So then "comedy" is by your definition a positive criticism of a film; it is not a description. That means if you call something a comedy, it's automatically funny.
And so if it isn't funny, what is it?
To me, it's an ineffective comedy. But it's still a comedy.
If I were to use a definition instead of a positive criticism, then I need to fit it into a genre very accurately. And sometimes, that is so difficult. What is common among Annie Hall, American pie and Pulp fiction to fit them into a genre? But if I used a subjective criterion like "it made ME laugh", it is easy to classify very dissimilar films into a genre. That is why I prefer "comedy/not comedy to me" instead of "good comedy and ineffective comedy" as a strict definition. BTW, I find a lot of so-called serious films funny by their sheer ridiculousness.
