Scan barcode
bashbashbashbash's review
4.0
Man, I love this book. I knew there was an ideology behind romantic comedies--one that the typical dismissals neglected to address. A reason that I enjoy watching these films (from all decades) and also feel vaguely sickened when the films reach some neat conclusion. Very little has been written about romcoms (especially the past 20 years' worth), so this book is a real boon to anyone studying them.
Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre takes the reader through a whirlwind history of the romantic comedy: from the Screwballs of the '40s (20th Century), which expressed sexual tension through physical aggression of both male and female characters, on through the Sex Comedies of the '50s and early 60s (Pillow Talk), when Kinsey's report made women's sexual lives a topic of public debate, but film and social codes prohibited overt sex to be shown in films (at least and especially between unmarried couples), on through the Radical Romantic Comedy of the (late) '60s and 1970s, which upended the conventions of the romcom and questioned the assumption that a perfect traditional monogamous heterosexual pairing brings happiness, or that immediate sexual ease flows from desire (Annie Hall, Harold and Maude, An Unmarried Woman).
From around 1980-2002, the market was saturated by what McDonald calls the Neo-Traditional Romantic Comedy (such as You've Got Mail), a genre which considers sex immature and unimportant when compared to romantic love. These chaste and often insincere films evoke the trappings of previous decades of romcoms (and also recall romantic dramas) while perpetuating the same ideology of blissful, sexless, "perfect" romantic heterosexual pairings.
The book also touches briefly on what it calls the hommecom (ex: Hitch, The Wedding Crashers, Made of Honor, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall), which focus on male protagonists who desire--or come to desire--romance and love. While these films are more honest about sex and also re-reveal the fact that romcoms are intended as much for male audiences as for female audiences, the new hommecoms still tend to tow the neo-traditional line, suggesting that "perfect" heterosexual pairings are the key to happiness and completion.
The only films that continue to explore themes of the radical romantic comedies are gay and lesbian romcoms (ex: Kissing Jessica Stine), which often suggest that monogamous pairings may have limited longevity; however, Mcdonald quickly points out that this can lead to problematic readings, as the films can be seen to suggest that homosexual pairings cannot be successful or happy.
It's clear that Mcdonald would like to see a return to themes of the Radical Romantic Comedy and the incorporation of relevant material and characters that ground new romcoms in the present decade and include a variety of sexual and romantic modes, homosexual as well as heterosexual pairings, and (this is my own addition), more romance films featuring non-white characters.
The book would have been enriched by the exploration of African American romcoms (which are only mentioned in passing).
Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre takes the reader through a whirlwind history of the romantic comedy: from the Screwballs of the '40s (20th Century), which expressed sexual tension through physical aggression of both male and female characters, on through the Sex Comedies of the '50s and early 60s (Pillow Talk), when Kinsey's report made women's sexual lives a topic of public debate, but film and social codes prohibited overt sex to be shown in films (at least and especially between unmarried couples), on through the Radical Romantic Comedy of the (late) '60s and 1970s, which upended the conventions of the romcom and questioned the assumption that a perfect traditional monogamous heterosexual pairing brings happiness, or that immediate sexual ease flows from desire (Annie Hall, Harold and Maude, An Unmarried Woman).
From around 1980-2002, the market was saturated by what McDonald calls the Neo-Traditional Romantic Comedy (such as You've Got Mail), a genre which considers sex immature and unimportant when compared to romantic love. These chaste and often insincere films evoke the trappings of previous decades of romcoms (and also recall romantic dramas) while perpetuating the same ideology of blissful, sexless, "perfect" romantic heterosexual pairings.
The book also touches briefly on what it calls the hommecom (ex: Hitch, The Wedding Crashers, Made of Honor, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall), which focus on male protagonists who desire--or come to desire--romance and love. While these films are more honest about sex and also re-reveal the fact that romcoms are intended as much for male audiences as for female audiences, the new hommecoms still tend to tow the neo-traditional line, suggesting that "perfect" heterosexual pairings are the key to happiness and completion.
The only films that continue to explore themes of the radical romantic comedies are gay and lesbian romcoms (ex: Kissing Jessica Stine), which often suggest that monogamous pairings may have limited longevity; however, Mcdonald quickly points out that this can lead to problematic readings, as the films can be seen to suggest that homosexual pairings cannot be successful or happy.
It's clear that Mcdonald would like to see a return to themes of the Radical Romantic Comedy and the incorporation of relevant material and characters that ground new romcoms in the present decade and include a variety of sexual and romantic modes, homosexual as well as heterosexual pairings, and (this is my own addition), more romance films featuring non-white characters.
The book would have been enriched by the exploration of African American romcoms (which are only mentioned in passing).
More...