Sony's comedy "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" recently topped the North American box office, reinforcing the conventional wisdom that bad economic conditions make comedies good performers.

近日，索尼电影公司的喜剧片《商场保安》成为北美票房榜冠军，验证了“经济越萧条，喜剧越吃香”这一说法。

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They're always about a person struggling to do his best, whether that's Daddy Day Care or Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

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But the box office is also down 23% from 2009 when little movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Taken were early season sleeper hits.

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But films like "Mall Cop" could succeed in any financial climate, said Jeanine Basinger, a film historian and chairwoman of the film studies department at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

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