When Harry Met Sally Essay

a. The Awful Truth and When Harry Met Sally are both romantic comedies that contain conventions of the genre. Both of these films have a dual focus and involve initial sparring. The Awful Truth and When Harry Met Sally alternate between the perspectives of the (traditionally) male and female protagonists, protagonists who begin the film with initial sparring / anger / disagreement that eventually transforms into a romantic passion.

b. While these films are both romantic comedies, The Awful Truth and When Harry Met Sally do differ. The largest difference is the variance of plot type. Romantic comedies contain either a marriage plot, a variation of which is found in When Harry Met Sally, or a remarriage plot, like in The Awful Truth.

The marriage plot consists of three parts: meet and fall in love, separate, and finally unite.

The dark nature of the humor needs to be the dominant tone of the film, rather than brief moments scattered within. It is difficult to classify Kentucky Fried Movie as a dark comedy, even if this moment classifies as one, because I am not sure if this is the over all tone of the film.

b. This clip also can be classified as a parody, or mode of humor that ridicules and imitates a pre-existing representation. “The United Appeal for Death” is a parody of an infomercial that asks for donations to help families dealing with death, but frames it as if death is a disease that donations can help people ‘live with.’ This classification is tumultuous as well. Parody usually holds a playful tone, but can potentially be critical when the representation being mocked is associated with satirical critique. From this clip it appears as if the dark comedy is satirically criticizing the object of infomercials – and even their futility – but without the larger context of Kentucky Fried Movie as a whole it is difficult to determine whether or not this is meant to be part of a larger satirical