Essay: Comedy is often used to criticise conventional values in society – Modern Times (1936)

Comedy is often used to criticise conventional values in society as the comical elements alleviate the harsh truth that is being exposed.  In Modern Times (1936) Chaplin utilises comedy to question the value of work in the modern age. In our capitalistic society, work is considered the most valuable concept as it incorporates other values, such as: innovation, efficiency, responsibility, and commitment. However, through capitalism other important values are lost, namely: equality, compassion, freedom, environmentalism (due to industrialisation), and morality (due to criminal behaviour as a result of poverty). Therefore, Chaplin’s Modern Times uses the comedic elements to question the nature of work in the modern era and by doing so, he questions many other conventional values that have either been destroyed by capitalism, or have been exploited in order to endorse capitalism.
In ‘The Troubled History of Comedy’ Maslen illuminates that ‘’comedy … dealt with the dangerous present, whose inhabitants have an awkward propensity for taking umbrage and seeking revenge.’’ (2014: 6). Although Maslen was referencing Shakespeare’s work, this suggestion that comedy disguises the truth to prevent an audience from experiencing offence can be linked to Modern Times. By the 1930’s capitalism and industrialisation had been exponentially increasing and consequently so had the gap between the social classes. However, as those with the power to distribute and screen Chaplin’s film were upper class citizens, who benefitted from capitalism, in order for Chaplin’s film to achieve success he had to disguise his critiques of capitalism in comedy.
Thus, Chaplin was expected to ’’retain the loyalty of the masses whilst never questioning fundamental middle-class values’’ as the film had to ‘’reflect some of the mass anxieties of the age without ever becoming … subversive themselves.’’ (Stead 1989: 22). However, Modern Times achieves this through the dual way the film can be read. On one hand, the lower classes may view the film as a revolutionary critique of how capitalism corrupts the value of work. On the other hand, the upper classes could read it as the failures of an incompetent man unable to be an effective part of society. Fortunately for Chaplin both of these readings empower the spectator and are therefore what make the film such a success.
Chaplin’s disregard of capitalism through comedy is first established through the sequence where the Tramp struggles with the fast paced factory work and thus expresses pantomimic signs of stress. The Tramp being unable to keep up with the high demands of his job is comical but additionally expresses how much the capitalist society expects from it’s workers, that they are physically unable to maintain this standard. Proceeding this, a large Orwellian screen behind Chaplin appears of the manager’s face as he reprimands Chaplin for his subversive misconduct. Therefore this creates a comedic effect as Chaplin is caught transgressing however it also indicates the perpetual surveillance that ensures the workers are continuously contributing to the capitalist system. Moreover, as capitalism shapes the city through this ‘’interplay between elites and key leadership groups on the one hand and the masses on the other.’’ (Stead 1989: 1) It is this tension between these social groups that drives much of the narrative in the film.
Furthermore in the film Chaplin does question capitalism in a very direct way but again utilises comedy to ease this truth. After the Tramp’s negative experience at his job, he then accidentally picks up a flag prior to leading a Marxist march supporting ‘’Workers Rights’’. The comedy in this scene is depicted when Chaplin unintentionally becomes the leader of this march although within this lies the truth of Chaplin being a Marxist advocate. However, consequentially the Tramp is incarcerated therefore revealing the austerity placed on the people which prevents them from expressing their political views, especially when it contrasts the state’s. Included inAmerican Film and Society Since 1945 Williams states that art is a means to ‘’learn, describe, to understand, to educate.’’ (Quart/Auster 1984: 6) Therefore through Modern Times Chaplin empowers his Proletarian spectators to achieve a revolutionary consciousness through the rejection of modern capitalism and the institutions that indoctrinate capitalist ideology.
In addition, another conventional value that the film questions is the concept of equality. In the film Chaplin reveals a harsh juxtaposition between the unemployed and the employed thus proposing the idea that this society, due to capitalism, is full of inequality. This notion is particularly embodied by “The Gamin’’ whom succumbs to a life of crime in order to survive. In Winokur’s essay he declares that ‘’Modern Times is about food and shelter. Almost every example of successful food acquisition is in some way illegal. Hunger becomes associated with the normative means of gaining a livelihood, while satisfaction becomes associated with illegality.’’ (1987: 220) Therefore Winokur suggests that due to capitalism the majority of people are unable to fulfil even their most basic needs without acting illegally, showing how ineffective the capitalist system truly is. In addition, by Chaplin exploring the correlation between poverty and capitalism, he is critiquing the inability of a capitalist society to adequately provide for its people. Similarly, the film also delves into how liable it is for one to achieve the American Dream in this society. Through the dream-like sequence the Tramp and his wife are seen in a beautiful house living the American Dream. However, Chaplin then juxtaposes this idyllic vision of the American Dream with reality as the Tramp and Gamin enter a small house and, through a montage, comically reveals how run down the house is. This contrast therefore exposes that the American Dream in this society will only ever be a mere dream for the majority.
One of the most intriguing parts of Modern Times is the ‘’absence of dialogue. In 1936, the talkies has already established itself for almost 20 years. … The only human voices we hear are passed by the filter process technology’’ (Josset 2008). This lack of rhetoric not only contributes to the slap-stick comedy that Chaplin was famously known for, but it allows any spectator to understand Chaplin’s Romanticist message. Although, symbolically this silence implies a collective silence in the disenfranchised people and their inability to express the dislike of capitalism. Additionally, even the voices that are heard are filtered through technology thus illuminating how drastically modern industrialisation, as a result of capitalism, is disempowering the people.
As film is a tool to present a widespread message Chaplin utilises this by critiquing the conventional value of work in American society, as he ‘’began to use his fame to comment more upon the world and draw attention to issues he felt were important.’’(Cross 2011). However Chaplin ends the film on a paradoxical note where the protagonist walks into the sunrise ‘’in search of amore utopian social system.’’ (Belton 1994:136) But throughout the film Chaplin offers no attempt on how to achieve this utopia. Therefore the denouement is both hopeful and pessimistic and highlights that ‘’although comedies tend to reveal cultural contradictions … they also take great pains to resolve them, thereby undermining their status as radical works’’. (Belton 1994: 143).