Romantic Comedy Essay

Can Anyone Write a Romantic Comedy? While most people consider love a confusing thing to understand, films, specifically Romantic Comedies are the opposite. Romantic Comedies follow a strict guideline on how their plot should be arranged: Boy meets girl, Boy loses girl, Boy gets girl back. The characters, setting, and length are completely dependent on the author, but nearly every romantic comedy undeniably follows the previous construct. Romantic comedies, although differing in specific plot events, follow the same guidelines for how the events are arranged. As a result, romantic comedies are inherently predictable. One of the earliest romantic comedies, Much ado About Nothing, sets the basis for patterns and conventions still used in romantic

This “Boy gets girl back” event is what completes the triad of plot events in the easily duplicated pattern of romantic comedies. This event is predictable, yet the audience does not know how it will be implemented, and ironically takes us by surprise. This is seen in the final act of Much ado About Nothing, when Claudio marries a masked gentlewoman, who conveniently happens to be Hero, the original love interest. The two are finally reconciled when Hero says “One Hero died defiled, but I do live, / And surely as I live, I am a maid” (5.4.65-66). Hero notes the mistake Claudio once made, but forgives him, putting her in the uncommon position of

What doesn’t match the pattern perfectly is how Shakespeare tweaks the “boy loses girl” aspect. Claudio never actually loses Hero himself, he actually gives up on the love instead. He himself denounces Hero, and turns Hero into the victim. This is due to a disturbing scene staged by Don John, who explicitly said “it must not be denied but I / am a plain-dealing villain” (1.3.29-30). In a typical romantic comedy, the boy usually loses his girl from something minor, like a disagreement in thoughts or differing attitudes. The severity in which Claudio “loses” Hero is much more drastic, as he believes she is disloyal and