The Comedy of Violence

After World War II ended in the 1940s, women had to give back the jobs they had temporarily filled during their husbands leave. This was one of the first major instances in American history where women assumed major work roles equivalent to men. This also marked the beginning of a battle of the sexes in the 1940s where women started gaining political power. The slapstick movie genre reflected this tension by pitting the two against each other in extremely aggressive roles. Sometimes the characters depicted in these films would perform shocking acts that many people thought oddly comedic during their time.

One of the most well known slapstick characters comes from the film The Lady Eve (1941). Throughout the movie Jean Harrington (played by Barbara Stanwyck) plays a con artist who attempts robbing a young rich man with her scheming father. When Jean falls in love with the man and tries to protect him from her father, her lover finds the truth of her identity. In an ironic twist he dumps her and she comes back with another identity she dubs Eve. The character vengefully torments, taunts, and belittles the young man into insanity. To make matters worse his father is fond of Eve and constantly promotes a marriage between the two. This aggressive behavior has other iconic characters such as the destructive Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), where a couple battles over odd rules and regulations while they live unmarried together in a house. The values these characters display strongly represent many feelings felt by both parties during this time period.

Many of the male figures being abused in the slapstick genre played on male insecurities (possibly that women really were plotting to take their jobs, divorce them, and other unthinkable things of those times). Women would have probably thought that male characters got what they deserved for their actions (which most of them probably did). Since both sexes could go to a film and laugh about these things instead of fight over them, it probably helped the film genres success. Even in today's society where men and womens rights are more equal, slapstick romance comedies, such as Intolerable Cruelty (2003) are still successful. Although the times have changed, it would seem that the subject matters of movies haven't.