In this episode, KC and Evie unpack the romantic comedy genre from the 1930s to today, attempting to answer: “why are the romantic comedies of today so sterile?” We explore classic tropes like the meet-cute and the love-hate tango, Freudian theories of comedy (can the Neobimbos ever escape psychoanalysis?), and the fall of the female blockbuster.

Stay tuned to hear how She’s the Man summarizes Laura Mulvey’s entire theory of the male gaze in one line of dialogue!

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Reading List:

https://parade.com/1333321/jessicasager/why-dont-they-make-romcoms-anymore/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/03/why-are-romantic-comedies-so-bad/309236/

John Mundy and Glyn White. Laughing matters: Understanding film, television and radio comedy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012.

Doherty, Thomas. “The Rom-Com Genre and the Shopping Gene.” OAH Magazine of History 24, no. 2 (2010): 25–28.

Martin, Adrian. “In the Mood For (Something Like) Love: The Situation of the Rom-Com Today.” Cinéaste 39, no. 1 (2013): 16–20.

Oria, Beatriz. “Love on the Margins: The American Indie Rom-Com of the 2010s.” Atlantis 40, no. 2 (2018): 145–68.

Henderson, Brian. “Romantic Comedy Today: Semi-Tough or Impossible?” Film Quarterly 31, no. 4 (1978): 11–23.

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1905.