“Casablanca helps us to understand what happens in those movies that are born in order to become cult objects” (Eco, Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage, p.11)
Indeed, Casablanca cemented our understanding of such established ideas and archetypes: associating Paris with love, America being the land of the free, the love triangle, and the list goes on! If this classic film was reproduced in Hollywood during this day and age, the audience wouldn’t appreciate the “outdated” values and morals the film encapsulates. Surely, these established concepts would still be weaved within such different views and values, but at the end of the day, it would be criticised as any “formulaic” romantic-drama (well, according to film buffs for sure). Essentially, films and television shows are produced for their audiences’ values no matter the time period or place the text is set within. Since Casablanca has shaped the way we interpret Hollywood cinema today, television shows such as Community have somewhat taken a playful approach to these concepts and stereotypes. This makes it one of the best and underrated comedies on television within these decades
I discuss here about post-modernism and continue to grasp on this subject a tad more here. The 2009 comedy series follow the “Study Group” consists of seven student attending Greendale Community College. This unusually functional group endure the ever-changing inter-personal relationships, a diversity of teachers and a dramatic Dean.
If we analyse a handful of episodes, each episode is a satire of clichéd narrative forms:
The 90s action film
The morning show
The heist
The stop motion animation
The video game
The documentary
The western
And the list continues! Pop culture manoeuvres the show towards a playful and sceptical approach on culture. The meta-narrative of a family is the Study Group itself while they’re all based on contradiction: Jeff has a degree in law, but doesn’t practice it, Britta is a so-called activist but is inactive, Annie is a former drug addict and homeless, but is a straight A student, Abed is awkward but manages to be the character that’s the easiest to get along with, and no studying actually occurs within the Study Group.
Reference: Eco, Umberto. (1985). “Casablanca”: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage.SubStance, 14(2), pp. 111