Michelle Tulej

English 161 (32295)

Maryanne Lyons
WP4 Final Draft
05/07/15
Romantic Comedies
What exactly is a romantic comedy? It is basically what the title says; it is a twist
of romance and comedy put together into a movie. Romantic comedies have been
prevalent since the 1890s, in this time period this genre did not become widely known
yet. The main focus of the 1890s to do with romantic comedy was The Kiss (1896).
The Kiss was a short film of two people kissing that played on the big screen for only a
minute. It is not until the 1930s did romantic comedy start to become more known when
many different aspects of this genre have changed and became popular in the movies.
Every couple years society alters and peoples mind set changes. What many do not know
that out of these movies is the way society evolves. The way a relationship forms based
on how Hollywood presents everyone in these movies. What is being said is that
romantic comedy has a big effect on the way couples, romance worked in each time
period. In this paper, I am going to compare the change romantic comedies have made. I
am going to compare these types of movies from specific decades like the, 1930s, 19501960s, 1960s-1980s and then the 2000s, looking to reflect on the relationships, the way
women and men played as characters and how that reflected people off screen. I will also
focus on the wardrobe the actors portrayed and how that changed the scenery between
romantic comedies in different eras and the way romantic comedies affect relationships in

the real world through movies. Through this analysis I hope to show you that romantic
comedies have greatly altered through the plots and direction, but also the way the
characters play their roles.
Ideologies exist in all kinds of different topics of interest. They are a system of
ideas based on what everyone thinks. In this case we are going to be viewing ideologies
in Hollywood film. Within time people start to change based on the culture around them.
Society takes out concepts from films and media, one of them being romantic comedy
film and they start applying them in their daily lives. Many think it is just the production
that changes, the way a movie is directed, but more importantly the ideological interests
change as well. The blog, Changing Ideologies within the Romantic Comedy Genre in
the 21st Century, written by Annemarie Clancy, Clancy mentions how every sub genre in
Hollywood has a change of ideologies from decade to decade. She says, The basic
ideology within the romantic comedy genre is the primary importance of the couple
(Clancy). So the change you will see within rom coms is the change between how the
two people in a relationship act towards each other. As said in the article, many genre
films can be shaped by the social milieu of the time they are made (Clancy). From the
beginning of the rom coms, which started to become popular in the 1930s, the main
focus of the movies was to find love. Only because everyone thought that love was key
and everyone would be happy with just that in their lives.

Romantic comedy was a huge hit in the 1930s, it became the most popular decade
from then till now for romantic comedies to be produced and viewed. It had a major
impact on the people living in this time especially on the couples living in that decade.
There were tons of films produced in this time period and many focused on dating or
marriage. Two movies that really stood out during this time period were Lonely Wives
(1931) and As The Bride Walks out (1936). Hollywoods Production Code and Thirties
Romantic Comedy is an article written by Jane Greene. It is about films examined in the
thirties and there affect on the production code because of the content shown in the
movie. In the first film, Lonely Wives, the wife returns from out of town. Madeline, the
wife, locks her and her husband in the room. The next morning the daughter was very
ecstatic. Her mother had asked how her night went and she had explained it went great.
In the article Greene mentions, This exchange invites the viewer to believe that
Madeline has used sex to bend her husband to her will (Greene 60). As we can see back
in this time romantic comedies involved situations like this, the wife would take control
of her husband and decide on behalf of both of them. The second movie, As The Bride
Walks Out, it is about a couple that just got married and went to have their honeymoon.
While there they both are acting so strange and do not even want to be by each other.
When there in the apartment the man exclaims, What is wrong with us, were acting like
as if we dont even know each other! After this the wife says carry me to the door and
out through the town and the husband does exactly what the wife asks of him. Just how in

the movie I mentioned before both women take control of their husbands and do not have
any say because the wives decide what is going on.
More towards the 1950s and 1960s, romantic comedies changed even more from
how they were before. They started to realize it isnt just having love that will make you
live happily ever after, but there are other aspects to life that need to be accomplished.
One is starting a family and providing for it in the American Dream way. Which is
getting married starting a family and the wife raising the kids in the correct way like
everyone else is doing. In the movie, The Thrill of it All (1963), the couple in the movie
is married and the women of the family gets a contract to start premiering on weekly TV.
She soon starts the job, after couple of months the load of work becomes unbearable and
she goes back to being a housewife. That is how life was in the 1960s they portrayed this
in the movies and people started following by this concept thinking it was the best way to
live.
This takes me to how feminism has changed romantic comedy and how it is
shown in these movies. In the late sixties, beginning of the seventies the role of women
has changed. It went from women being told what to do and following every rule of their
husbands to being able to live a single life. Women wanted to become more independent
and they started to protest to change womens rights. Clancy quotes James MacDowell,
Many rom-coms that were released in the sixties were the first to explore single life,
as divorce rates rose significantly after the second wave of feminism,

