Why are romantic comedies considered comedies?

[Flickerdart]

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy sets out on a journey to win the girl against all odds. The journey isn't funny, but the movie is called a romantic comedy anyway. Where is the comedy part coming from?

I know that Shakespeare's "comedies" are basically everything that's not "tragedy" - everyone gets married at the end instead of dying. But even Shakespeare's tragedies have a ton of jokes. Is this where it comes from?

[Murk]

I'm not sure I can follow. Most "romcoms" I know (granted, I'm not a Shakespeare expert) are filled to the brim with lazy, cheesy jokes, almost always slapstick or sexist. I have a hard time thinking of romantic comedies that did not have very explicit and non-subtle jokes.
These are jokes you can not miss, I'd think.

[Manga Shoggoth]

The experts can correct me, but if I recall correctly a classic comedy essentially has a happy ending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy#Etymology) (contrasted with a tragedy that ... doesn't). The original comedies were nothing specifically to do with being funny.

So, a romcom is a comedy in the classical sense, rather than the more modern (funny) sense.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm not sure I can follow. Most "romcoms" I know (granted, I'm not a Shakespeare expert) are filled to the brim with lazy, cheesy jokes, almost always slapstick or sexist. I have a hard time thinking of romantic comedies that did not have very explicit and non-subtle jokes.
These are jokes you can not miss, I'd think.

This is my experience too. When a romantic story is nothing but hardships and setbacks without the jokes, it gets called a 'romantic drama' (i.e. every Nicholas Sparks movie ever), rather than a romantic comedy.

[Grey Watcher]

In my limited and unscientific experience, there's usually plenty of stuff in any given rom-com that is clearly intended to be funny (whether they succeed or not). So, in that sense, they meet the conventional understanding of comedy as "a humorous story", even if they do have moments (including, usually, the climax) that are much more sentimental than funny.

As for the classical definition of comedy (ie a story where the protagonist's life sucks at the beginning and winds up great at the end), rom-coms almost universally fit that definition, since the protagonist (and often their love interest) are depicted as having, at minimum, some glaring flaw in their life at the beginning of the plot.

[Grek]

It's a comedy because it ends well. That's what comedy means in this case.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The experts can correct me, but if I recall correctly a classic comedy essentially has a happy ending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy#Etymology) (contrasted with a tragedy that ... doesn't). The original comedies were nothing specifically to do with being funny.

So, a romcom is a comedy in the classical sense, rather than the more modern (funny) sense.

Not true at all. Classical tragedies generally had happy positive endings (most famous tragedies are only parts 1 or 2 of a trilogy so are not the final 'ending') and comedies were usually funny. The 'happiness' of the endings of a Greek comedy could be pretty ironic or ambiguous.

Ancient Greek Comedy is only represented by the surviving works of one author; Aristophanes, so we don't really know what it was generally except that it was defined by Aristotle as


"Comedy, as we have said, is a representation of inferior people, not indeed in the full sense of the word bad, but the laughable is a species of the base or ugly. It consists in some blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster, an obvious example being the comic mask which is ugly and distorted but not painful."

Conversely Aristotle defined tragedy as being about larger than life individuals.

Shakespearean comedy is mainly about the happy ending vs a sad one for tragedy, but he also wrote history plays which don't count as either.

[Kislath]

Hollywood marketers are a bunch of dimwits and liars. That's why totally unfunny stuff keeps getting labelled as "comedy."
I can think of a couple of examples.

"Lost in Translation" was billed as "HILARIOUS!" on the movie posters right next to a picture of Bill Murray.
Was it hilarious? Was it even funny?
Of course not. If you saw it, you saw that it was a vehicle movie designed to give Bill Murray a chance to do some serious drama for a change instead of comedy. Not funny at all. I think it was also designed to show us a lot of Scarlett Johannsen in her underwear.
It was a great movie, but a comedy? Hardly.

There is an even worse one: "Closer." This crapfest starred Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, and some other dude I can't remember. It was also advertised as a romantic comedy, but it was anything but a romantic comedy. It was a twisted little drama with a twisted ending and ONE JOKE. There was one joke in the whole movie, and for that they called it a comedy? UGH.

While I highly recommend "Lost in Translation," I have to warn you against watching "Closer." It's really bad.

Anyway, I guess it could be suggested that as long as nobody dies, it's a comedy. On the other hand, though, plenty of movies with death in them have been sidesplittingly hysterical.

