Romantic comedy films, also known as "rom-coms" or "romedies", are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles.[1] One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily".[2] Another definition states that its "primary distinguishing feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled".[3]
Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as of romance films, and may also have elements of screwball comedies[4] and stoner comedies. Some television series can also be classified as romantic comedies.
“ | In a typical romantic comedy the two lovers tend to be young, likeable, and apparently meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance (e.g., class differences, parental interference; a previous girlfriend or boyfriend) until, surmounting all obstacles, they are finally wed. A wedding-bells, fairy-tale-style happy ending is practically mandatory.[5] | ” |
Pretty Woman is considered by many critics to be the most successful movie in the genre.[6]
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Description
The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two characters, usually a man and a woman, meet, part ways due to an argument or other obstacle, then ultimately reunite. Sometimes the two leads meet and become involved initially, then must confront challenges to their union. Sometimes they are hesitant to become romantically involved because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or because of social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave clues that suggest that the characters are, in fact, attracted to each other and that they would be a good love match. The protagonists often separate or seek time apart to sort out their feelings or deal with the external obstacles to their being together.
While the two protagonists are separated, one or both of them usually realizes that they are ideal for each other, or that they are in love with each other. Then, after one of the two makes some spectacular effort (sometimes called the grand gesture) to find the other person and declare their love, or through 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. The couple does not, however, have to marry, or live together "happily ever after". The ending of a romantic comedy is meant to affirm the primary importance of the love relationship in its protagonists' lives, even if they physically separate in the end (e.g. Shakespeare in Love, Roman Holiday).[7]
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 and My Super Ex-Girlfriend). 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.
Some comedy films, such as Knocked Up, combine themes of romantic comedies and stoner comedies, creating a subgenre that appeals to both men and women. Often known as "bromance", such films usually use sexual elements which bring the two characters together. Films in this genre include American Pie 2 and even Wedding Crashers.
Contrived romantic encounters: the "meet cute"
One of the conventions of romantic comedy films is the funny parts and contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances, which film critics such as Roger Ebert[8] or the Associated Press' Christy Lemire[9] have called a "meet-cute" situation. During a "meet-cute", scriptwriters often create a humorous sense of awkwardness between the two potential partners by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation. Sometimes the term is used without a hyphen (a "meet cute"), or as a verb ("to meet cute").
Roger Ebert describes the "concept of a Meet Cute" as "when boy meets girl in a cute way." As an example, he cites "The Meet Cute in Lost and Found [which] has Jackson and Segal running their cars into each other in Switzerland. Once recovered, they Meet Cute again when they run into each other while on skis. Eventually,... they fall in love."[10]
In many romantic comedies, the potential couple comprises polar opposites, two people of different temperaments, situations, social statuses, or all three (It Happened One Night), who would not meet or talk under normal circumstances, and the meet cute's contrived situation provides the opportunity for these two people to meet.
Use of "meet cute" situations
Certain movies are entirely driven by the meet-cute situation, and contrived circumstances throw the couple together for much of the screenplay. However, movies in which the contrived situation is the main feature, such as Some Like It Hot, rather than the romance being the main feature, are not considered "meet-cutes".
The use of the meet-cute is less marked in television series and novels, because these formats have more time to establish and develop romantic relationships. In situation comedies, relationships are static and meet-cute is not necessary, though flashbacks may recall one (The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mad About You) and lighter fare may require contrived romantic meetings.
The heyday of "meet cute" in films was during the Great Depression in the 1930s; screwball comedy films made a heavy use of contrived romantic "meet cutes", perhaps because the more rigid class consciousness and class divisions of this period made cross-social class romances into tantalizing fantasies.
While film critic Roger Ebert has popularized the term "meet cute" in his reviews of romantic comedies, the term is mostly used in the film and screenwriting industries, where it provides a convenient shorthand for screenwriters who are doing a very compressed pitch to a film production company.
