Changin’ the Game

http://hugereviews.com/Movies/Young%20Frankenstein.htm


I am a black and white equals gray kinda person. It was and continues to be difficult for me to write anything with certainty. Everything and anything can be disproved or proved for that matter. Reading and writing about Screwball is enjoyable and also endlessly frustrating. I recently tried to track all of the movies and television shows that I’ve watched in search of a formula that in my opinion does not and cannot exist anymore. Censorship actually benefitted film, in my opinion, it created tensions and dialogue that is funny to this day. Not saying and showing things requires more of an effort and it paid off. Saying that I don’t believe in censorship and I don’t think that it would work the same way anymore.

I firmly believe that the precepts set forth by the Hays Office in the 1930’s created a self-reflexivity that would have otherwise been absent. This particular case of self-reflexivity resulted in a more introspective shaping of a touchy subject: sex. The creativity this type of censorship constructed forced the screenwriters and directors to fashion their films, which could not explicitly handle subject matters such as sex, and use dialogue in a way that was smart and funny.

This coercive sanitization of film engendered a dialogue so fraught with undertones, doublespeak, and allusion that everything became about a touch, a glance, and even a certain angle of the camera carried subtext. These have become vehicles through which they all convey the things that they are not supposed to—SEX. The values that were behind the creation and enforcement of the Hays Code were a fantasy even then; the audience knew that when a real husband and wife went home they were not going back to separate beds à la I Love Lucy.

Just for kicks here is piece of the Hays Code:
“II. Sex
The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing.
1. Adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented attractively.
2. Scenes of Passion
a. They should not be introduced when not essential to the plot.
b. Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown.
c. In general passion should so be treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element.
3. Seduction or Rape
a. They should never be more than suggested, and only when essential for the plot, and even then never shown by explicit method.
b. They are never the proper subject for comedy.
4. Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden.”
(Excerpt from the Hays Code).



Settling on a topic with my advisor has helped tremendously, now I can watch things with a purpose. Trying to watch a film in search of a lost “genre” has proved impossible. I watched over 30 movies and shows in total and if I hadn’t decided to look at how language functions, more specifically dialogue, in a set amount of films I would have been driven mad.

I’ve settled on five films that reach across the comedic spectrum:
1. Barbershop
2. Superbad
3. Pillowtalk
4. Young Frankenstein
5. I have a few options: Juno, Get Shorty, Birdcage, or anything Richard Pryor

His Girl Friday will be the classic Screwball Comedy tape measure for the other films. It has some of the fastest dialogue ever written and it is inventive to boot.

See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive
-Jason Mraz (You and I Both)

I will pay particular attention to pace, cadence, modulation, tone, timing, inflection as well as what is said. A major difference between Superbad and His Girl Friday would be the content of the language; one example is cursing, like sex, was verboten in HGF’s filmic world, and SB wouldn’t be the same without it.




Igor: Dr. Frankenstein...
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: "Fronkensteen."
Igor: You're putting me on.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, it's pronounced "Fronkensteen."
Igor: Do you also say "Froaderick"?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No... "Frederick."
Igor: Well, why isn't it "Froaderick Fronkensteen"?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: It isn't; it's "Frederick Fronkensteen."
Igor: I see.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You must be Igor.
[He pronounces it ee-gor]
Igor: No, it's pronounced "eye-gor."
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: But they told me it was "ee-gor."
Igor: Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?

Semiotics Rule!

It is one of my greatest joys that I can write essays about Maurice Sendak’s book Outside Over There, David Bowie’s package in Labyrinth, and now the film Superbad and track how many times they say different variations of male and female genitalia. The larger picture is that the essay topics above concern the part of culture, film and children’s books that inform our lives—we think only in small ways but are actually have much bigger impacts. Why does the fact that in Superbad they say vagina 20 times and penis/balls over 60 times matter? I don’t know but I want to figure it out.