A Sober History of Romantic Comedies

Last weekend, my husband and I watched "You've Got Mail," but I also might've made him watch it... Anyway, one of my favorite genres is romantic comedies, no matter the year it was made. As we were watching it, I was curious about where romantic comedies started and their evolution. Off the top of my head, the earliest romantic comedy I can think of is "Call Me Madam" with Donald O'Connor which came out in 1953, but the earliest romantic comedies date back way earlier than that. 

Well, if you're a thespian you can probably guess where we're going with this - Shakespeare. A lot of our modern day romantic comedies are based on his plays including, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsommer Nights Dream and more. The structure of his plays became a standard for other writers, but these types of scripts wouldn't be introduced to the silver screen for centuries. 

A lot of movie buffs believe that the first rom-com to hit the silver screen came, from Buster Keaton in "Sherlock Jr." in 1924. (If you don't know who Buster Keaton is, look him up, he's a comic genius) But rom-coms really started to make their stride when the introduction of talkies hit Hollywood allowing actors to, really deliver lines that brought laughs. Then The Great Depression brought another stride to the art, as people saw the movies as a sign of hope and studios started to push more of these screwball comedies where the female was typically the protagonist. 

From there, the rom com continued to develop, and brought us such joys like "Sixteen Candles", "While You Were Sleeping" "13 Going on 30" and so much more. 

So while you're watching your next rom-com on your girls night out or just to annoy your husband or boyfriend, remember they all started to bring joy to people in their lowest places and they continue to do so. So this week you'll see posts about romantic comedies, enjoy!