History
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines romantic comedy as "a general term for comedies that deal mainly with the follies and misunderstandings of young lovers, in a light‐hearted and happily concluded manner which usually avoids serious satire". This reference states that the "best‐known examples are Shakespeare's comedies of the late 1590s, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It being the most purely romantic, while Much Ado About Nothing approaches the comedy of manners and The Merchant of Venice is closer to tragicomedy.[11]
Comedies since ancient Greece have often incorporated sexual or social elements.
It was not until the creation of romantic love in the western European medieval period, though, that "romance" came to refer to "romantic love" situations, rather than the heroic adventures of medieval Romance. These adventures, however, often revolved about a knight's feats on behalf of a lady, and so the modern themes of love were quickly woven into them, as in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.[12]
Shakespearean comedy and Restoration comedy remain influential. The creation of huge economic social strata in the Gilded Age[citation needed], combined with the heightened openness about sex after the Victorian era[citation needed] and the celebration of Sigmund Freud's theories, 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, the savage screwball comedies of the twenties and thirties, proceeding through Rock Hudson–Doris Day-style comedies, gave way to more innocuous comedies.[citation needed] This style faded in the 1960s, and the genre lay mostly dormant until the more sexually charged When Harry Met Sally had a successful box office run in 1989, paving the way for a rebirth for the Hollywood romantic comedy in the mid-1990s.
The French film industry went in a completely different direction,[citation needed] with less inhibitions about sex.[citation needed] Virginia Woolf, tired of stories that ended in 'happily ever after' at the beginning of a serious relationship, called Middlemarch by George Eliot, with its portrayal of a difficult marriage, "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."
Television
Romantic comedy series have included:
- Living Single (1993–1998) (FOX)
- The Nanny (1993–1999) (CBS)
- Friends (1994–2004) (NBC)
- Ally McBeal (1997–2002) (FOX)
- For Your Love (1998–2002) (WB)
- Sex and the City (1998–2004) (HBO)
- Will & Grace (1998–2006) (NBC)
- The King of Queens (1998–2007) (CBS)
- Girlfriends (2000–2008) (UPN/CW)
- Half & Half (2002–2006) (UPN)
- All of Us (2003–2007) (UPN)
- Desperate Housewives (2004–2012) (ABC)
- How I Met Your Mother (2005–) (CBS)
- Emily's Reasons Why Not (2006) (ABC)
- Pepper Dennis (2006) (The WB)
- Hot Properties (2006) (ABC)
- Men In Trees (2006–2008) (ABC)
- Not Going Out (2006–) (BBC)
- Ugly Betty (2006–2010) (ABC and Channel 4(in the UK))
- The Big Bang Theory (2007–) (CBS)
- Gavin & Stacey (2007–2009) (BBC)
- Samantha Who? (2007–2009) (ABC)
- The Starter Wife (miniseries, 2007; series 2008–2009) (USA Network)
- Greek (2007-2011) (ABC Family)
- Cashmere Mafia (2008) (ABC)
- Lost In Austen (2008) (ITV)
- The Ex List (2008) (CBS)
- Lipstick Jungle (2008–2009) (NBC)
- Mistresses (2008–2010) (BBC)
- Accidentally on Purpose (2009–2010) (CBS)
- Drop Dead Diva (2009–) (Lifetime)
- Cougar Town (2009–) (ABC)
- Big Time Rush (2009-) (Nickelodeon)
- 100 Questions (2010) (NBC)
- Romantically Challenged (2010) (ABC)
- Running Wilde (2010-2011) (F0X)
- Mike & Molly (2010–) (CBS)
- Better With You (2010–2011) (ABC)
- Perfect Couples (2010–2011) (NBC)
- Love Bites (2011) (NBC)
- Friends With Benefits (2011) (NBC)
Film
This section lists examples of romantic comedy films[citation needed], ordered by year of release.
Early
- Girl Shy (1924)
- City Lights (1931)
- Trouble in Paradise (1932)
- No Man of Her Own (1932)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- Modern Times (1936)[13]
- My Man Godfrey (1936)
- The Awful Truth (1937)
- Bringing Up Baby (1938)
- Holiday (1938)
- Ninotchka (1939)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
- The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
- Ball of Fire (1941)
- The Lady Eve (1941)
- Woman of the Year (1942)
- Adam's Rib (1949)
- Born Yesterday (1950)
- Pat and Mike (1952)
- Roman Holiday (1953)
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
- Sabrina (1954)
- The Seven Year Itch (1955)
- Love in the Afternoon (1957)
- Desk Set (1957)
- Houseboat (1958)
- Pillow Talk (1959)
- The Apartment (1960)
- Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
- That Touch of Mink (1962)
- Irma La Douce (1963)
- The Graduate (1967)
Later
- Harold and Maude (1971)
- Annie Hall (1977)
- Romancing the Stone (1984)
- Pretty in Pink (1986)
- Moonstruck (1987)
- The Princess Bride (1987)
- Overboard (1987)
- Baby Boom (1987)
- Working Girl (1988)
- When Harry Met Sally (1989)
- Pretty Woman (1990)
- Green Card (1990)
- Doc Hollywood (1991)
- The Cutting Edge (1992)
- Boomerang (1992)
- Groundhog Day (1993)[14]
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- Only You (1994)
- French Kiss (1995)
- While You Were Sleeping (1995)
- Sabrina (1995)
- Beautiful Girls (1996)
- The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996)
- One Fine Day (1996)
- As Good as It Gets (1997)
- Picture Perfect (1997)
- Fools Rush In (1997)
- My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
- Overnight Delivery (1998)
- The Wedding Singer (1998)
- You've Got Mail (1998)
- Six Days Seven Nights (1998)
- There's Something About Mary (1998)
- 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
- Three to Tango (1999)
- Au Pair (1999)
- Never Been Kissed (1999)
- Notting Hill (1999)
- She's All That (1999)
- American Pie (1999)
- Runaway Bride (1999)
- Coyote Ugly (2000)
- Miss Congeniality (2000)
- Return to Me (2000)
- What Women Want (2000)
- Get Over It (2001)
- Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
- Head over Heels (2001)
- Kate & Leopold (2001)
- Legally Blonde (2001)
- Serendipity (2001)
- The Brothers (2001)
- The Wedding Planner (2001)
- American Pie 2 (2001)
- Two Can Play That Game (2001)
- Someone Like You (2001)
- Maid in Manhattan (2002)
- Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
- The Sweetest Thing (2002)
- Two Weeks Notice (2002)
- Serving Sara (2002)
- Deliver Us From Eva (2003)
- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
- Love Actually (2003)
- American Wedding (2003)
- Something's Gotta Give (2003)
- The Fighting Temptations (2003)
- What a Girl Wants (2003)
- Along Came Polly (2003)
- Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
- Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
- 13 Going on 30 (2004)
- 50 First Dates (2004)
- A Cinderella Story (2004)
- Bride and Prejudice (2004)
- Chasing Liberty (2004)
- Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)
- The Prince and Me (2004)
- Saving Face (2004)
- Wimbledon (2004)
- Fever Pitch (2005)
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
- Hitch (2005)
- Just Friends (2005)
- Just Like Heaven (2005)
- Little Manhattan (2005)
- Monster-in-Law (2005)
- The Baxter (2005)
- Must Love Dogs (2005)
- The Wedding Date (2005)
- Wedding Crashers (2005)
- Imagine Me & You (2005)
- It's a Boy Girl Thing (2006)
- Just My Luck (2006)
- Failure to Launch (2006)
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
- The Holiday (2006)
- A Good Year (2006)
- Love and Other Disasters (2006)
- She's the Man (2006)
- The Heartbreak Kid (2007)
- I Think I Love My Wife (2007)
- Knocked Up (2007)
- Because I Said So (2007)
- Music and Lyrics (2007)
- Good Luck Chuck (2007)
- The Other End of the Line (2008)
- Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)
- Sex and the City (2008)
- 27 Dresses (2008)
- Mamma Mia! (2008)
- Another Cinderella Story (2008)
- My Sassy Girl (2008)
- Definitely, Maybe (2008)
- Fool's Gold (2008)
- Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
- Made of Honor (2008)
- The Accidental Husband (2008)
- What Happens in Vegas (2008)
- Picture This (2008)
- How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)
- Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
- My Best Friend's Girl (2008)
- Over Her Dead Body (2008)
- The Break-Up Artist (2009)
- Falling Up (2009)
- Bride Wars (2009)
- He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)
- Duplicity (2009)
- Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
- My Life in Ruins (2009)
- The Proposal (2009)
- The Ugly Truth (2009)
- Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009)
- It's Complicated (2009)
- The Rebound (2009)
- I Hate Valentine's Day (2009)
- Play the Game (2009)
- Leap Year (2010)
- Valentine's Day (2010)
- When in Rome (2010)
- She's Out of My League (2010)
- The Bounty Hunter (2010)
- The Back-up Plan (2010)
- Letters to Juliet (2010)
- Killers (2010)
- Sex and the City 2 (2010)
- Going the Distance (2010)
- The Switch (2010)
- You Again (2010)
- Life as We Know It (2010)
- Love and Other Drugs (2010)
- How Do You Know (2010)
- No Strings Attached (2011)
- From Prada to Nada (2011)
- Just Go With It (2011)
- Larry Crowne (2011)
- Something Borrowed (2011)
- Friends With Benefits (2011)
- Take Me Home (2011)
- Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
- New Year's Eve (2011)
- What's Your Number? (2011)
- Any Questions for Ben? (2012)
- This Means War (2012)
- Think Like a Man (2012)
- Wanderlust (2012 film) (2012)
- The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
- Friends with Kids (2012)
- Exit Strategy (2012)
- The Callback Queen (2012)
Top grossing
- Coming to America(1988)
- When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
- Pretty Woman (1990)
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- As Good as It Gets (1997)[15]
- My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
- There's Something About Mary (1998)
- You've Got Mail (1998)
- Runaway Bride (1999)
- Notting Hill (1999)
- What Women Want (2000)
- American Pie 2 (2001)
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
- Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
- Love Actually (2003)
- Bringing Down the House (2003)
- Hitch (2005)
- Knocked Up (2007)
- Sex and the City (2008)
- Mamma Mia! (2008)
- The Proposal (2009)
- It's Complicated (2009)
- Sex and the City 2 (2010)
- Just Go with It (2011)
- Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
See also
References
- ^ Bill Johnson. The Art of the Romantic Comedy Available online at: http://www.storyispromise.com/wromance.htm
- ^ http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/romantic-comedy Accessed June 20, 2011
- ^ http://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/comic-tragic.html
- ^ Romantic comedy: boy meets girl meets genre. Tamar Jeffers McDonald. Wallflower Press, 2007. p.3
- ^ http://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/comic-tragic.html
- ^ Mandell, Zack (2012-05-18). "Julia Roberts' Romantic Comedy Career Flourishes with Time". Yahoo! Voices. http://voices.yahoo.com/julia-roberts-romantic-comedy-career-flourishes-with-11352286.html?cat=40.
- ^ Mernit, Billy. Writing the Romantic Comedy (Harper Collins, 2000)
- ^ "She has a Meet-Cute (three, actually) with Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy)" - Roger Ebert, reviewing "Ella Enchanted". Available at http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040409/REVIEWS/404090304/1023
- ^ Review: McGregor, Plummer delight in `Beginners' http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110601/ap_en_mo/us_film_review_beginners. Accessed June 20, 2011.
- ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19790628/REVIEWS/906280301/1023
- ^ Cited in Answers.com http://www.answers.com/topic/romantic-comedy-1 Accessed June 20, 2011
- ^ C.S Lewis, The Allegory of Love, p 19 ISBN 0-19-281220-3
- ^ www.tpr.org/articles/2010/11/cinema-keaton.html
- ^ www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1993/groundhog-day/
- ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=romanticcomedy.htm
External links
- Romantic Comedy Movies - from 1940s to future releases, with box office performance The Numbers
- Market Performance of Romantic Comedies in United States - year-by-year analysis of box office performance of romantic comedies The Numbers
- Romantic Comedy Movies - Top 290 (1978–present) by Box Office Mojo
- Top Rated Romance Titles by IMDB
- Your Guide To Romantic Comedies - Current Romantic Comedies by RCF
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