Comedy, as is the case with many national cinemas, is one of the most dominant genres, if not the most dominant, in French cinema, as Raphaëlle Moine has shown (2014, 233–234). Comedies are even more popular now than they used to be in terms of spectator numbers. Since 2000, for example, French comedies have dominated the best-seller list in France, as can be seen in Table 1, which gives the 27 best-selling films since 2000.1 In the period 2000–2007 there were only 6 French comedies out of the 18 best-sellers in Table 1, representing a third (positions 11, 25, 26, 47, 57, 59), while from 2008–2014 6 out of 9 French films are comedies (positions 2, 3, 19, 51, 68, 96), representing two-thirds. This corresponds to a shift from a 39% share of the total number of French spectators in the first half of the period to an astonishing 72% of the best-selling films since 2008. And yet, surprisingly, while there are many coffee-table or popular books on the genre in French cinema, such as biographies of stars, there is as yet very little major academic work. General works on genre tend to focus on Hollywood comedies, occasionally with some nods to French comic stars, for example Olivier Mongin’s reflection on the genre which includes some work on Jacques Tati and Louis de Funès (Mongin 2002). There are few academic monographs on directors associated with the genre. There is a thesis on Pierre Colombier, active during the 1920s and 1930s, and director of major comic stars such as Georges Milton in Le Roi des resquilleurs (1930), Raimu in Ces messieurs de la Santé (1933) and Théodore et Cie (1933), and Fernandel in Ignace (1937) (Binet 2003), and a couple of standard introductions to the work of Jean-Pierre Mocky (Le Roy 2000; Prédal 1988). But there is as yet nothing substantial on Gérard Oury, JeanMarie Poiré or Francis Veber, directors of some of the most successful French comedies of the 1980s and beyond. The only two major works on French film comedy in recent times are both by Anglophone academics: Rémi Lanzoni’s broad introduction (2014) and Mary Harrod’s in-depth study of the recent development of the romcom (2015a). With the exception of some essential articles by Raphaëlle Moine, which we refer to in this introduction, there is as yet nothing major by French academics on contemporary developments. It is not difficult to understand why this is the case. Comedy, more than any other genre, is a ‘bad object’, a repository of low-denominator stereotypes and the source of the potentially guilty pleasure accruing from them that appears to be difficult to justify critically. This is particularly the case in France, where the critical establishment has until recently been more interested in auteur cinema than popular genres. As Moine has argued in her book on genre (2005, 66–85), whether one adopts the position of the Frankfurt School – that comedies like all genres function principally to maintain the status quo – or whether one adopts the position inspired by Lévi-Strauss’s analysis of myth – that comedy, like other genres, functions to express and reconcile social and cultural tensions – these two positions, antithetical in appearance, both operate to neutralise dissent, allowing bad objects to inculcate Sartrean bad faith as the audience unquestioningly accepts questionable representations. As Moine says, the guilty pleasure one may feel emerges from the fact that comedy ‘autorise un plaisir contre-culturel sans générer de danger social’2 (79).

中文翻译：

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当代法国喜剧的新方向：从民族，性别和阶级到种族，社区和后现代时代的变幻莫测

正如拉斐尔·莫因（RaphaëlleMoine）所展示的那样，喜剧就像许多国家级电影一样，是法国电影中最占主导地位的类型之一，即使不是最占主导地位的类型（2014，233–234）。就观众人数而言，喜剧现在比以前更受欢迎。例如，自2000年以来，法国喜剧占据了法国最畅销电影的榜单，如表1所示。表1给出了自2000.1年以来的27部最畅销电影。在2000-2007年期间，法国喜剧片中只有6部来自法国表1中排名前18位的畅销电影，占第三位（位置11、25、26、47、57、59），而从2008-2014年，法国9部电影中有6部是喜剧片（位置2、3、19、51， 68，96），占三分之二。这对应于从上半年法国观众总数的39％到2008年以来最畅销电影的惊人72％的转变。然而，令人惊讶的是，尽管有很多咖啡桌或有关法国电影类型的热门书籍，例如星光传记，目前尚无主要的学术著作。一般类型的作品往往集中在好莱坞喜剧上，偶尔会向法国漫画明星致敬，例如奥利维尔·蒙金（Olivier Mongin）对这一类型的反思，其中包括雅克·塔蒂（Jacques Tati）和路易·德·富纳斯（Louis deFunès）的一些作品（蒙金2002年）。关于这种类型的导演的学术专着很少。关于Pierre Colombier的论文，活跃于1920年代和1930年代，是主要喜剧明星的导演，例如Le Roi des riders（1930年）中的Georges Milton，Raimu在Ces messieurs de laSanté（1933）和Théodoreet Cie（1933）中，以及Fernandel在Ignace（1937）（Binet 2003）中，还对Jean-Pierre Mocky的工作进行了一些标准介绍（Le Roy 2000;Prédal 1988）。但是，1980年代及以后一些最成功的法国喜剧导演杰拉德·欧瑞（GérardOury），让·玛丽·波伊（JeanMariePoiré）或弗朗西斯·韦伯（Francis Veber）至今还没有什么实质性的著作。近期仅有的两部有关法国电影喜剧的主要作品均由英语系学者撰写：RémiLanzoni的广泛介绍（2014年）和Mary Harrod对romcom的最新发展的深入研究（2015a）。除了在本引言中提到的拉斐尔·穆因（RaphaëlleMoine）的一些重要文章外，法国学者对当代发展的研究还没有什么大的。不难理解为什么会这样。喜剧，比任何其他类型都更重要的是一个“坏对象”，一个低分母定型观念的存储库，以及从中增加的潜在有罪感的来源，似乎很难用批判来证明。在法国尤其如此，直到最近，关键机构对作者电影的兴趣比对流行电影的兴趣更大。正如莫因（Moine）在其关于流派的书（2005，66-85）中所指出的那样，一个人是否采用法兰克福学派的立场-像所有类型的喜剧一样，其主要功能是维持现状-还是一个人采取受列维启发的立场？施特劳斯对神话的分析-就像其他类型的喜剧一样，喜剧起到表达和调和社会与文化张力的作用-这两个在表面上是对立的立场，都可以消除异议，当观众毫无疑问地接受可疑的表述时，允许坏物体灌输萨特人的恶意。正如莫因所说，人们可能会感到有罪的快感来自这样一个事实，即喜剧“授权反文化快感而不会产生社会危险” 2（79）。