"A Room and the Right Kind of People:" The Ideology of Romantic Comedy in Classical Hollywood Cinema

Aronson, MichaelGraman, Claire2020-09-242020-09-242020-09-24https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25599Screwball comedy was a unique subgenre of romantic comedy occurring in American film of the 1930s and 40s, with an emphasis on fast-paced, witty dialogue, zany physical humor, and strong female characters. This dissertation examines the origins of screwball comedy in many subgenres of romantic comedy in the 1920s and 1930s, including slapstick, sophisticated comedies, flapper comedies, sentimental comedies, and anarchic pre-Code comedies, with particular focus on the way women are represented in these comedies. By building off theories of comedy and feminist film historiography, this dissertation argues for the feminist potential of these films, as their heroines create a filmic world where gender equality is possible, before studying the decline of screwball comedy with the reification of gender roles during World War II.en-USAll Rights Reserved.comedyfeminist filmscrewballslapstick"A Room and the Right Kind of People:" The Ideology of Romantic Comedy in Classical Hollywood CinemaElectronic Thesis or Dissertation