[Darth Ultron]

Romantic comedies are comedies because they are funny. Or at least they are meant to be...but humor is very subjective.

Sure a lot of them are not funny, but they at least tried to be.

[Thrudd]

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy sets out on a journey to win the girl against all odds. The journey isn't funny, but the movie is called a romantic comedy anyway. Where is the comedy part coming from?

I know that Shakespeare's "comedies" are basically everything that's not "tragedy" - everyone gets married at the end instead of dying. But even Shakespeare's tragedies have a ton of jokes. Is this where it comes from?

How many romcoms have you seen (or been forced to see)? They are quite varied in level and type of humor. Both romance and conedy are the broadest of broad terms to describe a movie by.

[Frozen_Feet]

Comedy has two main definitions I'm familiar with:

1) a funny fiction.
2) a fiction that has a happy ending.

Lots of unfunny comedies under the second definition.

There also "tragicomedy", which variably means "a dark story with a happy ending" or "a story with funny and sad bit" or "a funny story that ends badly".

[Darth Ultron]

Comedy has two main definitions I'm familiar with:

1) a funny fiction.
2) a fiction that has a happy ending.



Why do you say ''most'' comedies have a happy ending? Do comedies really have more happy endings then all other types of movies? Don't really like 95% of all movies have happy endings?

[Tvtyrant]

Why do you say ''most'' comedies have a happy ending? Do comedies really have more happy endings then all other types of movies? Don't really like 95% of all movies have happy endings?

By the original, Greek definition anything with a happy ending was a comedy, which is likely where the use in romcom is derived.

[Frozen_Feet]

Why do you say ''most'' comedies have a happy ending?

That's not what I said.

I said that of the two main definitions, one means having a happy ending.

If you observe 95% of movies to have happy endings, then they're comedies under that definition.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I always figured the cheesy nature of the plot was supposed to be the 'comedy' element about the genre. "Oh, look, that person is totally overworked! She is aimless and unhappy, but she claims to like it. Now she meets some guy in the same situation and suddenly now they're able to relax and enjoy being alive! Hah-hah-hah, now they're doing the thing they totally said they'd never do in a million years. Whooooooa!"

Awful, cheesy jokes you see coming a mile away are still jokes.

Really, though, most comedies (even non-romantic comedies) tend to be pretty terrible with lazy, predictable humor. Romantic comedies just draw their lazy humor from a different pool than other comedies.

[Flickerdart]

Awful, cheesy jokes you see coming a mile away are still jokes.
I guess that's the sticking point for me - since laughter is a reaction to surprise, predictable jokes don't really ping on the joke radar.

[Closet_Skeleton]

By the original, Greek definition anything with a happy ending was a comedy, which is likely where the use in romcom is derived.

Citation needed.

I'm still just as sure that's nonsense as I was last time I posted in this thread.

I don't want to single you out but this has come up already in this thread.

[Fawkes]

I have to warn you against watching "Closer." It's really bad.

Counterpoint: Natalie Portman plays a stripper.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Citation needed.

I'm still just as sure that's nonsense as I was last time I posted in this thread.

I don't want to single you out but this has come up already in this thread.

Possibly because it is correct?

If you want a citation (other than Wikipedia, which should always be taken with a pinch of salt):


Comedy, n. Stage play of light, amusing and often satirical character, chiefly representing everyday life, & with happy ending (cf. Tragedy); branch of drama concerned with ordinary persons and employing familiar language; life, or an incident in it, regarded as a spectacle.

Comedy is explicitly noted to have a happy ending, and is contrasted with tragedy, that doesn't (for the protagonist, at least - it can have an uplifting ending for the rest of the cast).

[Tvtyrant]

Citation needed.

I'm still just as sure that's nonsense as I was last time I posted in this thread.

I don't want to single you out but this has come up already in this thread.

Aristotle's Poetics. Comedy explores the success of low people, tragedy the fall of the great.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Possibly because it is correct?

But it can't be correct, otherwise:
Iphigenia in Taurus
The Eumenides
Oedipus in Colonus
Ajax
Alcestis
Andromache

Would all be comedies, but every scholar of ancient Greek theatre agrees that they are tragedies. Some of them have been described as 'tragi-comedies' but that's modern definitions/commentary creeping in.


