Analysis Of From Screwball To Black Comedy: Predictable Romantic Comedies

From Screwball to Black Comedy:

Predictable Romantic Comedies are Flexible

With names like “Rom Com” and “Chick Flick,” romantic comedies are often put in a silly or empty-headed light. Yet, these films continue to be made and people (women and men alike) keep seeing them because, “(audiences have) seen it in a hundred variations and know exactly how it ends... happily ever after.” (Mizejewski 17) And while people may know that real love doesn’t always end happily, the idea is too good to resist; audiences want to vicariously experience falling in love with the “perfect person” over and over again. Romantic Comedy has been a prominent film genre from the transition into “talkie” films to present day due to the fact that it is a genre that

is both predictable and flexible, delivering a formulaic experience with “meet cutes,” an opposition to the romantic relationship, and eventual coupling of characters changed by love, while simultaneously evolving with the current views and feelings of society at the time. While the way these myths are presented in It Happened One Night, a screwball comedy (Coppola ‘34), is influenced by the great depression, strict censorship and changing post-WWI gender roles, and in Harold and Maude, a black comedy (Hal Ashby 71’), by the Vietnam war, a new film ratings system and a strong feminist movement, both films are labeled as romantic comedies because they employ the same aforementioned myths and conventions to tell the same story of characters struggling with love, and ultimately being changed by it for the better.
When examining how It Happened One Night and Harold and Maude reflect changing representations of the myths and conventions of romantic comedy as a genre, it’s important to first define those myths and conventions. The basic plot structure of a romantic comedy goes as follows: ”…boy meets girl, various obstacles prevent them from being together, coincidences and complications ensue, ultimately leading to the couple’s realization that they were meant to be together.” (Mortimer 4) In a romantic comedy, the way the characters first meet is very important.
The couple often “meet cute” – airplane (or bus) seating, a stop to ask for directions, a bet made in a bar, a shared (telephone) party line – and this chance meeting later seems like fate. The woman may be a little crazy, and the guy has no idea how much he needs her. (Mizejewski 17)
The relationship between the characters is clearly shown in the “meet cute” and the “obstacle” that keeps the pair apart is either shown in the same sequence or becomes evident soon after. Many times the “obstacle” is the couple itself. At first, the characters are “…antagonistic towards each other, but come to recognize their inescapable compatibility in the face of great adversity and, often, mutual loathing but eventually end up together.” (Mortimer 4) The final very important convention of romantic comedies is the happy ending, which provides grounds for the myth of the genre that through the trials of getting together, the characters learn something and are changed for the better in the process.
While these myths and conventions are the calling cards for the entire genre, to withstand changing cultures throughout different historical contexts, romantic comedy must evolve with the time. As rom coms are still being made today, it’s clear that the genre has, in fact, changed with the times. It Happened One Night was one of the first films included in the sub-genre of romantic comedies known as screwball comedies, changing audience’s idea of romantic comedies. “It Happened One Night was released to popular acclaim and went on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The Frank Capra movie became the prototype for the most famous cycle in the romantic comedy genre, the screwball comedy” (Grindon 31) Screwball comedies, specifically It Happened One Night, managed positive receptions from both audiences and critics. In a contemporary review, a critic stated “(It Happened One Night) is packed with real honest-to-goodness laughs from start to finish and the two hours pass so rapidly that the average fan will not mind the extreme length of the film.” (Chic) While the film was longer than many comedies being released at the time, the characteristic quick-fire dialogue and energy pushed the film forward in a manner so engaging that the audiences never even noticed.
There were a few major things about the 1930s that created the perfect incubator for screwball comedies.

To start, America was in the middle of the Great Depression. Although it might seem like a bad time to try to make people laugh, it seems as if Americans were desperately seeking something to lift them from the Depression. “This fresh crop of romantic comedies expressed an optimism associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s energetic New Deal... In spite of the bleak conditions, hope became widespread.” (Grindon 32) But It Happened One Night did not ignore the Depression. It, like other screwballs to follow, “(was) set in Depression America and portrayed the economic distress marking the 1930s.” (Grindon 32) The central characters, Peter and Ellie, represent two classes of depression-era Americans—the working (or trying to find work) class and the wealthy, respectively. This plays into both the “meet cute” and one of the obstacles to their coupling. When they meet on the bus, Peter has to fight for a seat, which Ellie ends up taking with no notion of the effort he put into getting it. This immediately sets up the contrast between a man who has to work for everything and a woman who has had everything handed to her. This difference in class and worldview is a main force that pushes them apart. He sees her as brat who is helpless in the real world. Throughout the film, her ignorance about money puts them in danger and his thriftiness and general know-how gets them out of it. She loses her money, he gives her a strict budget. She tries to spend it on candy, he makes her save it and use it for a room for the night. She thinks he’s trying to take advantage of her by sharing a room, he knows they don’t have the money for two. This constantly conflicting dynamic between the central characters would have “…added resonance with a mass audience coming out of the worst of the Great Depression in representing the upper class as flawed.” (Mortimer

76)
In addition to reacting to the Depression, It Happened One Night had to deal with another social issue of the 30s—censorship. “In July 1934, The New York Times declared that the Hollywood pendulum was swinging away from the ‘fleshpots’ of the early 1930s, toward a newly clean screen.” (Greene 55) The reason for this shift from more racy content in film was the
… Production Code Administration (PCA)... Created by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), in response to growing public protest over film content…industry censors worked with film-makers, suggesting changes or deletions to ensure that films would not encounter any difficulties with viewers, critics, or external censorship boards. (Greene 55-56)
Basically, films couldn’t show or talk about “adult matters.” This put a damper on romantic comedy, a genre that was essentially all about sex and romance. Filmmakers could barely even hint at sex, “In the post-PCA era, innuendo had to be so indirect as to be barely recognizable by innocent or sophisticate. ” (Greene 58) This is how the trademark slapstick humor and rapid, deprecating interactions of the screwball couple arose.