Where do cows go for entertainment? To the moo-vies! Just like this joke, romantic comedies can be a bit cheesy, but still entertaining to the audience. However, not all romantic comedies are just a simple “chick flick” or “date movie,” there are some that portray significant conflicts that relates to the real world. It Happened One Night is a romantic comedy, with components of screwball comedy, directed by Frank Capra in 1934 and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert (“It Happened One Night”). The movie follows a runaway heiress and reporter as they travel to reunite her with her fiancé, but they fall for each other instead. Pretty Woman is a 1990 romantic comedy directed by Garry Marshall starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (“Pretty
…show more content…
While one film had a poor man and wealthy woman fall in love, the other pairs a struggling woman with a well off man. This is significant in that Pretty Woman was “originally intended to be a dark cautionary tale about class and sex work” (“Pretty Woman”), so the gender specific role was to display the relevant issue. Whereas in It Happened One Night, if Ellie, Colbert’s character, was a male, the thought of a man running away would appear weak, and the male character would lose the masculinity Peter held. Thus, the film had to place the genders for specific roles, so Gable’s character doesn’t lose the limited masculinity he had. Each film had its own execution for the casting of which gender will play which have which role to portray their individual …show more content…
The earlier film shows Ellie’s struggles when she has no money, which can be seen as the upper class being in the shoes of the lower class. Pairing Ellie, an heiress whose father was wealthy, with a jobless reporter, trying his best to survive, creates a picture of the social classes coming together and going on a journey together. And in the end, when Ellie leaves the alter to be with Peter, the reconciliation is sealed because the “classes” have made up and can coexist. As mentioned before, Pretty Woman, was supposed to be a “dark cautionary tale” (“Pretty Woman”) since the screenwriter J.F. Lawton, who had heard about the corporate raiders, wanted to include “the idea that one of these people would met somebody who was affected by what they were doing” (Erbland). And because Lawton lived in a neighborhood “populated by daughters of the Rust Belt who had turned to prostitution” (Erbland), he was influenced to write about a corporate raider and hooker. A reconciliation of classes is more noticeable here in that the financer who bought out companies, portrayed by Edward, was making peace with those who they had destroyed through family, portrayed by Vivian. Whilst it was never in the plot that Edward ruined anyone related to Vivian, we can infer that Lawton wanted to show the ironic social classes’ appeasement through their
While one film had a poor man and wealthy woman fall in love, the other pairs a struggling woman with a well off man. This is significant in that Pretty Woman was “originally intended to be a dark cautionary tale about class and sex work” (“Pretty Woman”), so the gender specific role was to display the relevant issue. Whereas in It Happened One Night, if Ellie, Colbert’s character, was a male, the thought of a man running away would appear weak, and the male character would lose the masculinity Peter held. Thus, the film had to place the genders for specific roles, so Gable’s character doesn’t lose the limited masculinity he had. Each film had its own execution for the casting of which gender will play which have which role to portray their individual …show more content…
The earlier film shows Ellie’s struggles when she has no money, which can be seen as the upper class being in the shoes of the lower class. Pairing Ellie, an heiress whose father was wealthy, with a jobless reporter, trying his best to survive, creates a picture of the social classes coming together and going on a journey together. And in the end, when Ellie leaves the alter to be with Peter, the reconciliation is sealed because the “classes” have made up and can coexist. As mentioned before, Pretty Woman, was supposed to be a “dark cautionary tale” (“Pretty Woman”) since the screenwriter J.F. Lawton, who had heard about the corporate raiders, wanted to include “the idea that one of these people would met somebody who was affected by what they were doing” (Erbland). And because Lawton lived in a neighborhood “populated by daughters of the Rust Belt who had turned to prostitution” (Erbland), he was influenced to write about a corporate raider and hooker. A reconciliation of classes is more noticeable here in that the financer who bought out companies, portrayed by Edward, was making peace with those who they had destroyed through family, portrayed by Vivian. Whilst it was never in the plot that Edward ruined anyone related to Vivian, we can infer that Lawton wanted to show the ironic social classes’ appeasement through their