Assimilating the Feminist Voice in Service Comedies, 1941-1980

Most broadly defined, a service comedy is a group of movies, novels, television shows, and other forms of popular culture where the humor is derived from life and circumstances in the military. Hollywood service comedies from the 1940s into the 1960s largely functioned in a Bakhtinian notion of a carnivalesque character to comedy wherein traditional hierarchies are reversed and authority undermined only for the duration of the carnival (or movie or television show). Basic training seems inherently a subject for comedy, as the essential elements of the plot center the adjustment of the civilian to life in the military. The recruit is initially inept in the simplest of military duties and chafes at the regulations and regimen. But over the course of the movie, the recruit becomes an effective soldier, sometimes inspired by girlfriend and proves his worth in a climatic training exercise or battle. That transformation is also the main theme, and it is basically a conservative one: the journey from citizen to soldier was necessary to defeat the Nazis and Japanese and then contain the communists. Private Benjamin follows the format of a basic training comedy but seems to send a different message from the previous iterations of the genre. Tricked into joining the Army, Judy Benjamin suffers through basic training and eventually is assigned to NATO headquarters in Brussels where she proves her worth. At this point in the movie, the feminist message takes over the narrative. While on leave in Paris, she seeks out a one-night stand (Henri) she met in the United States while celebrating the end of basic training. Forced to choose between an Army career and Henri because he had been a member of the French communist party, Judy chooses Henri. As they make plans for marriage, Henri reveals himself to be no less controlling than Yale (Judy’s dead husband) and her father. But her experiences in basic training and in working in NATO have changed Judy. She is no longer content to be running Henri’s errands. Consequently, Judy leaves Henri at the altar. The last shot of the film is Judy, in her wedding dress, walking away from the villa along picturesque lane in the French countryside. Basic training turned the spoiled, submissive aspiring housewife into an empowered woman able to stand on her own.