Student Reflection #7

My initial expectations when I registered for this class were pretty much that we would watch and discuss American comedy films. I did not really have many expectations. That being said, I found the class to be very interesting and i did enjoy the format and structure for the most part. The class was not too difficult and it provided an opportunity to think through things and discuss things without being told what to think, which is always nice. In general, the format of the online class seemed to work fairly well. The only problem I came across was not really knowing which assignment I was turning in because there were not specific due dates on canvas. I definitely found the dark comedy week interesting and some of the psycho-analytical elements of the lectures interesting. The lectures were useful and provided good context for the movies that we watched, as i mentioned the "that's not funny" week was interesting and probably one of my favorite lectures. One of my favorite films we watched was Dr Strangelove. It matched very well alongside the cold war history course i have been taking this semester and was an interesting commentary on the time. I have a weird stance on the Worlds Greatest Dad film. It was painful to watch for the most part and rather depressing regardless of its comedic moments, I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed it or liked it, but I did appreciate certain aspects and I feel like I understand its value. For being a film student I am appallingly bad at watching movies, so I only watched one of the selections each week, although some weeks I had already seen one of the movies that I did not watch. The material that we covered made complete sense individually and also fit with the whole scheme of the course. Overall this was one of the main things that i took away from the class: the various different styles and types of comedy, the use of it to meet different goals, and the validity and historical insights that it can bring to many different issues. Being able to view comedy films and be aware of the culture and time they were produced can sometimes tell a whole lot about that culture. In the end, while i feel like i have always somewhat understood this about comedy films, the class provided a lot more of a focused look and brought up some excellent points that I know I will remember and will affect how I enjoy Comedy films. In a good way of course. Thanks, and good luck this summer!