Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, romantic comedy and bedroom farce. The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce, and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies.
MADCAP COMEDY PLAYS WITH CROSSDRESSING CODE
Everson, argue that "screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking – and ridiculing – the dull, lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing". Though some film scholars, such as William K. Verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand-in for physical, sexual tension. In order to incorporate prohibited risqué elements into their plots, filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly. The screwball format arose largely as a result of the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code. Other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on.ĭuring the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942, elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in later films.
It Happened One Night (1934) is often credited as the first true screwball, though Bombshell starring Jean Harlow preceded it by a year. Screwball comedy has proved to be a popular and enduring film genre. Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Other elements of the screwball comedy include fast-paced, overlapping repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, physical battle of the sexes, disguise and masquerade, and plot lines involving courtship and marriage. What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts the emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic comedy ultimately accents love". The genre also featured romantic attachments between members of different social classes, as in It Happened One Night (1934) and My Man Godfrey (1936). It has secondary characteristics similar to film noir, distinguished by a female character who dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged, and the two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes.
Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s, that satirizes the traditional love story.
It does not look at patriarchy but rather tries to explore the idea of assigned gender roles and performativity in Shakespeare's arguably strongest female characters.Genre of comedy film Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a screwball comedy from the genre's classic period. This paper explores that decision to subvert the gender boundary and seek agency. This decision to switch genders by these characters and the consequent follow-through are what determines and moves the plot forward for all three plays. Characters such as Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Viola in Twelfth Night or Rosalind in As You Like It donned the garbs of their male counterparts. Whether male or female, Shakespearean characters have always undergone a lot of scrutiny and analysis, and the idea of cross-dressing by characters blurs the lines between what can be considered inherently a male or female characteristic. We see the technique littered through literature in varying degrees of effectiveness with Shakespeare using the idea of cross-dressing to great effect in his comedies. The idea of donning a disguise to change one's assigned gender role and the ensuing character hijinks that occur are used quite frequently to develop characters and plots. The idea of cross-dressing is quite popular in contemporary culture, with both male and female characters adopting the guise of the opposite gender.
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