Comedies of Nihilism: The Representation of Tragedy Onscreen

Description

This book presents close-readings of seven post-millennial comedic films: Up in the Air, Tropic Thunder, JCVD, Winnebago Man, The Trotsky, Be Kind Rewind, and Hamlet 2. It is a sequel to Stanley Cavell’s 1981 landmark study of the comedic genre, Pursuits of Happiness, where he examines seven comedies of Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” Khan puts forward the idea that comedies, once centred on the conventional “happy ending,” are no longer interested in detailing the steps to any ending we might call happy. Instead, the agenda of most culturally serious comedies today is to “spoof,” to make all that is fair foul. The seven films presented here risk a type of cultural nihilism—spoofing for the sake of spoofing and nothing else, indicative not of film’s promise but it’s failure. By equating the failure of film with the failed national politics of Canada (or the failed politics of nationalism and community more generally), this study shows that comedy has less to do with happiness, and more to do with the grotesque. The films analysed represent hyper-realized forms of comic irony and move towards what theatre knows as tragedy, or a tragic vision. Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction (Amir Khan)....Pages 1-27 Farming Out Resentment: Up in the Air (Amir Khan)....Pages 29-50 All War and No Agency: Tropic Thunder (Amir Khan)....Pages 51-63 Tragic Cinema: The Death of Subjectivities in JCVD (Amir Khan)....Pages 65-92 Hiding from Significance:Winnebago Man (Amir Khan)....Pages 93-106 A Claim to Community: The Trotsky (Amir Khan)....Pages 107-127 A Plea for Time in a State of Nature: Be Kind Rewind (Amir Khan)....Pages 129-143 Losing the Name of Action: Hamlet 2 (Amir Khan)....Pages 145-162 Conclusion (Amir Khan)....Pages 163-166 Back Matter ....Pages 167-183