changing perceptions of love and marriage portrayed on the big screen, and delivered the
message to women that love does not conquer all (Clancy). This was reflected in the era
of the sixties and seventies and you can very well see it in the movies of that era as well.
David Shumway agreed with Clancy in his article, Screwball Comedies, by stating, In
the 1970s and 1980s a series of films appeared that might be called comedies of
remarriage in an altogether different sense, since they take as their situation the plight of
the post-married and repeatedly married (Shumway 18). Now a day we all know very
well that this is extremely common. There are so many single women in todays century
that this was a shock to women to see this on the big screen back then. One of the first
movies to challenge ideologies of romantic comedies in the 1970s was, Annie Hall
(1977). In the book, The Hollywood romantic comedy: a convention, history,
controversies, the author, Grindon Leger very well agrees with this point. She writes,
Annie Hall, marks a seismic shift in the shape of the romantic comedy genre (Leger
150). This movie shifted from a married happy couple to eventually this couple going
through the divorce and eventually Annie going to be on her own. Mortimer goes on by
stating, the romance sidesteps marriage and addresses the trials of partnership (150).
Film is finally beginning to show how relationships really do work and not always do
they work out perfectly. It is not always going to be that first person you fall in love with
that will be the last and they are just trying to provide the truth through romantic
comedies now. In the book, Feminism and Film Theory, Constance Penley writes about
the same film, Annie Hall she writes, In this film it depicts a woman occupying the

central function in the narrative (Penely 27). This portrays Annie as the main character.
She as a woman is taking control and learning to lead a life on her own. She is what
everyone is looking at and admiring her for what she is doing. Feminism took a really big
part in these movies as they started to go more into the 1970s and 1980s romantic
comedies started to focus more on womens view then what men would like to have
watched.
Moreover, romantic comedies differ in men and womens eyes. In the article by
Cohen she talks about her love for romantic comedies and her girlfriends love for them,
for they were known as chick flicks. She goes to say that these movies were made for
chicks because of the way everything is portrayed in them, especially the clothes. They
show off more materialistic stuff for girls making them want to watch it, guys are just
there for the plot of it, if even that. Some are just forced to go see these movies because
of their spouse.
Wardrobe in romantic comedy has changed from the start of the romantic comedy
era to how romantic comedies are played out now. We can say that wardrobe in the
1930s was a complete different scene then what is going on now. You did not have to
watch romantic comedies to notice this, but knowing just about the past era and how fully
clothed they were because they did not want to reveal too much for the men. In the article
by Cohen she mentions how in the 1937 film, Awful Truth (1937), the main women
character dresses. She portrays her through her choice of clothing, The clothes are

spectacular but hardly sexy; they border on the absurd (83). This just goes to show that
she had simple clothing on. They were not sexy meaning, as they were not revealing as
movies tend to show now. Clothes can also have resemblance between the 1930s and the
2000s. Two movies we can see that between are the same movie, Awful Truth, and a
popular movie, The Wedding Planner (2001). In the Awful Truth the women plans her
outfits in a smart way. In the movie when battling in court over the possession of the dog,
she ends up winning because she hides a toy in her clothes to lure the dog to her. She
strategically did this to win the case. Cohen states, she also has those clothes which, like
the funny little toy with the dog, give her a priority in the film over even the most
devastating of leading men (83). She made sure of this before she went to the courtroom
to fight over the dog. So how in the Wedding Planner does the women outsmart everyone
with her clothes. Well in this movie, Jennifer Lopez does not have to expose herself at all
not even half naked to get everyone to pay attention to her. The way she presents herself
wearing Gucci heals and a leather jacket. Her clothing basically promotes her talent at
planning weddings it goes hand in hand because everything is always a masterpiece. She
is smart about how she goes about doing everything just how Dunne was in the Awful
Truth.
We can easily say that relationships now are completely different then how they
were twenty years back, but even more different then any relationship in the 1930s. It
has always been that people wanted to be just like celebrities. Media affects the way a

person thinks and what they do. Everyone wants to do what famous people from movies
are doing was doing because they think they have to be just like that. "Contradictory
Messages: A Content Analysis of Hollywood-Produced Romantic Comedy Feature
Films is an article written by Kimberley Johnson featuring 40 different romantic
comedies that focus on how they affect relationships (long term and short) in reality.
Johnson argues that social media does impact the way people think about different affects
in their lives especially relationships. Johnson mentions the cultivation theory in her
article. This theory portrays people that spend most of their time living in the TV world
and then more likely to believe social reality. In this article Johnson states, Traditional
cultivation theory posits that it is the overall exposure to general media content that
influences real world perceptions (Johnson 353). Everything people watch is affecting
them because they want to be in with what everyone else is doing and not stick out like a
sore thumb. These people lose sense and misperception of the real world. Since we are
simply speaking about romantic comedies after Johnson mentions that she goes to say,
viewers exposed to a high level of romance media will come to cultivate beliefs and
expectations of relationships consistent with those particular presentations over heavy
viewers of media in general (353). Relationships present themselves in the way media
wants you to see them and adolescents believe this is the way it has to be and strive to
make their relationship based of that. When their relationship does not reach what
romantic comedies are showing them, then they start to think what is lacking and why
this is happening. Veronica Hefner conducted a study with couples and single adolescents

