From Screwball to Black Comedy:
Predictable Romantic Comedies are Flexible
With names like “Rom Com” and “Chick Flick,” romantic comedies are often put in a silly or empty-headed light. Yet, these films continue to be made and people (women and men alike) keep seeing them because, “(audiences have) seen it in a hundred variations and know exactly how it ends... happily ever after.” (Mizejewski 17) And while people may know that real love doesn’t always end happily, the idea is too good to resist; audiences want to vicariously experience falling in love with the “perfect person” over and over again. Romantic Comedy has been a prominent film genre from the transition into “talkie” films to present day due to the fact that it is a genre that
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To start, America was in the middle of the Great Depression. Although it might seem like a bad time to try to make people laugh, it seems as if Americans were desperately seeking something to lift them from the Depression. “This fresh crop of romantic comedies expressed an optimism associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s energetic New Deal... In spite of the bleak conditions, hope became widespread.” (Grindon 32) But It Happened One Night did not ignore the Depression. It, like other screwballs to follow, “(was) set in Depression America and portrayed the economic distress marking the 1930s.” (Grindon 32) The central characters, Peter and Ellie, represent two classes of depression-era Americans—the working (or trying to find work) class and the wealthy, respectively. This plays into both the “meet cute” and one of the obstacles to their coupling. When they meet on the bus, Peter has to fight for a seat, which Ellie ends up taking with no notion of the effort he put into getting it. This immediately sets up the contrast between a man who has to work for everything and a woman who has had everything handed to her. This difference in class and worldview is a main force that pushes them apart. He sees her as brat who is helpless in the real world. Throughout the film, her ignorance about money puts them in danger and his thriftiness and general know-how gets them out of it. She loses her money, he gives her a strict budget. She tries to spend it on candy, he makes her save it and use it for a room for the night. She thinks he’s trying to take advantage of her by sharing a room, he knows they don’t have the money for two. This constantly conflicting dynamic between the central characters would have “…added resonance with a mass audience coming out of the worst of the Great Depression in representing the upper class as flawed.” (Mortimer
The film reflects the class difference from beginning through the end, especially between Annie and Helen. Annie is a single woman in her late 30s without saving or boyfriend. She had a terrible failure in her bakery shop, which leads her to work as a sale clerk in a jewelry store. When Annie arrived Lillian’s engagement party,
When thinking about romantic relationships, whether in the movies, media or your own relationship what characteristics come to mind? The topic we will discuss in this presentation attends to the romantic relationships within interpersonal communication.
This, however, demonstrates a fundamental difference between 'Fight Club' and 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest': the 1990's society 'no longer breeds a contempt for the virtues of individualism [...] on the contrary, totalitarianism now resides in a thorough dislike for all things social, public, and collective,' as Henry Giroux wrote. The positivity of Fight Club may lie primarily in that it is an unsanctioned, underground, counterculture collective.
The film Boogie Nights provides an interesting case study of the unique nature of human relationships, specifically love and friendship. It presents a crisscrossing mash-up of various combinations of traditional love categories: friendly (plutonic or nonsexual) love, family love, lust, master/servant or apprentice/teacher love, etc. Besides being entertaining, Boogie Nights presents these combinations to provoke an insight on our part into the nature of love. This insight is exemplified in Jack’s notion of the ideal pornographic film. His ideal film also serves to echo the same flaws found in Plato’s ideal forms. Boogie Nights attempts to demonstrate the false nature of a definite, meaningful love by disrupting its categorization and presenting the absurdity of its definition. Jack’s movie cannot exist by definition, and as a product of natural language neither can the common conception of love.
Everyone says, everywhere you go, that everything is about sex. Wars and films were no different. The “screwball comedy” was a movie making style popular in the 1940’s. This style was created so filmmakers could put more risqué moments in their films while still abiding by the censorship laws. These movies were “sex comedies without the sex” (Andrew Sarria, film critic discussing screwball comedies). Stanley Kubrick used this idea to fuel a satire about the idealistic Cold War in 1964 to supposedly fight communism. Dr. Strangelove debunks the myth of American moral superiority through the constant sexual undertones and over masculinity throughout the film and instead portrays the Cold War as groups of testosterone fueled, sex driven men compensating for inferiority complexes.
