Comedy of remarriage

The comedy of remarriage is a subgenre of American comedy films of the 1930s and 1940s. At the time, the Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, banned any explicit references to or attempts to justify adultery and illicit sex. The comedy of remarriage enabled filmmakers to evade this provision of the Code. The protagonists divorced, flirted with strangers without risking the wrath of censorship, and then got back together.

The genre was given its name by the philosopher Stanley Cavell in a series of academic articles that later became a book, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Cavell argues that the genre represented Hollywood's crowning achievement, and that beneath all the slapstick and innuendo is a serious effort to create a new basis for marriage centered on mutual love – religious and economic necessity no longer applying for much of the American middle class.

In response to Cavell's article, scholar David R. Shumway claims it is possible "to make too much of the remarriage 'genre'". He points out that "only two of Cavell's seven comedies deal with characters who we actually see interacting as husband and wife for any length of time" and points out that all seven films fit into the screwball comedy genre.[1]

More recently, film critics A. O. Scott and David Edelstein both argued that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a 21st-century example of the genre.[2][3]

Notable comedies of remarriage

(Bold text denotes inclusion in Pursuits of Happiness)

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Shumway, David R. "Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage". Film Genre Reader III. Grant, Barry Keith, Ed. University of Texas Press, 2003.
  2. ↑ Edelstein, David. "Forget Me Not: The genius of Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Slate (March 18, 2004)
  3. ↑ Scott, A. O. "Charlie Kaufman's Critique of Pure Comedy". The New York Times (April 4, 2004)

Bibliography


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/15/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.