ABSTRACT
It is no longer the case that the Carry On films are a neglected or despised tradition of British cinema. Arguably they never were. The critical reception of the films was patronising but never demonstrated the ‘fear and loathing’ that Julian Petley has identified as a characteristic of responses to other examples of the ‘lost continent’ of British cinema (Petley 1986: 98). In fact the Carry Ons have long since ceased to be regarded as the embarrassing distant relation of British cinema and have become a cherished and much-loved national institution. They are celebrated for their irreverence towards authority and respectability, for their gleeful parody of genre conventions and for their unashamed embracing of a tradition of vulgar comedy. Their place in British film culture is best summarised by Andy Medhurst: ‘If I had to think of one reason why the Carry Ons matter so much, it’s because they really aren’t recuperable for proper culture … they display a commitment to bodily functions and base desires that will always render them irreducibly vulgar, inescapably Not Art’ (Medhurst 1992: 19).
