I like watching movies and television shows that make me laugh. I personally don’t like sitting down to watch a film about a kidnapping or rape. Its, true sometimes thrillers and mysteries can be exciting, and a tearjerker can be a fantastic film, but when it comes down it, all I personally ever want to watch are comedies, specifically situational comedies.
A lot of people don’t realize that there are different types of comedies. Mainly there are physical comedies and situational comedies. A physical comedy would be a scene where a man slips on a banana peel and falls to the ground. What I believe to be much funnier would be that same scene but in a situational comedy; a man slips on a banana peel, falls to the ground, and then he looks up to see his ex girlfriend standing there, having seen the whole accident…. Awkward!!!
I find situational comedies to be funnier and more relatable than physical comedies because we have all been in an awkward situation and though at the time it seems like the worst situation in the world, in retrospect, most people will find that situation to be hilarious. Awkward things seem to happen to me all the time for some reason! For example, I always see that person I am trying to impress right when I have exited the gym and am super sweaty and definitely not looking my best… and all I can do is laugh! What else can you do? I see the world as one big situational comedy and I take these awkward moments and put them in my films and the result is hilarious.
Situational comedies are intensely character driven and audience members find comedy in seeing relatable instances on screen. A sense of community is created just in the theater because everyone finds these situations funny because they have all been there, or they at least know exactly what it would feel like to be there. This helps audience members feel human and related to strangers around them, creating a sense of communal relatedness that helps an individual even with their own personal identity.
A situational comedy like one of my favorite films, Mean Girls, is funny to an audience because most of us went to high school and we all knew those popular “plastic” girls. We all knew who was popular and who wanted to be like those popular people.
Most of us know how it feels to have a crush on someone who has no idea of your crush… some of us even know what it feels like to have a crush on your friend’s boyfriend or girlfriend, or at least we know what that would feel like. Though Mean Girls is considered to a “chick flick” and it is a female driven narrative, I have never found someone, male or female, who did not get a good laugh out of that film or find that film’s characters and plot to be relatable. The film Jackass, on the other hand, is a physical comedy.
Though there are a good number of people out there who greatly enjoyed this film, I never felt related to the characters, nor did I find the actors physically torturing themselves to be funny. When it comes down to it, I just like situational comedies better than physical comedies.
I became a filmmaker because I love making films that make people happy. There is no feeling like seeing an audience laugh at your film. Situational comedies are my niche, a genre of comedy that always makes people laugh and smile. From most of Judd Apatow’s films (my favorite is Superbad) to most Saturday Night Live skits, most people cannot deny that situational comedies are where the laughs are at!
Here is a clip from Superbad that is funny because of the situation. It is a very character driven moment.
Here is an awkward moment from Mean Girls. I love making films full of awkward situations- the awkward moment in this clip is about 50 seconds in.
Here is a clip from Jackass, a physical comedy. I don't find it funny but that's just my personal opinion!