Comedy is explicitly noted to have a happy ending, and is contrasted with tragedy, that doesn't (for the protagonist, at least - it can have an uplifting ending for the rest of the cast).

Which says nothing about Ancient Greek Comedy (which is really Athenian comedy but whatever).

I totally accept that 'happy ending' is a valid definition of comedy (hence why I didn't dispute Frozen_Feet), just not that it goes back to my actual area of study on the topic (ancient Athenian tragedy, which while not comedy disputes that tragedies can't have positive endings since many of them did). I haven't studied Elizabethan theatre outside of Shakespeare so I can't dispute that Elizabethan comedies were defined by happy endings.


Aristotle's Poetics. Comedy explores the success of low people, tragedy the fall of the great.

Which is not the same thing as "has a happy ending" and is the exact same thing I quoted in my earlier post disputing the 'comedies in ancient Greece were defined by happy endings' idea.

Though Aristotle was talking just as much about what he thought genres should be like as he was describing actual tropes.

Aristotle's 'comedy as kitchen sink' definition does apply to Romantic Comedies and might explain why they don't have to be funny, but the only extent Athenian Comedies are all full of absurd situations, jokes and satire (in the modern definition, Athenian Satyr was a different genre to comedy).

[Dienekes]

How did the play Ajax have a happy ending? The play ends with the main character committing suicide while damning his enemies after going mad because Athena played a trick on him so he couldn't avenge himself against Odysseus.

[Lethologica]

Possibly because it is correct?

If you want a citation (other than Wikipedia, which should always be taken with a pinch of salt):


Comedy, n. Stage play of light, amusing and often satirical character, chiefly representing everyday life, & with happy ending (cf. Tragedy); branch of drama concerned with ordinary persons and employing familiar language; life, or an incident in it, regarded as a spectacle.

Comedy is explicitly noted to have a happy ending, and is contrasted with tragedy, that doesn't (for the protagonist, at least - it can have an uplifting ending for the rest of the cast).
That definition would make a happy ending a necessary but insufficient criterion, which is in agreement with Closet_Skeleton's position, and not in agreement with the position that movies with happy endings are comedies under any definition.

[Manga Shoggoth]

That definition would make a happy ending a necessary but insufficient criterion, which is in agreement with Closet_Skeleton's position, and not in agreement with the position that movies with happy endings are comedies under any definition.

I am not suggesting that having a happy ending means that something is a comedy. Simply that one of the criteria for a comedy is a happy ending.

Anyway, I think the main take-home for the OP is that a comedy does not necessarily have to be funny.

[Lethologica]

I am not suggesting that having a happy ending means that something is a comedy. Simply that one of the criteria for a comedy is a happy ending.

Anyway, I think the main take-home for the OP is that a comedy does not necessarily have to be funny.
I, uh...what exactly was this?


The experts can correct me, but if I recall correctly a classic comedy essentially has a happy ending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy#Etymology) (contrasted with a tragedy that ... doesn't). The original comedies were nothing specifically to do with being funny.

So, a romcom is a comedy in the classical sense, rather than the more modern (funny) sense.
It certainly sounds like you're saying that a happy ending means something is a comedy in the classical sense, and not saying that a happy ending is but one criterion in the definition of a comedy. Nor are you alone in this interpretation:


It's a comedy because it ends well. That's what comedy means in this case.

Comedy has two main definitions I'm familiar with:

1) a funny fiction.
2) a fiction that has a happy ending.

Lots of unfunny comedies under the second definition.

There also "tragicomedy", which variably means "a dark story with a happy ending" or "a story with funny and sad bit" or "a funny story that ends badly".

By the original, Greek definition anything with a happy ending was a comedy, which is likely where the use in romcom is derived.
If everyone is just being uniformly unclear in the exact same way about whether a happy ending is necessary or sufficient or both under some definition of 'comedy', it'd be nice to have that straightened out.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I, uh...what exactly was this?

It certainly sounds like you're saying that a happy ending means something is a comedy in the classical sense, and not saying that a happy ending is but one criterion in the definition of a comedy. Nor are you alone in this interpretation:

If everyone is just being uniformly unclear in the exact same way about whether a happy ending is necessary or sufficient or both under some definition of 'comedy', it'd be nice to have that straightened out.

I think things are getting confused because we are discussing several different things at once... I will try to make my position a little clearer.

In the first statement you quoted was I concerned with modern definitions, in the second statement with classical definitions.

