The Meaning in Comedy

I grew up around books, so movies have not been of much interest to me since I was a kid – an attitude that I still carry with me until now. But it is not a total alien. Occasionally, our family’s Saturday night would be spent watching a movie that would be selected from a stack of DVDs out of majority vote. At other times, and especially now that I am already living with my sister, I get to see movies once every month through a movie date. Consequently, I have been exposed to this kind of entertainment long enough for me to develop a liking to comedy movies. This is the only movie genre that appeals to me, maybe because of the name itself: it is a comedy.

Whilst a lot of people prefer romantic movie (which is corny for me), action – packed film (quite aggressive and traumatic for me), and horror movie (a big no-no for me because I always get nightmares after watching such a film), I can bury my boredom in something that is comic. For me, such a kind of film is the type with a shallow concept but can invoke messages that can stir the unconscious part of us. It is this context that makes us laugh – we know that the scenes in the movie are real, and so they are relatable. Also, I watch movies for the purpose of relaxation. And this is the only genre that I think can make it happen. The other movie genres can even be depressing; horror movies can haunt a good night’s sleep and action films can give a “mini heart attack”, if there’s such a thing.

Other movie enthusiasts say that comic movies are shallow and that viewers cannot really get something out of it. Personally, maybe the assumptions only get one out of two. Yes, the background where the entire story is set can be shallow, but I definitely can squeeze things out of it. Oftentimes, it is in this kind of movie that I find the messages of acceptance, determination, self-esteem, and success – concepts that are often embedded in punchlines, that people rarely see the real messages that the movie is trying to convey. Comic films surely give us a good dose of laughter, but most importantly, they can leave us stories that do not fade after a good 30 minutes of hiccups.