The Role of Women in Screwball Comedy Films :: Movies

The Role of Women in Screwball waggery Films Joan unsubdued Youre leaving? Youre leaving me? Jack Colton Youre gonna be all right, Joan Wilder. Yea. You always were. Like a contemporary Dorothy, Romancing the Stones Joan Wilder mustiness travel to Columbia and survive incredible adventures to learn that she had always been a capable and valuable person. Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984) is part of a series of eighties action comedies that disrupted previous expectations for egg-producing(prenominal) heroines. These fe young-begetting(prenominal) person protagonists manage to sophisticate the standard action narrative and filmic gaze, learning to rescue themselves and to resist otherwises limit vision of them. Not only did these action comedies present soused female characters, they also offered a new filmic experience for female audiences. The commercial advantage of comic action heroines paved the way for women to appear in grave action roles--without the pe rsonal sacrifices required of Sigourney Weavers Ripley. Figures like Joan Wilder serve as an important link between previous strong yet feminine screen personas and current female stars. Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the peremptory male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices bisexual identification with fighting(a) male characters identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters or on occasion, identification with a masculinized active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing new-made improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films on a regular basis offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring the screwball harlequinade. Comedy often allows for a subversion of the status quo that is not tolerated in much than(prenominal) serious genres. Beginning in the 1930s, the subgenre of screwball comedy presented female characters who were active and desiring, without evoking negative characterizations as unfeminine or trampish. Screwball comedies represent a specific form of romantic comedy that features a complicated situation--or more often a series of complications--centered around a strong-willed, unpredictable female. The comedy is generally physical as well as verbal. Screwball and other forms of romantic comedy do not just reverse the male/active, feminine/passive paradigm--which as E. Ann Kaplan notes accomplishes little in terms of change--but kind of strengthens the female and weakens the male just enough to put them on more equal footing.