A Journey Through Romantic Comedy: Perspective Gained by Campbell Montgomery

Campbell Montgomery

Professor Sinowitz

Romantic Comedy 

May 14, 2020 

A Journey Through Romantic Comedy: Perspective Gained

As I enrolled in this course, I really had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I was excited to finally learn about a topic that I have been fascinated by for years: the Romantic Comedy. Growing up, Romantic Comedies has been a staple for my friends and I during all of our sleepovers, break ups, and everything in between. I had seen so many that I would have considered myself an expert in the field, until I walked into that cramped, perfectly square, 3rd floor Harrison Hall classroom. We started the course by discussing Aristotle, the history of the story, Shakespeare, and the origins of Romantic Comedy. I was surprised by the deep roots that Romantic Comedies had in history and excited to learn more about the genre. We then moved onward through history advancing through the screwball comedies of the 1930’s and 1940’s and then analyzing more unique/radical Romantic Comedies. Through our class discussions( both in person and online) and readings, I had come to realize that a Romantic Comedy is much more than an easy-going “chick-flick” that makes you laugh and cry at the perfect moments and dream of a man to sweep you off your feet.  It was a meaningful genre with substance, cultural critiques, and history. I discovered that each film had its own piece of wisdom to offer and it was my job to dig below the surface to find it. In the next pages, I will be reflecting on the material studied throughout this course and the wisdom derived from each piece in an effort to prove Romantic Comedies are more than just “guilty pleasures”. 

It seems only fair to start where the class began: Shakespeare. Many may claim that Romeo and Juliet is the original romantic comedy, but I would like to argue that Much Ado About Nothing is an extremely strong contender for its place. Much Ado lays the groundwork for all Romantic Comedies to follow. This play creates character types of both conventional love and unlikely love. This pattern is seen in the relationships between Hero and Claudio and Beatrice and Benedick. Hero and Claudio seem to represent the iconic “love at first sight” narrative. Claudio sees Hero at the ball and immediately knows he must marry her. The two are destined to be together. However, in addition to traditional character types, Shakespeare, unknowingly, uses  McDonald’s  “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” narrative into this play as well. So, Hero becomes falsely accused of infidelity and Claudio refuses to marry her. In this complicated series of events, the boy “loses” the girl. He gets Hero back when he is made aware of Hero’s true innocence and agrees to marry a close relative of Hero’s. To everyone’s surprise the new bride was actually Hero and the two end up married together in the end. It was a true full circle narrative. Beatrice and Benedick represent the unlikely love character type. The two seem to be at odds with each other from the very beginning of their relationship. They fight and throw insults back and forth in all conversations that they have, but underneath this angry facade they actually love each other. In all actuality many of the insults seemed more like sarcastic flirting than fighting, which only strengthens the point that they both love each other. Beatrice and Benedick are too proud to admit that they actually do love each other, however when they are tricked into admitting their feelings they can finally put the act down. They finally can overcome their fear and realize that they truly are meant for eachother. Much Ado About Nothing created popular Romantic Comedy themes and plotlines that still exist today. It is more than a comedic play, but a beginning of the genre’s history. 

Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday (1940), was the next film that really stood out to me during this course. This film is a classic screwball comedy that incorporates the same romantic comedy themes that were posed in Shakespeare’s work. This film centers around Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), a witty and sharp investigative journalist and her battle between career and love. The first thing that caught my attention about this film is the feminist energy that Hildy portrays. She is a powerful woman that holds her own in a workplace filled with men. This was only interesting to me because of the era of the film. Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s feminism was not really the hottest topic in film. However, His Girl Friday creates an environment where Hildy thrives amongst her male counterparts. She is innately confident and extremely independent, despite the two men pining for her love. She puts her marriage on hold to continue her love of journalism and puts her own wants and needs before any man in her life. This was refreshing to watch. 

The era of screwball comedy went hand in hand with the Great Depression. During this time, the country was in distress. People were out of work, the country was broke, and ultimately the majority of the country was down. This was the perfect time for film to create easy-viewing films that would cheer up the masses. Screwball comedies provided simple comedic elements sprinkled throughout a dramatic plot to offer a happy experience to the audience. The films were typically quick paced and had clean cut editing that would keep the film energized and the viewer on their toes. The screwball comedy provided a joyful break from real life during the Great Depression, and His Girl Friday is the perfect example of this. The screwball comedy offers more than a love story and quick jokes: it offers physical and emotional relief for the population of the United States. 

