The Romantic Comedy: What is Love? by Hannah Lathrop

Hannah Lathrop

Professor Sinowitz

Tps:Romantic Comedy

13 May 2020

The Romantic Comedy: What is Love?

Guilty pleasure: the endearment which dismisses all Romantic Comedies. Rom-coms are often generalized into meaningless fluff, and so we attempt to hide ever watching them or enjoying them. As I started our course on Romantic Comedies, I largely felt the same. My exposure to modern rom coms told me the genre was derivative. The formula is easy to recite: two strangers overcome all obstacles to find a way to be together. It can be wrapped up quite succinctly, as David Shumway describes it in his book Modern Love: Romance, Intimacy and the Marriage Crisis, “Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” (157). Now, romance stories have been side-lined, considered too insubstantial to hold attention on its own. They make up the B-plots, the side stories. However, Romantic Comedy has a long history, and we continue to make films in this genre. Why do we tell the same story over and over again? While critics stigmatize the genre for being merely fun and frilly, the Romantic Comedy has a long history of commenting on the popular ideologies surrounding love.

As I mentioned, the major criticism of the Romantic Comedy is that the genre’s repetitive. The same story has been told a thousand ways before, so then what more can be said? J. Hillis Miller argues in his essay “Narrative” that we will always need more stories. To him, stories are a powerful way “to assert the basic ideology of our culture” (Miller, 72). In this way, Romantic Comedies tackle one of our most important subjects: love. As we consume stories about love, we come to understand it. Miller writes, “It has been said, along these lines, that we would not know we were in love if we had not read novels” (69). If love existed before stories, we could not recognize it. Thus, the Romantic Comedies job is to portray love, to tell us what a good relationship looks like, or convince us anyone can find one. Thus, the Romantic Comedy makes itself essential, and it will always have more to say.

As a trailblazer of the genre, Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing inspired many of the tropes and character types we see in modern Romantic Comedies. However, Much Ado has its own background. In the article “The Argument of Comedy,” Northrop Fyre describes Shakespeare's writing as a combination of New Comedy and folklore. For example, Shakespeare makes use of “the drama of the green world,” a progression of realistic and ideal states (97). In Much Ado, Beatrice and Benedick progress from combatants, battling in wits, to lovers, equal in standing, as they travel in and out of the green world of the orchard. Shakespeare manipulates the patterns of New Comedy and folklore to produce something new. Similarly, the structure, characters, and tropes of the Romantic Comedy are tools to further add to the conversation about love. 

***

Our first film, Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) continues that conversation with a still shot of a dingy, dark alleyway. The imagery of garbage gondolas and romantic acapellas creates an intriguing contrast, the traditionally glamorous city of Venice conflicting with the overall mundanity of trash collection. Similarly, the main character Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) skates the line between elegance and crookedness as his identity alternates between the illusionary Monsieur Laval and the thief Monescu. Each identity resonates separately with the two love interests: Mariette Colet (Kay Francis) and Lily (Miriam Hopkins), respectively. However, Gaston and Madame Colet’s love ends abruptly. Gaston returned to Lily's side; thus, the validity of Mm. Colet’s relationship is questioned. It is not new to base relationships on class. Shakespeare, too, let the similar social standings of a couple drive their relationship. In Much Ado, Claudio and Hero, Benedick and Beatrice, Borachio and Margaret all keep within their class boundaries. Trouble in Paradise tells us no different: a crook remains a crook and a lady remains a lady. Thus, Lubitsch seemingly condescends love that crosses social standing.

However, the conversation on romance between classes changes with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934). In the article “Turning Point,” James Harvey writes about the film’s unconventional depiction of the Depression’s uprootedness. Harvey notes the effects of the Depression on the scenery and characters are present throughout the film. For example, the setting of the film, from the bus station to the make-shift hay beds, hints at the undertones of the film. The only imagery of "conventional movie glamour" takes place in the beginning and end of the film, in both cases Colbert's character Ellie desperately escapes the scene (Harvey, 114). Only in such a tragedy can the true resourcefulness and strength of the characters can be shown. However, unlike Trouble in Paradise, the characters in It Happened One Night transcend their class. In “Runaway Bride,” Elizabeth Kendall put the charm of this action very adeptly, writing, “She (Ellie) chooses sex, which all Americans had potentially in common, over class, which they didn’t” (49). Because the characters of It Happened One Night embrace their love, the film's ending reconciles class tension through the character’s romance.

