This book is an examination of the "crap com" film genre, arguing for an aesthetic appreciation of the cycle's stylistic vigor - and reasons for its appeal - and a critical understanding of its cultural exclusionism.
The Crap Com Film theorizes a recent cycle of popular but critically panned comedy films. The titular label for this cycle, referencing both its critical reception and the source of much of these films' humor - non sequiturs, lowbrow sentiments, and indeed bowel movements and/or excrements - is the "crap com." This book is a warts and all account of this popular but critically ignored genre and the culture it represents. Films examined in this book include: Girls Trip, The Heat!, Anchorman, Vacation, Night School, Bridesmaids, Dumb and Dumber, Naked, Train Wreck, and White Chicks, as well as all of Adam Sandler's films. Using a combination of quantitative data collection, close textual analysis, and ideological critique, this book considers this cycle's history, its shared tropes and topoi, its toiletry aesthetic and appeal, and, importantly, its politics. For if the crap com's register resonates, it is because it shares a sense of humor with some, and a disdain for others: it tends to identify with, and appears to be predominantly viewed by, heterosexual (lower) middle-class men, more often than not white, whilst ridiculing those who suffer from unruly bowel movements or bodily disabilities, pride themselves on having higher education, are women, LGBTQ+, or are "foreign."