William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953) was our first introduction to a radical romantic comedy. Tamar Jeffers McDonald defines a radical romantic comedy as, “The radical romantic comedy is often willing to abandon the emphasis on making sure the couple ends up together, regardless of likelihood, instead  striving to interrogate the ideology of romance”, in her work Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre (McDonald, 59). Roman Holiday definitely falls in accord with this definition. The film centers around a princess and a journalist who meet unexpectedly and fall in love. While viewing this film I was content. There were minimal surprises and I got used to the fact that this film would give me the satisfaction of a basic, happy ending. I was mistaken. Not only do Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) and Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) not end up together, we (the viewer) are left with nothing. The ending is extremely anti-climatic and as an audience we are left confused. However, after digging further into the meaning of this ending, it turns out Roman Holiday gives the audience some real life lessons. The film throws out any romantic comedy principles that the genre may have created before it. There is no happy ending, no unlikely couple, and most definitely no “boy gets girl back”. While somewhat unconventional to our romantic comedy conditioned minds, this is real life. Not everything works out in the end when life happens off of the silver screen. Couples that are out of each other’s social circles are oftentimes not practical. In reality, there is not a guaranteed happy ending. Roman Holiday instilled this unexpected wisdom in me, and created a new space for itself within the Romantic Comedy Genre. 

Moving on in our journey through the genre of Romantic Comedy, we enter into the more modern romantic comedies. Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1989) is a classic rom-com that is popular among multiple generations. When I told my mom that I was watching this film for class, she immediately asked if she could watch with me. I wondered what was so special about this movie, and was excited to find out. McDonald would classify this film as a neotraditional romantic comedy in the sense that “Neotraditional romcoms have to work hard to find a way to explain why sex is not happening for its main couple” (McDonald, 97). This is the very core of When Harry Met Sally. Essentially the film revolves around Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan)’s friendship and the central thesis that men and women cannot be friends, because sex will always get in the way of the friendship. In my eyes, sex never got in the way of Sally and Harry’s relationship, it just removed the one thing that made then such good friends: conversation. To me, their friendship worked because they could talk about anything. Once sex was involved, they stopped talking all together and thus stopped being friends. It is without a doubt a neotraditional romcom, but what else does the film portray to the audience? There are many answers to this “question” of heterosexual friendship and sex that we could explore, however I want to talk about the concepts that this film promotes. 

This film gained incredible popularity and became a “classic” because it supports the notion of “The One”. When Harry Met Sally portrays that your soulmate is closer than you think, and when you stop looking you’ll find them. These are things society has told us for years. It validates singles who haven’t found their match yet. It promotes dating within your friend circle and the concept that love is right around the corner. This put the audience at ease and provided a comfort that many romantic comedies do not provide. Yes this film had a happy ending, but it was way more relatable than the grand fairytale endings traditional to the genre. It is the average person’s happy ending: relating to all. That is why this film has gained such popularity, in my opinion. 

The last film I want to discuss is Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up (2007). This modern romcom is one that reminded me of many films I had seen previous to this course. With familiar faces like Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen, I was excited to watch the film. I was ultimately left feeling neutral after finishing. Katherine Heigl plays her typical type-A character and Seth Rogen plays his typical stoner character, there was nothing new about it. The novelty came when I read David Denby’s article, “A Fine Romance”. Denby categorizes this film as a “slacker-striver” romcom. This type of film centers around a put together, well rounded woman who somehow ends up with an immature guy who is not in the slightest bit in her league. It becomes the woman’s job to shape up this slacker she is paired with and turn him into the man he has potential to be. Denby describes how these types of romantic comedies create an injustice to female characters, as their roles become reduced to a vehicle to pull the male character out of his immature ways. Slacker-striver films, such as Knocked Up, promote toxic ideals for relationships, and ultimately reduce women to become the helper of men. 

One main issue that I had with this film was the promotion of “I Can Fix You Culture”. This is a concept I hear all the time when discussing romantic relationships. Women develop feelings for a boy who is not worth their time or energy, but the women feel as though they can change him. The fact of the matter is, nobody really changes. They may clean up their appearance or get a stable job, but their personality and habits will always remain the same. Therefore, if she did not love him before she was able to “change” him, she will never be able to love him. Slacker-striver films will always make me uncomfortable because of this concept. 

This course has truly changed my view on romantic comedies. I will always have a soft spot for happy endings and grand gestures, but I learned that romcoms can be so much more than that. There is such a rich history and deep variety within the genre that encapsulates me. Films impact culture, and romantic comedies are no exception to this. Romcoms create our perceptions of love, but what we often fail to realize is that there are so many versions of love represented within the genre. I love that there is so much to unpack within each film. It is so evident to me that romantic comedies are so much more than just a “guilty pleasure” or an “easy watch”. They are an intellectual experience. I loved finding common themes prevalent among different films,  and contrastingly, watching pieces that invented their own space within the genre. Each film that I discussed above had its own place as a romantic comedy, despite common themes that ran throughout each of them. Each film was unique, and promoted different stories, versions of love, and definitions of what a romantic comedy is: and that is okay. In fact it is more than okay, it is exhilarating. I love that each film can speak for itself and still exist cohesively with other films in the genre. I have loved romantic comedies for as long as I can remember, but I will forever value the meaning this course has given to the genre and the new perspective that this course has given me.