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Humour can be theorised as integral to the genre even if there are some films that do not provoke laughter. Romantic comedy has been described as a narrative of the heterosexual couple with a happy ending in which humour does not necessarily play an important part. The comic, protective, erotically-charged space is the space of romantic comedy. This book proposes a revised theory of romantic comedy and then tests its validity through the analysis of texts, but these films must not be expected to fully embody the theory. It proposes a change of approach in two different but closely linked directions. On the one hand, a comic perspective is a fundamental ingredient of what we understand by romantic comedy; on the other, the genre does not have a specific ideology but, more broadly, it deals with the themes of love and romance, intimacy and friendship, sexual choice and orientation. The book discusses two films directed by two of the most prestigious figures in the history of Hollywood comedy: Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. Lubitsch's
in the form of the art agent looking after the surrogate daughter’s career, whereas the mother figure remains at the level of the repressed. With the exception of Coup de foudre , Kurys’ women still crave male approval, however unsatisfactory their relationships with individual men and however impossible (and undesirable) the formation of a stable heterosexual couple. Despite Kurys’ challenge to conventional
existence. A world of women is filmed across a variety of roles and spaces – maternal, sexual, in domestic and in paid work. There is no Oedipal trajectory in the film, a stable heterosexual couple is not formed, the male protagonist’s action narrative comes to nothing, although a male friendship is reconciled. Indeed, one of the few couples referred to in the film is, jokingly, that old one formed by Farida and James. An alternative, extended family is momentarily portrayed at Farida’s lunch party when she has to be rushed to hospital and – metonymically when we consider
romantic comedy; on the other, the genre does not have a specific ideology – a single discourse which upholds the values of marriage and the stable heterosexual couple – but, more broadly, it deals with the themes of love and romance, intimacy and friendship, sexual choice and orientation. This shift from ideology to thematic specialisation is part of an attempt to move away from the Althusserian determinism that still pervades