Monday 6 February 2017

Does it matter that they're architects?

Does it matter that they're architects?

In romantic comedy architecture often appears as an interesting profession, probably because of its associations with creativity and sensitivity. However, it often seems to have little if any added value for the comedy itself: the architects in One fine day, HouseSitter or 3 men and a baby could have been anything: interior decorators, artists, writers - anything that would ascribe them similar secondary characteristics. Of course, it doesn't help that the three examples aren't great comedies, uninspiring in more than one respects. Why should the architect characters be better than the rest of the film?

On the other hand, there is good comedy directly deriving from architects and their clients in Monty Python's The architects sketchThe comedy comes from distorting the character of the architects, their intentions and social or professional functions. But then, one could never accuse the Pythons of being into rom-com - not even in A fish called Wanda. So, I conclude that it's rom-com that can't take advantage of architecture as a subject, not comedy in general. I suspect that the reason is that it would cause an internal conflict that would confuse or even alienate viewers.

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