave” era in the 1990s. Japanese filmmakers made sport of cultural icons such as sumo wrestling and fads such as ballroom dancing.

Throughout the analyses of films from around the world, the author highlights the consistent gender disparity in directors and characters. In Chapter 3, Costanzo notes his own limitations in that, “Women are more prominent among comic figures than might be inferred from this brief and incomplete survey.” Covering this range of films is already a heavy lift; however, a bit more analysis of gender would have gone a long way. He further acknowledges his use of the generic “he” pronoun when referring to clowns and tricksters, justifying his choice by adding that they are most often male. A simple fix would have been to make the terms plural and use the pronoun “they.” To his credit, he recommends a list of scholarly work written about women in comedy and states that he looks forward to more balance on screen and in literature.

While serious film critics may dismiss comedies as frivolous, Costanzo makes the case that the study of comedy is a worthy endeavor because it is one of the most popular and lucrative film genres across the globe. Costanzo achieves the Herculean feat of amassing and organizing an enormous amount of material (I am imagining him sitting with an array of both virtual and physical notecards, shuffling furiously from one stack to the next). Overall, the text is consistent and easy to follow. The terms and writing style are accessible to a broad audience. The author excels at sufficiently describing the comedy bits, a distinct challenge when analyzing a visual and audio medium in print. The addition of black and white screenshots from the films and links to a website with in-depth case studies he conducted on individual films are very helpful to readers.

As the endorsement by Salvatore Attardo states, When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West fills a gap in comedy research. Its inclusivity of a global perspective is refreshing and much needed. I highly recommend this book to readers wishing to expand their knowledge of comedy films outside the United States.