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Comedy vs. Horror Movies
Comedies
Comedy movies and shows refer to any programs that intend to humor people by bringing out laughter. Comedies are usually cheerful dramas and are designed to occupy and entertain the viewers. The comedy variety often amusingly embellishes situations, manners of speech, or the deed and actors. Most comedies usually have a happy conclusion where all the characters end up satisfied with the outcome of the plots. Within the genre of comedy, there are several subtypes that have developed by producers. These include slapstick comedies, fish out of water comedy, anarchic comedy and romantic comedies. These subtypes are creations that have comedy as the main structure but attract to different audiences.
Comedy movies are enjoyed by very many people despite their age, education background or ethnic orientation. This is because the content in most comedies is age appropriate, easy to understand and very entertaining. There are comedy films for underage children and other advanced humorous content for mature adults and teenagers. Comedy films are intended to liberate the stress on viewer’s mind and acts as a great source of distraction. Most comedies are based on family values, therefore making them suitable for older people and their children to view and take pleasure in as a family unit. The real reason why most people prefer comedies is their therapeutic nature. Comedy has long been prescribed as a solution for psychological and physical complications by doctors. By regularly watching comedies, people feel at ease, relieve their stress and trigger secretion of revitalizing hormones in the body. Therefore, watching comedies can be said to have psychological and physical advantages.
Other comedy movies also address current and historical societal issues in a light-hearted manner for instance, comedies about racism, slavery, sexuality and social life. For example, most Americans would be amused and laugh a lot when they see a comedy where a Japanese driver is shown driving carelessly on an American highway. Some extreme comedies make jokes and humor on the conflict between white and black people. The tendency to go against the very aspects that are championed by human rights bodies has made people adopt the behavior of humoring sensitive issues such as racial discrimination and child slavery.
Comedies are also interesting and easy to watch because of the suitable and non-violent content that makes up most of this genre. Most comedies are based on emerging and past social, political and economic issues that affect most people. However, because of the nature and purpose of comedy, there is hardly any violence, obscenity, nudity or vulgarities used in the development of the script or in the production. It is very rare to see a comedy film having gruesome scenes. Even with the development of comic-horrors, the focus is more on the funny parts of the film rather than the horrific parts. The appropriate content of most comedy films appeals to a larger audience consisting of children and adults. Similarly, more people go to cinemas to watch comedies because they can see the film in a group without being uncomfortable.
Although comedies have been described as being entertaining, accommodative to different age groups and even informative, there is one detriment when watching them. They have a tendency to appeal more to females than males. The reason for this uneven number of viewers is that most comedies are based on a romantic theme that easily connects with women than men. Therefore, more women end up watching comedies when compared to men. This is in itself not a disadvantage to the genre as a whole as it only affects the rating of comedies as a genre fit for family viewing.
Horror Movies
Horror films refer to a genre of films that display negative emotions from its viewers using fears such as violence, obscenity and vulgarity. Most of the horror movies border on the supernatural as producers attempt to scare the audience. Therefore, a horror film may have fantastical characters that may be exaggerated to make the horror more effective. There are large numbers of people who prefer watching horror movies as opposed to watching comedies. Although this number is significantly small, their existence still troubles many scientists and behavioral analysts. It is very difficult to understand what appeals the viewers of horror movies as most of them contain scenes having disembowelment and decapitation. It was discovered that the viewers of horror movies are usually scared but enjoy the film more than they are terrified by it. Analysts have proposed that human beings always prefer a bit of excitement in their life and seek it out in different places including movie theaters. This sensation seeking personality may be innate but it has several negative effects that shall be addressed in the next paragraph.
There are three principles that are central in the development of most horror movies and these principles make them very effective in preying on the fears of human beings. Nearly all horror films have gruesome scenes in them. This gruesome content might be human body mutilation, torture, decapitation or rape. This is achieved using blood, scars and burns. Exposing people to constant gory content creates a desire of violence within them and this violence can be released on other people including their peers, family members or strangers. Nearly all horror films also have suspense incorporated in them. Suspense may be interesting but for elderly people or people with heart conditions, constant surprises can trigger problems with their health conditions such as heart failure or attacks. Therefore, horror movies can be considered unsuitable for particular age brackets due to their content and risks.
Horror movies also have the disadvantage in that they lack any specific moral teachings that can benefit the society. Apart from displaying gruesome and horrific scenes, horror movies completely fail to infuse any relevant and useful teachings to children and adults. Therefore, they serve no significant purpose in the society. The horror movies would be more entertaining and more viewed if the served a large audience. Unfortunately, most people are not that interested in viewing deathly scenes making it less desirable. For instance, children cannot see these scary movies, as they will have nightmares and adopt violent behavior.
Conclusion
In essence, horror films are the complete opposite of comedy movies. From this definition, it is very difficult to fathom the idea of a comedy-horror genre being remotely interesting. The interesting realization is that both horror and comedy work in the same way in that they both depend on the viewer’s emotions. Both genres direct the audience in a particular direction and when this direction is reversed, people end up viewing an unexpected event and this is when they either laugh or scream. Therefore, horror and comedy depend on the element of surprise and irony. To an extent, both genres serve the same purpose to the audience. Most of the troublemakers and deviants in the films often go unpunished and most viewers root for these rebellious characters. Several people might decline from watching a horror movie while it is virtually impossible to decline from watching a comedy show. This is because in horrors, death is depicted in close quarters and therefore, the genre acts as if to gratify death.