This book analyzes the evolution of film and television comedy from the 1930s through the present, defining five distinct periods and discussing the dominant comedic trends of each. Chapters cover the period spanning 1934 to 1942, defined by screwball comedies that offered distraction from the Great Depression; the suspense comedy, reflecting America's darker worldview during World War II; the 1950s battle-of-the-sexes comedy; the shift from the physical, exaggerated comedy of the 1950s to more realistic plotlines; and the new suspense comedy of the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the popular "dumb cop" or "dumb spy" series along with modern remakes including 2006's The Pink Panther and 2008's Get Smart.

The Simpsons are not only the world's most famous TV family; they are also the protagonists of one of the longest-lasting animation programs in US television. Over the course of the past thirty years, the yellow five from Springfield have become an indispensable part of American popular culture which still turns academics into fans and inspires fans to research the objects of their fascination. This book focuses on the Halloween Special TREEHOUSE OF HORROR, a part of THE SIMPSONS which research has largely left unnoticed. If THE SIMPSONS revolutionized how we look through television at US-American culture and society, TREEHOUSE OF HORROR has changed the way we re-member popular-culture history by way of horror traditions. This study demonstrates how Matt Groening's cartoon shows have painted a yellow archive of the digital age.

The image of a heavily pregnant woman, once considered ugly and indecent, is now common to Hollywood film. No longer is pregnancy a repulsive of shameful condition, but an attractive attribute, often enhancing the romantic or comedic storyline of a female protagonist. Kelly Oliver investigates this curious shift and its reflection of changing attitudes toward women's roles in reproduction and the family.

In Laughing Mad , Bambi Haggins looks at how this transition occurred in a variety of media and shows how this integration has paved the way for black comedians and their audiences to affect each other. Historically, African American performers have been able to use comedy as a pedagogic tool, interjecting astute observations about race relations while the audience is laughing. And yet, Haggins makes the convincing argument that the potential of African American comedy remains fundamentally unfulfilled as the performance of blackness continues to be made culturally digestible for mass consumption.

A wide-ranging survey of the subject that celebrates the variety and complexity of film comedy from the ‘silent’ days to the present, this authoritative guide offers an international perspective on the popular genre that explores all facets of its formative social, cultural and political context A wide-ranging collection of 24 essays exploring film comedy from the silent era to the present International in scope, the collection embraces not just American cinema, including Native American and African American, but also comic films from Europe, the Middle East, and Korea Essays explore sub-genres, performers, and cultural perspectives such as gender, politics, and history in addition to individual works Engages with different strands of comedy including slapstick, romantic, satirical and ironic Features original entries from a diverse group of multidisciplinary international contributors

Steve Neale here discusses all the major concepts, theories and accounts of Hollywood and genre, as well as key genres which theorists have written about, from horror to the Western.