In The Argument of Comedy, Northup Frye identifies some of the characteristics of Greek “Old Comedy”; like New Comedy, it culminates in a marriage, but unlike New Comedy, it’s more focused on the journeys of the female characters than the male ones competing for them. Often, Old Comedy has a female character who symbolizes death and rebirth through some sort of transformation: usually a disguise, often as a man, and then a return to her original form. Frye also identifies the trope with which Shakespeare modified the Old Comedy genre: the incorporation of two different worlds, the “real world” and the “green world”; “Thus the action of the comedy begins in a world represented as a normal world, moves into the green world, goes into a metamorphosis there in which the comic resolution is achieved, and returns to the normal world” (9-10).
Versions of the Old Comedy and Shakespearean structures can be found in 2003’s Freaky Friday remake. At the start of the film, Anna dislikes her mother’s fiancé, Ryan, and doesn’t approve of them getting married. She acts out, her mother punishes her, and the two of them just can’t seem to get along. Following a somewhat racially insensitive scene involving a fortune teller at a Chinese restaurant, the two of them wake up the next morning in each other’s bodies; this is a shift into the fantastical “green world”, where the rules of reality don’t apply. Both characters also take on the symbolism of death and rebirth, as they each as “reborn” in each other’s bodies – bending the rules of aging and time, and each taking on an unrecognizable “disguise”.
After a day of living in each other’s bodies, Anna and Tess (her mother) begin to understand each other. Tess decides to stop being so hard on her daughter, and Anna learns to accept Ryan into the family after seeing how well he actually treats her mother. Anna gives a speech at Tess and Ryan’s rehearsal dinner celebrating their relationship, and they switch back to their original bodies – a restoration of the real world and the natural order of time, and a return to form from disguise. Just like Greek Old Comedy, the film culminates in a wedding – Tess and Ryan’s – which includes a dance (like the Greek komos and masque dances which Frye identifies as comedy tropes, if those dances were performed to songs by Lindsay Lohan’s pretend punk-rock band).
Additionally, just as Greek New Comedy often features a man and his father fighting for the affections of the same woman – with the younger man eventually triumphing – Jake, a student at Anna’s school, is interested in both Anna and Tess throughout the movie before eventually ending up with Anna. It’s not a perfect comparison, as Tess doesn’t fit the standard of the senex – she never actively pursues Jake (thank god), isn’t a villain, and therefore isn’t sentenced to an unhappy ending – but it’s an interesting parallel to the New Comedy standard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYHq9b_Wk4g
Frye, Northup. “The Argument of Comedy.” Essay. In Northrop Frye’s Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance, 1–13. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
This is a really great contemporary example of the green world concept. Especially considering how these comedies were based on staged theater and thus relied on genuine geographical displacement, Freaky Friday manages to insert the green world into the normal world and how it implicates in real-time both Anna and her mom’s relationships.
I really enjoyed this comparison to the readings, especially when it comes to the life/death/rebirth and the fantastical “green world”; I think this film fits that very well and your analysis is creative. We both chose Lindsay Lohan remakes this week! I think it is interesting that in this case, the daughter took on the role of the “senex” in a way, because she did not approve of her mother’s relationship, and he had to gain her approval over the course of the film. This is an interesting switch-up in typical rom-com power dynamics, where parents/older people are obstacles.