that have watched certain romantic comedies. After she questioned them on how they
affected or have not affected their relationship. Romantic comedies persist couples to
know about what it is that is the right thing to do in a relationship in this time Hefner
exclaims, If viewers can learn about families and occupations from the media, they may
also be able to learn about intimate relationships from exposure (Hefner 151). Many say
that watching these movies have countered their love life and changed it.
In the 1930s movies were focused on just having fun not trying to find someone
and if you did it was be just for a little while and then you would have moved on to
another man. (Cohen). Starting to being in the 1950s and extremely happening in movies
in the 1960s, couples started looking into marriage more in depth and were focused on
creating families for that falling in love was not the only goal. Then there were those
movies that countered that thinking like, Breakfast at Tiffanys. This movie counters what
was going on in 1960 because the woman in this movie did not stick with one man that
she did start having feelings for, but played him along and went to someone else later on.
Finally in this decade divorce had become a big thing that everyone knew about and it
was not hidden and shown that this could happen within families.
Furthermore, moving into the 21st century is where movies to start to become a
whole lot different with the content of the movie compared to the 1930s. Movies like
Friends With Benefits (2011) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) are movies that
would describe our time because of the way people in these movies act. These types of
movies focus more on the comedy then the actual elements of romance and how it is

changing and how it affects the society. Clancy proposes, these film types completely
oppose with older more traditional romantic comedies, where a focus was solely had on
the perspective of the woman seeking true love (Clancy). Movies back in the 1900s
were based on trying to find love and working on building the perfect family, now the
movies produced do not typically have that in them. Some romantic comedies now do not
even just focus on a male to women being in love, but on bromances. Movies in the
21st century focus more on the realistic end of a relationship. Clancy agrees by saying,
The difference with modern romantic comedies is that rather than just teaching the
audience that they need to fall in love and get married, there is now more of a focus on
the make-up of relationships; presenting the truth that love is complicated and can come
in different shapes and forms (Clancy). Romantic comedies now feature the insight that
love is not easy and it comes with its ups and downs. Movies now typically have the
truth and common issues that couples face. Another movie of the 21st century, Knocked
Up (2007), also portrays the hardships of being an adult that is trying to make a
relationship work. In this movie a single woman meets a man in a nightclub, after having
a one-night stand she gets pregnant. She decides to keep the baby and is trying to make
the relationship work, while at the same time juggling the life she had before this. Clancy
portrays this movie as, The film deals with difficult circumstances in a very lighthearted as well as humorous manner, and overall is a very heart-warming watch as the
unlikely romance turns sweet (Clancy). This movie is a really good example of movies

now because it still focuses on the romance in an odd and bizarre way, but it is more
focused on how finding love has never been easy and there is not structured way to do so.
In romantic comedies there has been many changes throughout time, from the
way women are presented to how the characters act earlier in the 1900s to later. Now in
the present day romantic comedy is viewed as something that people go to movies to
watch to get a kick out of. It is the type of movie that most couples will go view to get
some comedy in, but at the same time experience romance. From the first movie about
romantic comedy, which was, The Kiss to movies now like Bridesmaids. They have
changed dramatically in time especially the roles that the characters bring out. How in the
1930s it was just about finding someone to love and thats where you got all the
happiness, and moving into the 1950s couples realize that you need more then the I
love you they need marriage and a family. While now in the present day movies and real
life include both of those. Romantic comedy will always be a sub genre that people
favorite and it will continue for a very long time. This sub genre will affect the way
people are in relationships with each other just because society goes off of Hollywood,
but it will also be movies people can watch for fun just to get a laugh or two in.

Works Cited
Clancy, Annemarie. "Changing Ideologies within the Romantic Comedy Genre in the
21st Century." Annemarie Clancy. N.p., 26 Apr. 2013. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.
Cohen, Paula Marantz. "What have Clothes Got to do with it?: Romantic Comedy and
the Female Gaze." Southwest Review 95.1 (2010): 78-88. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.
Greene, Jane M. "Hollywood's Production Code and Thirties Romantic
Comedy." Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television 30.1 (2010): 55-73. Web.
25 Apr. 2015.
Grindon, Leger. The Hollywood Romantic Comedy: Conventions, History, Controversies.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.

Hefner, Veronica, and Barbara J. Wilson. "From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The
Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People's Beliefs about
Relationships."Communication Monographs 80.2 (2013): 150-75. Web. 29 Apr.
2015.

Johnson, Kimberly R., and Bjarne M. Holmes. "Contradictory Messages: A Content

Analysis of Hollywood-Produced Romantic Comedy Feature
Films." Communication Quarterly 57.3 (2009): 352-73. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Penley, Constance. Feminism and Film Theory. New York: Routledge, 1988. Print.
Shumway, David. "Film Reference." Decline and Reinvention. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr.
2015.