Romantic comedy

Romantic comedy films are movies with light-hearted, humorous dramatic stories centered around romantic ideals such as a "true love" able to surmount most obstacles ^[1] or the "perfect couple." Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as of romance films. Because of their proven appeal to women, movies of that type are generally regarded as being "chick flicks".

The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two people, usually a man and a woman, meet and then part ways due to an argument or other contrived obstacles. Initially, these two people do not become romantically involved, because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave obvious clues that suggest that the characters are in fact attracted to each other, or that they would be a good love match.

While the two people are separated, one or both individuals then realize that they are "perfect" for each other, or that they are in love with the other person. Then, after one of the two makes some spectacular effort to find the other person and declare their love, (this is sometimes called the grand gesture), or due to an astonishing coincidental encounter, the two meet again. Then, perhaps with some comic friction or awkwardness, they declare their love for each other and the film ends happily.

There are many variations on this basic plotline. Sometimes, instead of the two lead characters ending up in each other's arms, another love match will be made between one of the principal characters and a secondary character (e.g., My Best Friend's Wedding). Alternatively, the film may be a rumination on the impossibility of love, as in Woody Allen's film Annie Hall. The basic format of a romantic comedy film can be found in much earlier sources, such as Shakespeare plays like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Devices

History

Comedies since ancient Greece have often incorporated sexual or social elements.^{[citation needed]} It was not until the creation of romantic love in the western European medieval period^{[citation needed]}, though, that "romance" came to refer to "romantic love" situations, rather than long Roman novels.^{[citation needed]} The creation of huge economic social strata in the Gilded Age^{[citation needed]}, combined with the heightened awareness of sex after the Victorian Age^{[citation needed]} and the celebration of Freud's (wrong) theories^{[citation needed]}, and the birth of the film industry in the early twentieth century, gave birth to the screwball comedy.^{[citation needed]} As class consciousness declined and World War II unified various social orders against the Hun, the savage screwball comedies of the twenties and thirties, proceeding through Hudson-Day-style comedies, gave way to more innocuous comedies.^{[citation needed]}

The French film industry went in a completely different direction^{[citation needed]}, with less inhibitions about sex^{[citation needed]} and without the roots of screwball comedy^{[citation needed]}, creating sex comedies.^{[citation needed]}

Examples

Examples of romantic comedy films include:

Screwball comedy period

Transitional period

Modern romantic comedies

Top grossing romantic comedies of all time

References

^ Bill Johnson, "The Art of the Romantic Comedy", Essays on the Craft of Dramatic Writing (1996)

External links

Romantic Comedy Movies - Top 290 (1978-present) by Box Office Mojo

[1] Bill Johnson, "The Art of the Romantic Comedy", Essays on the Craft of Dramatic Writing (1996)

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