Roles of Women in Recent Rom-Coms ______
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Meet-Cutes & Motherhood: Roles of Women in Recent Rom-Coms ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University _______________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater ______________________________________ by Melanie Bailey Umbaugh April 2018 ! ! Umbaugh! 2! ! Table of Contents 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………..3 2. Working Girls: Career Agency…………………………………………………………5 3. Sexuality: What Women Want………………………………………………………..12 4. Motherhood: Modern Mom-Coms…………………………………………………….17 5. Endings: Happily-Ever-Afters………………………………………………………...22 6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….25 7.Reflection……………………………………………………………………………...26 8. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………30 9. Hypothetical…………………………………………………………………………33 ! ! Umbaugh! 3! ! Introduction A couple meets. They fall in love, break up, but then—just when all hope seems lost, a romantic gesture reunites them in the nick of time. They share a kiss as the credits roll. Is that what makes a romantic comedy? Tamar Jeffers McDonald identifies a rom- com’s integral characteristics as a main focus on a “quest for love” portrayed “in a light- hearted way and almost always to a successful conclusion” (9). Leger Grindon emphasizes the same elements with the genre summary of: “If humor establishes the tone, courtship provides the plot” (Grindon 2). Celestino Deleyto underlines the importance of a comedic perspective to the genre and, in lieu of devotion to a particular point of view, identifies “love and romance, intimacy and friendship, sexual choice and orientation” as the themes most relevant in romantic comedies (Deleyto 18). Many romantic comedy texts exhibit postfeminist points of view. Fien Adriaens and Sofie Van Bauewel, in their analysis of Sex and the City, describe postfeminism as most relevant within the context of popular culture and television, as opposed to being a political movement, for example (175). It’s difficult to ascribe a specific definition to postfeminism, because the term is often used in different ways. Elana Levine asserts postfeminist culture describes an ideology wherein feminism is a “historically specific outlook” and as such is no longer necessary (5). Postfeminism turns some aspects of feminism into a commodity that a woman, as “empowered consumer,” can obtain, without regard to economic disparities or gendered power structures at play (Tasker and Negra 2). Despite often serving as a counterpoint to third-wave feminism, postfeminism shares some common ground with third-wave feminism—especially the position that second-wave feminism can be “old-fashioned and suffocating,” and both movements ! ! Umbaugh! 4! ! “situate themselves within popular culture and mention themes as contradiction, diversity, personal and sexual pleasure, lifestyle, and individualism” (Adriaens and Van Bauwel 177). Postfeminism can be seen to reject second-wave feminism, in the opinion of Adriaens and Van Bauwel, whereas third-wave feminism tries to build onto and improve upon it. Second-wave feminism’s main accomplishment is often distilled down into the entrance of women into the workplace, an analysis that ignores both the economic and racial reality that working class women and women of color have always worked outside the home. While third-wave feminism tries to acknowledge the inherent privilege behind earlier feminist movements, postfeminism does not. A lack of intersectionality is also obvious in postfeminist texts which generally focus on white, upwardly-mobile, heterosexual women. Feminized popular culture places a high value on “choice” and “empowerment,” while ignoring how only privileged women have those opportunities (Levine 5). Rebecca Brasfield uses Sex and the City to discuss this in more detail, elaborating on how the show “unequivocally demonstrates a distinct school of feminist theory that is most often associated with liberal feminist politics and hegemonic feminist agendas” (132). While romantic comedy texts profess to celebrate female empowerment, these narratives are narrow in their scope of what that “empowerment” looks like—it is usually restricted to white, upwardly-mobile women, and it still involves a heterosexual romance of some kind. Here, I will be examining Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016), Sex and the City (1998—2004), and The Mindy Project (2012—2017). While the term “romantic comedy” is mainly applied to films, I believe these two television ! ! Umbaugh! 5! ! programs also fit the genre well, and by discussing them I hope to expand upon the conversation by including some works that are usually discussed separately. In these four texts, I will analyze representations of four different themes: careers, sexuality, motherhood, and finales. By looking at how much control the women in these narratives have over their own stories, I hope to gain a clearer picture of how women are or are not bestowed agency. Depictions of female sexuality are sometimes fraught with cultural anxieties, but I feel these four texts present a much more positive image of the subject. Motherhood carries with it its own responsibilities and three of these texts deal with single motherhood, which I want to look at for how it influences the genre-obligatory romance of each work. Finally, finales. How a story ends (especially in a genre typically categorized by happy endings) reveals much about what is valuable in a narrative, and in these texts, it’s romance. In many ways, these texts reinforce negative postfeminist stereotypes that restrict women’s acceptable options in society—or exclude huge groups of women from even participating in the narrative. At the same time, I think these texts also push against the boundaries of traditional womanhood to present alternative possibilities, and I want to explore those moments to reveal a larger picture of what these texts are actually saying about women’s lives. Working Girls: Career Agency In the modern-day romantic comedy, the economic necessity for women to marry is removed. Marriage is a choice, and often the object of the female protagonist’s ambitions, but not a means of survival, so the pressure felt by many a Bridget Jones-type to couple up is social, not economic. The working woman as presented onscreen is ! ! Umbaugh! 6! ! overwhelming white, middle to upper class, and educated, a construction based around second-wave feminist ideas about woman’s imperative to work as a means of securing her economic independence from men—therefore separating the institution of marriage from financial necessity (Leonard 100-101). Reproduction of this narrative in film come from a place of privilege, so by propagating these stereotypes, postfeminist media culture ignores working class women and women of color (Leonard 101). In many ways, the texts I’ve chosen to discuss here propagate those same stereotypes, but some of them have also taken steps to engage with a more nuanced view of women and their careers. Scenes of female characters at work serve to establish their personalities within the context of the show and set the stage for romance. The women of Sex and the City all have different jobs that help reveal information about their character, while The Mindy Project is about the employees of an OB-GYN office who all work in different capacities in that field. The actual work happening in the Bridget Jones cinematic universe is less important than the romantic opportunities the job provides, though the latest film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, does show Bridget’s professional growth by presenting her as a boss instead of a clumsy secretary. Each of the four women in Sex and the City works in a high level of their field. Even Carrie, whose weekly column in a fictional newspaper might not have the same level of prestige or income as her friends, is able to support herself entirely with that one writing job. Despite a brief financial scare and the ensuing conversation about money— where it’s revealed that Carrie has spent forty thousand dollars on shoes—all four characters live lives of comfort and luxury (“Ring a Ding Ding”). Fashion is a huge fixture on the show, and the characters all spend money with ease—from regular dinners ! ! Umbaugh! 7! ! at fancy restaurants to always taking a cab, there are few economic obstacles for these women. This is a far cry from the rom-com’s predecessor, the courtship plot wherein female characters ultimately married the men of their dreams, but not just because they were in love with their male partners, but because the women had to marry in order to survive. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters must get married before their father dies and a distant relative inherits their house. Because the rom-com came into existence as women were taking to the workforce en masse, marriage is not the only acceptable way for middle and upper class women to subsist. Part of the core premise of Sex and the City is that these women are all independent. Female success is celebrated, with splashy restaurant opening and designer clothes paid for with their own money, and their professional credentials help establish these characters as capable and intelligent. Yet, there is a disconnect between the control these women are proven to display in the workplace and their frequent emotional outbursts in their personal lives (Whelehan 139). The characters discuss the necessary separation between