Each couple goes through a different scenario that affects marriage during their retreat and individual life journey. Through the scenarios, the audience can tell that money, lack of trust, closed feelings, and cheating breaks marriages apart; Tyler Perry’s writing about these problems creates a message for his audience. Tyler Perry’s combination of comedy and melodrama displays an unexpected climax leading to a soothing or a sad ending for the characters (Hale). This leaves the audience gasping to know what happens next; it introduces new drama for the characters. In addition, The plot structure focuses on “emotional affairs, domestic abuse, near-nervous breakdowns, cancer, and death” (Robeldo). In summary, Tyler Perry’s writing displays the connection between him and the audience, sharing a common lesson learned from watching the
Shumway, David, R. “Cinema Journal.” Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999. 7 – 23. Print.
The film analyzes a romantic relationship that is expected to last for a day. However, the nature of emotional attachment created by the relationship proves otherwise. Interpersonal communication is an essential aspect of romance because it enhances understanding, conflict resolution, and decision making. I selected the romantic interpersonal relationship because it is an essential aspect of life as far as marriage is concerned. Marriage is sustained through constant communication to help reduce the differences and enhance the effort of the couples in developing their marriage (Burleson
The fairytale depiction of love and romance seems to no longer exist in society. With the growing divorce rate and the increase of loveless marriage, it is rare to find an honest depiction of twenty first century love. Using the relationship of Carol and Howard as a hyperbole to modern day romance, Mavis Gallant explores the theme of algorithmic relationships to develop a commentary on the lack of love in modern day relationships. The characterization of Carol and Howard as an engaged couple lacking love and the use of abstract ideas, analogies, and hyperbole, “The Other Paris” tells the dismal future of relationships.
Like a contemporary Dorothy, Romancing the Stone's Joan Wilder must travel to Columbia and survive incredible adventures to learn that she had always been a capable and valuable person. Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984) is part of a series of 1980s action comedies that disrupted previous expectations for female heroines. These female protagonists manage to subvert the standard action narrative and filmic gaze, learning to rescue themselves and to resist others' limited vision of them. Not only did these action comedies present strong female characters, they also offered a new filmic experience for female audiences. The commercial success of comic action heroines paved the way for women to appear in serious action roles--without the personal sacrifices required of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Figures like Joan Wilder serve as an important link between previous strong yet feminine screen personas and current female stars.
I have never been so exhausted in my entire life and now I have time to sleep and do some schoolwork. I know this is a day late and I am sorry, but Sunday I just couldn’t function anymore.
Today, romance is one of the most popular genres to watch on television. Unlike most, romance is a genre where the plot revolves around the love between two main characters as they experience the highs and lows of love. “Common themes that revolve around romantic movies are kissing, love at first sight, tragic love, destructive love, and sentimental love” (Taylor). These themes appear in many historical films and the pattern still continues in modern films as well. Watching romantic movies has a giant negative influence on the viewer's analysis of what love and relationships should really be like. These films give the wrong impression of reality when it comes to dating, marriage, having children, and even how to manage a relationship in the first place. Even though romantic movies are commonly watched, there are many effects on personal real-life relationships after watching these types of films.
Now a days, we are finding comedy movies to still be funny but very repetitive of the same thing with the same jokes. It is starting to become really tough to see a good movie in generally, but in a narrow mind, its hard to see a good comedy movie. Yes, I understand everyone has a different opinion on what a “good” comedy movie is but based on reviews, asking peers, and personal judgment. I feel like everyone looks for first off a good cast, then the screen play, the movie script of the movie, the popularity of the movie by word of mouth, and how well it does in the box office.
Television comedies have been on the air for decades, and throughout this time many different shows have come and gone. Due to the dominance of these shows, comedies are one of the biggest draws on television. There are many different types of comedies, each with their own unique characteristics and features that differentiate them from others and lead to their popularity. Whether the show is a sketch comedy, sitcom, mockumentary or dramatic comedy, each utilizes different types of humour, locations, themes, and situations to appeal to the audience; which is likely why they are so popular today.
The point of a storyline is to make people laugh. It does not have to