One of the significant values of genre in film is that genre, as Dr. Casper has noted, is used to “sugarcoat the pill” of challenges in human life, and the romantic comedy genre follows this value (Casper, 260). Comedy, as a whole, reveals the “fragmentation of man” in a digestible, enjoyable manner for audiences. Romantic comedies, specifically, reveal the fragmentation of each partner in a relationship and the fragmentation of the relationship. Throughout the history of film, romantic comedies have stayed true to the classical conventions of the genre by presenting a “complex view of love and romance which is represented by slapstick humor [and] verbal sparring” (Marshall, 9). Additionally, romantic comedies tend to “hinge on heterosexual love and marriage.... the topic of marriage is usually discussed throughout, and most of these films conclude with a marriage ceremony or with the promise of marriage” (Marshall, 12).
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In the classical era, as shown in It Happened One Night (1934), women were depicted as much more dependent on and desperate for marriage and romantic relationships than men were. Decades later, when the modernist period began, along with less strict censorship and blossoming feminist movements, women are depicted as much more capable and independent while still desiring love, as demonstrated in Love with the Proper Stranger
In the classical era, as shown in It Happened One Night (1934), women were depicted as much more dependent on and desperate for marriage and romantic relationships than men were. Decades later, when the modernist period began, along with less strict censorship and blossoming feminist movements, women are depicted as much more capable and independent while still desiring love, as demonstrated in Love with the Proper Stranger