American Film Comedies

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University (Amerikanische Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaften), course: American Film Comedies, language: English, abstract: This dialogue from 'Cactus Flower' is very likely to catch the attention of a 21stcentury woman instantly because of its chauvinist, discriminating tone against women. It is very intriguing to find this conversation in a film which was shot in the so-called liberal sixties, and which raised the question to me whether patriarchal values are only detectable in older romantic comedies such as 'Cactus Flower' (1969) or whether these values became obsolete in newer romantic comedies such as 'Something's Gotta Give' (2003). In spite of the constant success of romantic comedies? 'There's Something about Mary' (2001), for instance, passed the 'gold record line' of $100 million with flying colours? little attention has been paid to analyzing this film genre. The few critics who analyzed and interpreted film comedies tend to focus on masterpieces and on auteur films such as 'The General' by Buster Keaton, but they are likely to neglect romantic comedies. Therefore, this paper focuses deliberately on romantic comedies which are neither in the canon of masterpieces nor directed by an auteur. Interestingly, critics have not been able to agree on a final definition of romantic comedies, for which reason I chose to draw on Thomas Schatz's definition: Romantic comedies are 'fast-paced, witty comedies of manners exploiting the foibles of America's leisure class' (Classical Hollywood Comedies 126). An additional characteristic of romantic comedies, is the fact that focus is put on the mating of the major characters, with the result that gender quarrels play a major role. Consequently, romantic comedies propose to the spectatorship how to find true love, and they communicate implicitly universal patterns of mating and morality.