The romantic-comedy has changed throughout time. In more recent years the romantic-comedy has made some “radical” change due to the development of the “pill”. The “pill” allows for society to lower the bar when it comes to taking on sexual partners. The need for chivalric behavior, and time consuming traditional courtship, has dissolved into the loveless lovemaking world of the one night stand. The media sees that it needs to change its formula for the highly profitable category of the romantic-comedy to attract interest and mirror the time period more accurately.
The “pill’ is a development brought about by bright minds in the pharmaceutical industry. This means that the “pill” is an instrument developed by “culture at the top”. The “pill” is then sprinkled like a hybrid seed over the fields of society. It quickly grows, taking over large areas where its soil is most conducive to growth and rich with nutrients. These were areas of high populations and major cities. Society’s youth embraces the new drug and when the youth embraces something so follows the media. With the media’s interest, comes a wave of public influence, in the form of the reformulation of the romantic relation.
Films such as Annie Hall is one of the “most influential, and narratively the most unrepeatable: work of conscious iconoclasm…” and it “…jettison the usual elements of the romantic comedy” (4). One of its noticeable breaks from the pattern of prior romantic-comedies is its lack of the traditional “happy ending” (4). The definition of the word “comedy” according to the American Heritage Dictionary is, “A dramatic work that is humorous and has a happy ending”. Hence the category itself needs to be changed and called the “radical romantic comedy”.
This radical brand of romantic-comedy “is often willing to abandon the emphasis on making sure the couple ends up together, regardless of likelihood” and this is one aspect that separates it from the once popular traditional formula (4).
The Graduate is another stunning radical romantic-comedy that pushes far from the traditional grid, and in the end, oddly finds itself smack dab in the middle of the grids center. The Graduate’s “narrative arc” changes the usual “boy meets girl convention” and replaces it with “boy meets woman, gets woman, ditches woman for her daughter, loses daughter, gets daughter. Therefore the tradition of boy meets girl remains in tack, but how they get there is the radical difference. Also there are many scolding examples of romantic tradition flaws. By illustrating ugliness within tradition the film gains interest from a youth market that desperately searches to make their mark on society. The film illustrates Mrs. Robinson’s lack of morale stability when she pursues a family friend’s young son. This may illustrate to the youth market that marriage is a fraud, and a fools dream.
The film is artfully crafted and is capable of manipulating an audience to root for Ben to get the girl even though he slept with her mother. Ben chases her down in the end of the film and in a panic as though her marriage would be a big mistake. For as illustrated earlier in the movie, marriage is a fraud. This leads one to wonder that if marriage is a fraud, perhaps all of tradition is a fraud. This may suggest to a young audience that tradition is merely a captive that holds society in a strangle hold, forcing all to follow its flawed pathway through life. Thank goodness Ben got there in time to stop her from marrying and conforming to the lifetime of lies brought about by societies captive called tradition (sarcasm).
The romantic comedy has become radicalized by the advent of the “pill”, the media, and the thirsty young generation of its time. This category title, however, has become the norm thus it has become everything it strived not to be. Much like a child that has grown and realizing one day says, ”Oh my gosh, I’ve become my parents!”
Definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary to wrap one’s head around the meaning of Romantic-Comedy:
Romance - A love affair or a mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous
Adventurous - Inclined to undertake new and daring enterprises
Mysterious – The quality that is associated with the unexplained, secret, or unknown
Fascinating – To hold an intense interest or attraction
Comedy – A dramatic work that is humorous and has a happy ending
Works Cited
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy meets girl meets genre. London: Wallflower, 2007.
Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.
The American Heritage Dictionary. 4th ed. Bantom Dell. New York. New York. 2001. Print.
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