ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Comedy often is a serious matter because it is based on works with comments upon and critiques on social and political issues that have the potential of being presented as serious. Meanwhile the cinema is a very powerful cultural practice and institution. The focus of this research rests on comedy film as an agency of criticism to society. Thus, this research is to examine the capability of comedy cinema as a medium of criticism. The insight developed of this research constructed through a qualitative research design. Focuses on the Malaysian cinema era of studio. It rests on the framework of comedy as critiques on social culture that has the potential of being presented as serious. The objective of the study is to analysed these comedy films capable of functioning in a significant role as social criticism. Regard to the finding, it shows that comedy genre does to a degree which strongly influenced by socio-culture does serve as an ‘agency’ of meaning. Thus, critiques on social culture that has the potential of being presented as serious and is viewed as having the potential to criticise cultural discourses by underlining their status as fiction.
Beach, C. (2002), Class, Language, and American Film Comedy, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bevis, M. (2013), Comedy: A Short Introduction, Oxford Press: UK
Bishop, K. (2010), American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (And Rise) of The
Walking Dead in Popular Culture, USA: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
Bishop, R. (2014), Comedy Cultural Critique in American Film, UK: Edinburgh University
Press.
Creswell, J., & Creswell, J. (2017), Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, Mixed Methods
Approaches, USA: Sage Publication.
Dissanayake, W. (1994), Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema: Indiana University
Press.
Ford, R. (2018), Why So Serious: On Philosophy and Comedy, Routledge: UK
Hooker, V., & Othman, N. (2003), Malaysia: Islam, Society and Politics, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Horton, A. (1991), Comedy/Cinema/Theory, London: University of California Press Ltd
King, G. (2002), Film Comedy. USA: Wallflower Press.
Krutnik, F. (2003), Hollywoods Comedians: The Film Reader, London: Routledge.
Matusky, P., & Chopyak, J. (2013), Peninsular Malaysia in Miller, T & Willaims, S., The
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: Southeast Asia, USA: Routledge.
Matusky, P., & Beng, T. S. (2017), The Music of Malaysia: The Classical Folk and Syncretic
Traditions, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Miller, C., & Van Viper, A. (2016), The Laughing Dead: The Horror Comedy Film from Bride of
Frankenstein to Zombieland, USA: Rowman & Littlefield.
Mughal, H. A. (2019). Support at Work and its Relationship with Employee Performance: Critical Insights for Early Scholars. Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR (ACDMHR), 1(3), 16-21.
Neale, S., & Krutnik, F. (2016), Popular Film and Television Comedy, UK: Routledge.
North, M. (2009), Machine-Age Comedy, UK: Oxford University.
Trahair, L. (2012), The Philosophy of Comedy: Sense and Nonsense in Early Cinematic
Slapstick, USA: State University of New York Press.
Vinerberg, S. (2005), High Comedy American Film: Class & Humor from the 1920s to the
Present, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.
In-Text Citation: (Abu Bakar, 2020).
To Cite this Article: Abu Bakar, A. H. B. (2020). Comedy Films of Malaysian Studio Era: A Social Culture Criticism. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 10(12), 537-545.
Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode