The Romantic Comedy Genre

The Ro gentle bittic Comedy GenreIf even half of the projects picked up this yr actually get the green light, the first decade of the next millennium may be known as the Romantic Comedy Decade. Sales totals for the writing elbow room surged ahead of former rivals Action-Adventure and Science Fiction, landing squ atomic number 18ly in the coveted fourth spot below Comedy, Drama and Thriller.There was a 50 per cent profit in the number of amatory funniness scripts bought by studios in 1998 comp atomic number 18d to the previous year. Examples of characterisations in this period argon Four weddings and a Funeral (UK 1994), My Best Friends Wedding (1997), Shakespeare in Love (UK/US, 1998) and There is Something about Mary (1998). Each year from 1981, the trend is towards a overmuch higher volume of production with especially sustained operation from 1997-9 (Krutnik 2002, p10).Romantic Comedy imports from US too increased from mid-1990s. Films such as the international success nonting Hill (1999) and the Australian-French co-production Green Card (1990) encouraged Hollywood employ custodyt in co-productions. Examples are Sliding Doors (UK/US, 1998) and Bridget Jones Diary (France/UK/US, 2001). Most of the US-British partnership ventures, however, are adaptations of prestige literary or dramatic properties targeted at international audiences (Krunik 2002, p132), including Sense and impressibility (UK/US 1995) and Emma (UK/US 1996).What exactly is Romantic Comedy? How is it defined in order to help wad to understand what it actually is?Romantic Comedy a genre, a family of genres (marriages, manners, screwball), a category of production and securities industrying, a category of analysis. Definition, even delimitation, is difficult or impossible because all Hollywood haves (except some war films) take romance and all have funniness. A work equal subset romantic comedy might refer to those films in which romance and comedy are the primary components as crime, war, etc (Krunik 2002, p132)As Handerson said, the word romantic comedy not only is a particular fiber of a story on two lovers but it also circulates as something of a free-floating signifier that can designate a bewildering array of possible combinations of excite and comedy (Krunik 2002, p 133).Billy Mernit, who is a famous indite of romantic comedy, assigns the success of romantic comedy which has continued since the 1980s to its ability to mix with other film genres. Hybridity is by no means a upstart develop custodyt within Hollywood genre films, and it is certainly no stranger to romantic comedy (Krunik 2002, p133). Examples are Ball of Fire (1941), in which romantic comedy and ele workforcets of the gangster films are combined, I Married a Witch (1942) joins romantic comedy and supernatural fantasy and Too Hot to Handle (1938) combines romantic comedy with aviation adventure.Though there are many exceptions that prove the rule (e.g., the thoroughly old-fashioned P retty Wo manpower), contemporary mainstream audiences seem a custodyable to movies that mix it up. And this is professedly of your buyers (the studios) a romantic comedy that promises crossover potential is more give carely to pique their interest than a straight-up traditional one (Mernit, B)Pretty Women is a film which is fe phallic-centred, pure straight romantic comedy appeals to women whereas the cross-genre film has broader audience. What is more, some of newfangled romances have the elements of sporting backgrounds. For instance, Bull Durham (1998), The Cutting Edge (1992), The American death chair (1995) and Bulworth (1998). In addition, another trend since 1990s has been the extension of the romantic comedy work out to gay relationships (Krunik 2002, p 136). Gay scenarios have been combined within comedies aiming at broader audiences, such as The Next Best Thing (2000), The Object of My Affection (1998) and As Good as It Gets and Chasing Amy (1997).Therefore, it can b e said that contemporary romantic has been reconstructed for audiences based on age, ethnicity and windual preference.In romantic comedies, the real subject is the power of love. Love is not merely the catalyst for action in a romantic comedy, it is the shaper of the story arc. Although many romantic comedies seem to initially set up their protagonists eventual mate as their antagonist, in some cases love itself is the antagonist. Wrestling with love can force a character to grow or to resist growth, but either way, loves effect on the primordial character is what drives the story. Billy MernitHeterogeneity and hybridity (Spicer 2001, p184) are the prominent features of maleness in contemporary British cinema. It means that the range of male forms is much broader than ever before. unitary of the major ways by which identity is able to be reconstructed is through the mass media as this provides an outlet whereby the expression of alternative identities can be communicated. The med ia therefore buy the farms a focus whereby different expressions of internal practice identity can be expressed and debated.In recent years, there have been rapid changes in many ways within the politics, society and culture. There are many significant reasons for these changes. As the result of these changes there were crucial involves on affable movements. feminism is often said to be one of the most well known social movement. The key elements and developments of both feminism and cultural discourses are closely think to each other. Question arises at this point, such as what it means to be a woman and man, how are feminine and masculine identities constructed and what is the nature of femininity, masculinity? Not only to feminists but people such as intellectuals, politicians, artists and of course ordinary women and men is interested in such struggles within the culture and society. Since, those struggle occurs when people characterises their existence by repeating the s ame routine within peoples daily lives.This section allow examine the key elements on sex and sexual practice to brighten the cultural meaning within the media. Gender is a way in which social practice is ordered. In sexual activity processes, the everyday conduct of life is organise in relation to a reproductive arena, defined by the bodily structures and processes of human reproduction. This arena includes sexual arousal and intercourse, childbirth and infant care, bodily sex difference and similarity (Connell 1995, p71).For Judith Butler, who is an American philosopher and has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy and ethics, the various manifestation of gender in culture are driven by the self-same expressions deemed to be its consequences (Butler, 1990, p25) is accepted as gender is driven by performance, or the very activity of presentation, it is therefore dependent on what and how this is currently expressed by the individual that, ult imately, constitutes the crucial determining factor, and not an all-embracing universal disposition. In this sense, Butler sees gender as a regulatory fiction that is sustained by performative acts. Due to the fact that the choices an individual can potentially make in relation to gender are restricted thanks to ongoing cultural norms and assumptions, a person is therefore presented with a limited choice of possible identities. Individuals are thereby obliged to follow a course that fits the male/female dichotomy through performing and conforming to prevailing gender stereo typewrites.Furthermore, if the gender is socially constructed the relations between sex and gender snuff it more unstable which makes gender independent from sex. As butler puts it in her writing that, gender is free-floating artifice which culturally constructed, indeed perhaps sex was already gender, so that the sex/gender distinction is actually not a distinction at all (Butler, 1990 p7). Butler suggests tha t it is possible to have a designated female clay and not to convey traits generally considered feminine, in other words, one may be a masculine female or a feminine male. One way of challenge such assumptions, Butler suggests, is to encourage awareness of these limitations by the creation of alternative gender scenarios that can lead to a more genuine realisation of ones identity. In effect, this provides for greater flexibility and range of options by which a person is able to construct a unique individuality.The fashion world definitely had the great impact on gender identification. It has been the case that distinctions of the gender are made when looking at fashion magazines such as masculine male and feminine female. The stereotypes of the gender role are repeatedly shown in the advertisements, fashion runways. As if it is saying that this how men and women should look like thus it limits our choice.These examples that I am going to fall out show how some of Butlers ideas have been taken up in a practical manner. Tailored jacket, bow tie and so forth have been socially accepted for mens clothing. However wearing mens clothing item such as oversized tailored jacket or a bow tie become as a fashion trend for womens clothing in recent years. This indicates from my point of view, that there are no such assumptions or rule for the style of gender identity. There are no set of rules for wearing clothes in order to represent certain genders identity. However there are social taboos which limit people to choose their own identity. But by looking ikons or photographs in magazines gender is not something fixed it is actually transformable as it shifts in style time to time. Thus, it can be explained that it is challenging the male dominance by reducing the assumption of the cultural meaning of the gender and sex to the level of fashion and style.Another example is how the boundary of men and women has been blurred. First example is a skinny male fashion sit around, what I found enkindle in this example is that how assumption of the male body has been changed. Within the fashion industry, where their fashion products should be sold in order to make a profit. traditionalistic male fashion models in the past showed strong masculine male body to represent their products. Furthermore, second example is a photo shot of male fashion model by PRADAs spring/fall collection. As I explained of skinny male models above, PRADA also chooses skinny male model. But this time the model is wearing a trousers and a flurry at the same time. This also can be explained as it is breaking the traditional gender stereotype. The formula which says that I dont wear a skirt therefore I am male I am male therefore I dont wear a skirt fails in this image.Again it is just the style and fashion which blurs the boundary of fixed gender and sex .These examples above show how some of Butlers ideas have been taken up in a practical rather than passive way to meaningf ully challenge how the public view gender to the extent that the younger generation are now coming to accept a more ambivalent attitude towards sex and gender. Moreover, androgynous models seem to becoming more common in the media a further sign that boundaries are becoming permeable.All societies have cultural accounts of gender, but not all have the concept of masculinity. In its modern physical exercise the term assumes that ones behaviour results from the type of person one is. That is to say, an unmasculine person would behave differently being peaceable rather than violent, conciliatory rather than dominating, punishingly able to kick a football, uninterested in sexual conquest, and so forth (Connell 1995, p67). Perhaps we are aware of masculinity than ever before as it has become one of the interests that have been analysed since mid 1980s.Definitions of masculinity have mostly have taken our cultural standpoint for granted, but have followed different strategies to charac terise the type of person who is masculine (Connell 1996, p68). Essentialist focuses on the core of masculine and their lives whereas positivist finds out what men actually are. Normative definition is a standard and explains that masculinity is that men should be. Semiotic definition, however, is that masculinity is non-femininity so that the level of personality is limited.Rather than attempting to define masculinity as an object (a natural character type, a behavioural average, a norm), we need to focus on the processes and relationships through which men and women conduct gendered lives. Masculinity, to the extent the term can be briefly defined at all, is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture(Connell 1996, p71).A concern of much early masculinity scholarship was to highlight the range and diversity of male identities that exist both within society as a whole and in specific settings (Crew 2003, p27). It means that there is class difference between men and the power that they have masculinities in work-class and materialistic to different experiences of capitalist operative practice (Tolson 1977 Willis 1977). Tolson described masculinity in working-class as characterised by collective recognition and solidarity, physical toughness and presence, bravado, confrontation, anti-authority sentiment, and the avoidance of feelings (Crew 2003, p27). By contrary, masculinity of middle-class was described as moral dignity, emotional restraint, respectability and individualised notions of self-discipline, ambition and competitiveness (Crew 2003, p27).The interweaving of masculinity and class was most clearly illustrated in Paul Willis (1977) ethnography of a group of working-class lads. Most striking was how the lads associated different types of work with different genders such that they valorised their own identities and the futures that awaited them explicitly masculine terms (Crew 2003, p27). For example, it is both shop floor workers and managers in middle-class who construct a masculine hierarchy in which physical labour is at the summit (Roper 1994 106). Managers find it hard to show their masculine position and masculinity in their work.It was suggested by Collison and Hearn (1996) that similarly, whilst shop floor workers reject the idea of promotion because it would compromise their masculine self-images (Crew 2003, p27), men working in office also are endangered by what they think of their work as unmasculine. What is more, it is important to see the difference here between what men want to be and what they really are. masculine identities are lived out in the flesh but fashioned in the imagination, with cultural representations providing the repertoire of cultural forms upon which fantasies are cast (Dawson 1991 118).Masculine heterosexuality somewhat in line with the laddis h personalities they were ascribed in the press (Crewe 2003, p 128). They are certainly not macho, overbearing or high-pressure nor did they exhibit the emotionally inhibited toughness of Ropers (1994) organisational men (Crew 2003, p 128). There are two social practices that reinforce oppressive, discriminatory forms of heterosexuality are homophobia and the sexual objectification of women (Pease 2000, p76).The term homophobia is created by The Gay Liberation Movement to identify the idolatry of homophile(prenominal)ity. According to Kirk and Madsen (198926-7), hetero sexual men dislike gays because they believe that homosexuality is caused by sinfulness, amiable illness or recruitment (Pease 2000, p 76). It means that homosexuality is a distortion gay men are evil and corrupted. Most heterosexuals have this misidentification and misconception as they have a negative image of the gay world.Sedgwick (19851) used the term homosocial to describe the non-sexual social bonds between men and to analyse how these social bonds keep men in power (Pease 2000, p77). The inability to recognise any homosexual impulses in oneself causes men to project all homosexuality desires outward on to gay men (Kupers, 199349) (Pease 2000, p77). Therefore, homophobia is seen as caused by hidden homosexuality. Many men are not aware of flaws or suspects of their heterosexuality. So if heterosexual men regard themselves as normal, homosexual men become abnormal. straight person men try to avoid doing anything that other men might interpret as effeminate or unmanly. Men fear that any intimacy between men may sully their sexual identity (Pease 2000, p 78).Most heterosexual men are attracted by womens bodies and this objectification is the process by which men sees the woman as a thing or an object and fixation to the process of focusing on parts of the female body (Buchbinder, 198765-6) (Pease 2000, p84). Heterosexual men are aware of sexism and they often feel torn between their sex ual desire and their awareness that their expressed fantasies about women can be experienced as oppressive by women (Horowitz and Kaufman, 198781) (Pease 2000, p84).Objectification is one of the key processes in mens sexual relationships with women, in which often a part of the women is seen to represent the whole (Kaufman, 1993 124) (Pease 2000, p84). Heterosexual men have not done any reflective writings about their sexual desires Rich (198366) has also challenged men to say why they like pornography, whilst gay men have challenged heterosexual men to be up front about their sexuality (Stoltenberg, 1991 8) (Pease 2000, p85).In part these changes reflect the present state of British film-making which has become decentred and eclectic, lacking studio infrastructure or dominant producers of the earlier period (Spicer 2001, p184). Since 1970s, British film production has recovered and a new generation of film producers has become known that grips a more commercial cinema. The arrival of the multiplexes encouraged revival in cinema-going (Spicer 2001, p184) in all UK. Most of cinema-goers are young people, but ABC1 is the major audience who frequently do cinema-going. The balance between men and women is equal.However, cinema-going will never return to its former importance as a leisure pursuit, but film viewing continues to be a significant part of touristy culture with the majority of films watched on television or on video (Spicer 2001, p185). The use of DVD and internet help to increase consumption of film viewing and it eventually makes cinema remain a popular and influential medium, among all classes and age groups and representation of masculinity (Spicer 2001, p185). It has developed from successful British films put in to a national image culture. This section will look at various complex types of masculinity in contemporary British Cinema and give examples for each type.James Bond has been the most invariable post-war British film hero in twenty films spanning thirty-eight years (Spicer 2001, p185). Films that represent Bonds heroic masculinity are A View to a bolt down (1987) where Roger Moore re-created Bond as an old-style debonair hero, more polished and sophisticated (Spicer 2001, p185) and The World is Not Enough (1999). He continues to be a hero who keeps the masculinity of traditional male adventurer.There is a new man concept which emerged within commercial culture, in particular, within retailing, advertising, and the early formation of the UK mens magazine market (Crew 2003, p27) and it was in many ways driven by the discovery of a new market (Seidler 1997, p8). The formation of new man imagery has developments in and associated with menswear land an important role. Together with the reshaping of the mens toiletries and grooming products markets, development in menswear markets set some of the big terms for the emergence of the new man imagery (Nixon 1996, p31).The new man concept is the creation of imagery that rep resented men in ways that were more narcissistic, self-conscious, emotionally expressive, domesticated and feminine than conventional iconography of patriarchal authority, action and machismo (Brannon 1976 Goffman 1979 Wenick 1987) (Crew 2003, p 31). Nixon said the new man imagery was most important in that it represented a loosening of the binary opposition between gay and straight-identified men and extended the space available within the representational regimes of popular consumption for an ambivalent masculine identity (Nixon 1996 202) (Crew 2003, p 31).The New Man was an alternative image to the macho tough guy, embracing female roles and qualities, a vulnerable nurturer in touch with his emotions, but also rather narcissistic (Spicer 2001, p 187). Hugh appointment in two romantic comedy films embodied the New Man Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Notting Hill (1999). Both films show the gentle, low-rent Man About Town, lovably awkward, tongue-tied, endlessly excusatory and sexually nave (Spicer 2001, p 187).The independence and the power of women in films like Four Weddings and Notting Hill made set aside show more feminine sides. This is manifested in his insecurity and compliance, his lack of ambition and his desire for stability and heterosexual union, thereby fulfilling his supportive New Man credentials (Spicer 2001, p187).The type of the damaged man appears so frequently in recent British cinema and it has become the most representative image (Spicer 2001, p195). Shallow Grave (1994), Jude (1996) and Heart( 1998) are the performances of Christopher Eccleston who showed the figure of the damaged man with his gaunt features and suffering eyes (Spicer 2001, p 195). Mike Leighs Naked (1993) shows that the underclass male is often irreparably damaged by social disintegration and the film deepened this paradigm into an existentialist nightmare (Spicer 2001, p196).Mark Renton in Trainspotting is perhaps the most representative contemporary male y oung, alienated, but also a chameleon, neither hero, villain, conforming or rebel. He is the product of a culture that is decentred and heterogeneous, no longer recognising clear national, ethical or sexual boundaries, where forms of masculinity are becoming more and more hybrid and audiences delight in the knowingness and self-referentiality of popular culture (Spicer 2001, p 204).Contemporary British cinema has capability to produce positive forms.In personal business to Remember, Bruce Babington and Peter Evans define romantic comedy as a genre that centres on the couple, celebrating the passionate but hopefully companionate love that brings them together, and typically shutdown at the moment of passage into the responsibilities of marriage (Babington and Evans 1989234). (Spicer 2004, p78). In Britain, successful romantic comedy films since the revival are If Only (Maris Ripoll, 1998), Fanny Elvis (Kay Mellor, 1998), Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1997) and Hugh Grant films.Hugh Grant is arguably the most successful current British star, famous throughout the world, able to sell a film on the strength of his list alone (Spicer 2004, p77). The revival of British romantic comedy is linked with popularity that Grant has.Grants films such as Notting Hill (Roger Michell, 1999), Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994), Bridget Jones Diary (Sharon McGuire, 2001) and About a Boy (Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002) share a central characteristic the reluctance to commit, and yet the need to find love meaningful and central to well-being and gaiety (Spicer 2004, p77).In Bridget Jones Diary, Grant was No More Mr Nice Guy (Spicer 2004, p83), and his bare-chested in tight leather trousers was photographed in womens magazines to show his new and more muscular body. Hugh Grant plays Renee Zellweggers boss at the publishing company, Daniel Cleaver, sophisticated, sexy professional with long, flowing dark locks and rakish hair (Spicer 2004, p 83). Cleaver is another fam iliar archetype, the Byronic anti-hero. The essence of the type is its fascinating eroticism (Spicer 2004, p83).The scene where he is undressing Bridget and he says, Silly little boots, silly little dress and these fuck me absolutely enormous pants. Dont apologise, I like them. Hello Mummy Thats all him. Id have written What the fuck are those knickers? or something similar. He fooled around a lot on Bridget because it was in line with his own style of naughtiness. (Curtis in Raphael 2002s13) (Spicer 2004, p 83). Some judged that he, like many Byronic males, was more attractive than tedious virtue (Spicer, p84), Daniel is has more charisma than frighten off Darcy.