It Happened One Night marked the start of the subgenre, the screwball comedy. In Tamar Jeffers MacDonald’s book Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre (Short Cuts), she argues the screwball comedy “stresses qualities associated with written dialogue – speed, polish and wit – rather than the spontaneity which comes from improvisation” (19). Reminiscent of Beatrice and Benedick, this quality of speedy banter became the equalizer between men and women. While in Trouble in Paradise, Gaston’s and Mm. Colet’s back-and-forth could not make up for their differences, in the screwball era, it can. This effect often leads to “a major inversion or subversion of the characters’ normality” (McDonald, 24). For example, in It Happened One Night, Ellie was uprooted from her financial stability as a runaway. In Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby (1938), Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) forces David Huxley (Cary Grant) to let loose with her constant insanity. Thus, the screwball comedy forces the characters to meet, not halfway, but on equal terms in their relationship despite their differences.  

***

Although the screwball comedy saw men and women in a battle of wits, the sex comedy, the new subgenre of the 1960s, pitted men and women in the battle of sexes. While the man will try to seduce a woman for sex, the woman uses the male’s desire to secure marriage. This is commonly portrayed through the “theme of reversal” which McDonald defines as an “inversion of the ‘natural’ order” which typically promotes contemporary gender norms (45). She goes on to outline this theme, writing, “The humour lies in the incongruity of the events, the reversal which creates the man’s passivity and the woman’s action, because, it is assumed, men are not passive and women not in charge” (49). Thus, the sex comedy promotes the stereotypes of male dominance and female passivity. 

In Michael Gordon’s Pillow Talk (1960), Jan Morrow’s (Doris Day) celibacy is contrasted with Brad Allen's (Rock Hudson) promiscuity. Brad labels Jan a spinster for her independence. For example, while Jan reasonably complains about the shared line, Brad spins her complaints, telling her “Look, I don’t know what’s bothering you, but don’t take your bedroom problems out on me.” She quickly replies, “I have no bedroom problems. There’s nothing in my bedroom that bothers me.” But Brad has the final word, “Ohhh. That’s too bad,” he says. This dialogue exemplifies how Brad controls the conversation. Furthermore, he deceives Jan throughout to get what he wants, instigating her to quicken the pace of her relationship with “Rex.” The sex comedy normalizes sex and gender roles in a relationship while maintaining happy ending of marriage.

***

The modern era of Romantic Comedies calls back to the films that come before it. The Nora Ephron film When Harry Met Sally (1989), for one, embraces the conventions of the genre. The film is clearly nostalgic of past romances. The film's soundtrack, including music by Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald for example, evokes memories of a past time. Moreover, the film references to old films like Casablanca demonstrate its sentimental nature. Therefore, it's only natural the couple end up engaged. Thus, When Harry Met Sally emulates traditional Romantic Comedies while existing in a modern setting.

Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), however, challenges the importance of marriage. Near the end of the film, Charles (Hugh Grant) stands at the altar about to marry someone he does not love. In fact, his true love, Carrie (Andie MacDowell), is standing in the pews. He calls off the wedding, and the culmination of Charles and Carries relationship is topped off with an anti-proposal. Charles says, “Do you think, in time, you might possibly agree... never to marry me?” to which Carrie replies “I do” (Newell). The ending of the film mocks the convention of marriage especially as a form of happy ending. The following montage of wedding pictures coupled with Charles and Carrie demonstrates marriage is not meant for everyone.

Similarly, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) plays on the concept of the happy ending. McDonald claims, “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” (59). We see this in Lost in Translation; the final scene of the film does not try to force the couple together for the sake of closure. The audience does not hear what Bob whispers to Charlotte; thus, the audience is left in the dark and unable to gain closure.

As the Romantic Comedy has opened to more voices, stories like Ang Lee’s the Wedding Banquet (1993) and Gina Prince-Blythewood’s Love & Basketball (2000) work across multiple cultures, sexualities, and generations. Although modern films like When Harry Met Sally attempt to evoke the feeling of the traditional Romantic Comedy, they adapt the format to fit with the current perspectives of love. Four Weddings and a Funeral challenges the necessity of marriage to be happy while Lost in Translation abandons the happy ending altogether. Through Shakespeare, screwballs, and sex comedies to the modern day, the discussion of love continues to take place in Romantic Comedies.

***

The Romantic Comedy in general has differing opinions about love. Whether it’s love at first sight, natural chemistry, or true friendship, underlying it all is the connection between two people. We see many different methods to portray this connection throughout history. The screwball comedy used banter to demonstrate how a couple could work well together. The sex comedy pitted gender against gender. As the times change, so do the popular views on relationships and love. 

However, the ideologies Romantic Comedies promote are important. Wesely Morris praises the Romantic Comedy in his essay “Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much?” because it “is the only genre committed to letting relatively ordinary people — no capes, no spaceships, no infinite sequels — figure out how to deal meaningfully with another human being”(2). The rom com effectively portrays struggles we deal with day-to-day. Furthermore, it teaches us to connect to other people through observational learning. The genre holds the power to persuade our views on love; therefore, we as the audience should be conscious of what messages the film purveys.