With respect to my original posting (which you quoted second above), having had time to go back to some of my books, I am (at least in part) moving towards Closet_Skeleton's view in the Greek classics - my disagreement with him largely spins on the definition of tragedy and comedy, and I was still running with a slightly more modern definition of both. School was 35 years ago...

However, the first statement quoted isn't about goat song, new comedy and old comedy (all Greek classics), but about modern usages, so allow me to rephrase and expand it:




That definition would make a happy ending a necessary but insufficient criterion, which is in agreement with Closet_Skeleton's position, and not in agreement with the position that movies with happy endings are comedies under any definition.
I am not suggesting that having a happy ending automatically means that something is a modern comedy. Simply that one of the criteria for a modern comedy is a happy ending (per the first definition).

However this does not mean that everything with a happy ending is a modern comedy, nor that a modern comedy must always have a happy ending (per the second definition, which doesn't list it as a criterion).

The point for the OP remains - a comedy does not necessarily have to be funny, because "funny" is not part of the definition. A RomCom fits in with both definitions of comedy quoted from the dictionary.

[AMFV]

Talking about classical Greek definitions in modern cinema is pretty much completely, entirely, and absolutely pointless. That's not the common-use definition of the word Comedy anymore, and therefore would not be used in marketing. Which, by the way, is why Romantic Comedies are labeled as they are.

Happy endings are not the definitional point for Romantic Comedies, if they were then: "The Notebook" or other Nicholas Sparks fare would be considered RomComs, they aren't because they aren't intended to be funny. If it helps think of Romantic Comedies this way, it's more of a distinction between Romantic Comedies and Romantic Dramas than it is a distinction between Romantic Comedies and Romantic Tragedies.

Now certainly, the humor in romantic comedies tends to be simple and formulaic, but then again raunch comedies also have simple formulaic humor, slapstick comedies have simple formulaic humor. There are Romantic Comedies with more involved humor, but in the same sense that crappy action movies follow tropes to make them easier to process, so it is with RomComs, RomComs aren't intended to spark your intellectualism or anything, they're intended for cheap laughs, a couple of "aww" moments, and not requiring much thought for the entirety of the production, the formula makes this all possible.

I would say that for the OP the real take away point is this: Just because YOU don't get the joke, doesn't mean that others don't find it funny or enjoy it. Romantic Comedies are intended to be funny, in a particular light, I personally find them hilarious, I love RomComs, I think that's because I've learned what they're intended for, and that makes me able to enjoy them without focusing on things that would unnecessarily detract. It's like evaluating any action movie based on how actual guns operate, it just takes away from the enjoyment of the product.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I've been to a lot of RomComs on date night. Laughter pretty much comes from the laugh track alone--most people don't even chuckle. Part of this might be that the jokes are so played out, because some of them go back to the Doris Day movies I watched with my grandmother.

Honestly, I think the studios label them comedies because nothing else fits.

The definition discussion has reminded me of an old joke: Opera is where somebody gets stabbed, and instead of dying, they sing.

[Closet_Skeleton]

With respect to my original posting (which you quoted second above), having had time to go back to some of my books, I am (at least in part) moving towards Closet_Skeleton's view in the Greek classics - my disagreement with him largely spins on the definition of tragedy and comedy, and I was still running with a slightly more modern definition of both. School was 35 years ago....

I agree that the modern definition is the actually relevant and important one, I just got a little annoyed that people kept bringing up irrelevant historically dubious facts.


I am not suggesting that having a happy ending means that something is a comedy. Simply that one of the criteria for a comedy is a happy ending.

Not every criteria is going to be relevant in all cases.

Anyway, you can also argue that a Romantic Comedy is its own genre rather than just a combination of two genres and therefore the definition on one of the pre-combined genres doesn't matter much.

I would say that if someone is angry because a film marketed as a comedy didn't amuse him/her, then that is a legitimate complaint. Any quibbling about 'it doesn't technically have to be funny' would be irrelevant to the criticism being made.


How did the play Ajax have a happy ending? The play ends with the main character committing suicide while damning his enemies after going mad because Athena played a trick on him so he couldn't avenge himself against Odysseus.

Ajax dying is the middle of the play. The ending is the other characters being reconciled.

You could argue "well under than definition Romeo and Juliet had a happy ending", but the difference is that the reconciliation in R+J is a postscript while its a large part of the narrative of Ajax (about 40% of the text).