Tony,
Sarah has reminded me to return to your rhetorical question about American high comedy: “Does their failure suggest that a culture at once governed by sensitivity and freed from taboos, subject to vast inequalities of wealth but allergic to the very idea of class distinction, is fundamentally inhospitable to comedy? (A similar argument about tragedy was a popular hobbyhorse among theater critics in the 1950s). Or am I over-reaching? It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Of course you are not overreaching. (And anyway, the American inhospitality to overreaching is something we should all try to get over. That suggests something equally alarming about our culture.)
You imply in this remarkable passage that our fantasy lives are founded on the sort of contradiction that moviegoers would not be able to laugh at—they’d be too traumatized. You might be right, but I’m not convinced that we can use those particular films as evidence that American writers and directors are backing away from the subject. I didn’t see Town and Country, but to give Wes Anderson credit, I think he was trying to make sport of the incongruities of class distinction in this culture in The Royal Tenenbaums, and some of those gags are the best (and most subtle) in the picture. I think he glosses over the real tensions (or presents them for shock value without really exploring them, as in the stabbing scene), but I can see how people would be charmed by his all-in-the-family optimism. I also think that, Sarah’s brusque dismissal notwithstanding, Shallow Hal ventures into extremely traumatic territory. A hierarchy based on appearance (especially a woman’s appearance) is the foundation of movies, especially comic ones, and I respect the Farrellys (however varied the results) for taking that particular class-distinction theme by the horns (or should I say teets?).
It’s true that the comedy of the year might be the gentle Swedish commune celebration (and takedown) Together, but I think in other years Americans have explored similar counterculture themes. There’s a happy touch of Paul Mazursky there.
David
P.S.: I would love to read Enid’s movie criticism. It would be unfair but bracing.
