Screwball Comedy:
notes & two definitional essays
general notes on romantic comedy & screwball
notes on essays by Tina Olsin Lent and Wes Gehring
Notes on romantic comedy & screwball:
(From AFI/CPB documentary "Romantic Comedy" and elsewhere.)

Romantic comedy is one of the most popular Hollywood genres.
- A highly conventional genre: audiences like to see the same pattern over and over: boy meets girl ('meeting cute'), complications ensue, love conquers all.
- Specific examples differ in how they work out complications, and in how they adapt to various star personas. (Romantic comedy has been a star-driven genre).

Screwball comedy:

the term 'screwball': from baseball for a pitch whose direction is unpredictable; also slang for 'crazy'

historical context, approximately 1934-1944:
- the Great Depression, unrest in Europe followed by war, the second decade after women could vote
- screwball comedies generally ignore economic & political issues
- characters are mostly wealthy & high society
- New York writers went west to write for movies, resulting in sophisticated dialogue
- the Production Code required indirection, displacement in treating sexuality
- the 'battle of the sexes': physical hijinks and verbal sparring replace overt lovemaking

Gender issues:
- the woman character is generally stronger, takes initiative
- - lead actress often had top billing
- - 'madcap heiress' type

- male character often of lower social status, though not poor
- - male character characteristically made foolish (though to teach him to relax)

- secondary male character: straight-laced and conventional ('Ralph Bellamy character'); female equivalent: Miss Swallow

'conservative' endings: marriage or promise of marriage, but with redefined roles
the screwball comedy of remarriage: the romantic pair are divorced or separated:
- sexual experience can be assumed
- the plot brings them back together
- in remarriage comedies it is generally the wife who is 'reeducated' about romance, whereas in standard screwball it is more often the man who changes most

[not on July 17 exam:]
Into the 1950s:
- Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies: beseiged but triumphant virginity

- Comedies directed by Billy Wilder & Frank Tashlin: satirical, cynical examination of gender roles & cultural values



Tina Olsin Lent, “Romantic Love and Friendship: The Redefinition of Gender Relations in Screwball Comedy”

1930s brought a “reconceptualization of the ideal love relationship between men and women”
female taste shaped film markets

Screwball comedy’s major sources:

1. Redefined image of woman:

The “new woman” or “flapper”
- fun morality & a consumer lifestyle
- participation in the workforce ('pink-collar' jobs, but not after marriage)
- more egalitarian relationship with men (partners or pals)
- but ultimate acceptance of traditional woman’s role (marriage; ideology of domesticity)

2. Redefinition of marriage as “love companionship”

Shift of the focus of marital happiness from the family to the romantic-sexual union of husband and wife
- courtship: shared adventures and fun, friendship developed along with love
- value of play
- role-playing

3. New idea of cinematic comedy

Equal teaming of female & male star
Romantic leads are also comic leads

Expressions of overt sexuality are replaced by screwball antics:
- a response to the Production Code
- “battle of the sexes”: verbal and physical sparring, as manifestation (and displacement) of sexual and class tensions.
- writing: wit, double entendre, allusion, humor, symbol, & metaphor
- rapid dialogue, argument, verbal wrangling: as counterpart to physical action and “a new symbolic language of love”
[Ideas from the Gehring essay are not covered on the exam, but may be used in papers.]

Wes D. Gehring, “Screwball Comedy within American Humor: Defining a Genre” from Screwball Comedy: a Genre of Madcap Romance

Characteristics of the screwball comedy hero:

1. Leisure life, often in high society
- Character types: madcap heiress, idle rich, absent-minded professor, newspaper reporter, etc.

2. Childlike nature
- Dog (or other pets) as corollary of childhood, or as surrogate child
- Male lead may be screwy or its opposite, rigid and unspontaneous

3. Urban environment
- Cities as places of irrationality; fear of cities turned into fun
- Interludes & conclusions often occur in the country (pastoral environment or Northrop Frye’s ‘green world’)

4. Apolitical outlook
Screwball hero is too busy coping with an irrational world to consider political solutions

5. Basic frustration, especially in relationships with women
Screwball heroines dominate men
- motif: reversal of sex roles
Male’s frustration related to his attempts to live in a rational way; whereas screwball women are more attuned to irrationality
- Screwball heroines have a predatory quality, and may anticipate the non-comic 'spider women' of film noir
When the male figure dominates in a screwball comedy, there is generally a second, weak male character to balance him