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Four Romcoms And A Funeral: An exploration of the rise and fall of the British romcom in the past 26 years.

Over the years, the romantic comedy has become "one of the most enduring cinematic genres" (Mortimer, 2010). Whilst the genre has witnessed some highs and lows, with regards to its popularity with their audience, some may argue that it has remained resilient (Mortimer, 2010) because there is still an audience who enjoy watching romantic comedy "with all its traditional ingredients" (Mortimer, 2010). Whilst this essay will provide an insight into what a romantic comedy is, the types of audience that a romantic comedy would attract, the typical narrative of a romantic comedy and why Richard Curtis is arguably considered to be a modern auteur in the romantic comedy genre, this essay will ultimately explore how the romantic comedy genre has fallen, with regards to the audience it attracts, following the 1990s and early 2000s, which could arguably be considered to be the ‘golden’ era of the romantic comedy in modern film because a lot of commercially successful romantic comedy films, either written or directed by Curtis, such as Love Actually (Curtis, 2003), Four Weddings and A Funeral (Newell, 1994), Notting Hill (Michell, 1999) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (Maguire, 2001) were released during this period of time. 

The romantic comedy genre tends to support the idea that when two characters fall in love, it is almost meant to be from the beginning of the film, despite the obstacles that keep the characters apart during the film. Over the past few decades, it has become traditional in film that the genres of romance are combined with either comedy or drama. Previously however, the two genres were kept very separate. An example would be in films such as When Harry Met Sally (Reiner, 1989), the plot focuses on the relationship between the two characters and not necessarily on the comedy side of things. However, in recent times, it has become more common for the romance genre to be combined with another genre, often to define whether the plot revolves around a relationship in a happy or unhappy situation, for example, the film Last Christmas (Feig, 2019) is considered a romantic comedy because the plot revolves around the development of the relationship between two characters through comical situations such as ice skating. Whereas, a relationship drama, otherwise known as melodrama, revolves around the relationship between two characters experiencing dramatic situations such as A Star Is Born (Cooper, 2018), where the relationship between the two characters is affected by dramatic situations such as alcoholism. The combination of the concept of a romantic relationship and comical situations featured in these films help to define the romantic comedy genre as a hybrid genre. In their simplest form, romantic comedies are films that include "light-hearted, humorous plot lines" (Kowenstrot, 2012) and revolve around the idea of a romantic relationship (Kowenstrot, 2012). A lot of romantic comedies from recent times have featured the general idea that love can surpass most obstacles in our lives (Kowenstrot, 2012) such as distance. One example of this would be the long-distance relationship between the two characters in television shows such as Gavin & Stacey (Corden, Jones, 2007). Another example would be that they follow the journey towards a relationship for characters in films such as Love Actually (Curtis, 2003). These examples of romantic comedy follow the idea that love is a journey for two characters. Romantic comedy in television & film are designed with two intentions; to make us laugh and to tell us a story about "two lovers who are apparently meant for each other” (Tolhurst, 2017) but they are "kept apart by some complicating circumstance" (Tolhurst, 2017) until they are brought back together once again at the end, "surmounting all obstacles" (Tolhurst, 2017) that stand in the way of their relationship. The romantic comedy genre tends to support the idea that when two characters fall in love, it is almost meant to be from the beginning of the film, despite the obstacles that keep the characters apart, which are often quite comical to an audience. 

The central narrative of most romantic comedies usually revolves around a character's "quest for love"(McDonald, 2007). Film critic, Mark Kermode, argues that the structure of the narrative for most romantic comedy films remains largely the same because it tends to follow the familiar structure of "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again, the end"(Kermode, 2018). This narrative follows Todorov's Narrative Theory because it follows the obstacles a predominantly male character faces in pursuit of a female love interest before finally getting together with his love interest at the end of the film. The film, Notting Hill (Michell, 1999), uses this plot formula well because the plot is based around how a book seller meets and falls in love with a famous actress, but they are kept apart due to the nature of her career, but they reunite at the end of the film. The element of the plot line that revolves around a book seller helps to make the plotline more relatable to the audience because it shows that love can happen to anyone, regardless of the difference in social status between the two lovers. Another film that uses this plot formula well is Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) because it strongly conveys the message that love and romance is not prejudiced by portraying the pursuit of love from a younger person and an older person's perspective, as well as portraying other types of love such as familial love. The portrayal of young and old characters follows the theory of alignment because it helps an audience of all ages to be able to relate to the plotline and characters. However, the way the narrative of a romantic comedy unfolds is portrayed differently in films to the way it is done on television because whilst the audience watch a relationship develop in a film over a couple of hours, whereas in television shows such as Gavin & Stacey, (Corden, Jones, 2007), the audience will watch the relationship between the two characters, Gavin and Stacey, develop over the course of several series over several years, so therefore the audience are able to become more invested in the two characters because they are watching them over a longer period of time. Additionally, Kermode states that a key element of a romantic comedy is the "meet-cute"(Kermode, 2018), which is where the two key characters, who will form a romantic relationship by the end of the film meet and they are set up for "a series of mishaps which sees them fall in and out of love"(Kermode, 2018). The stereotypical narrative of a romantic comedy is designed to take an audience on a journey of two characters and portray how their relationship develops through different comical and dramatic situations. 

Romantic comedies tend to attract a largely female audience. A huge factor in this is that they “get in touch with women’s emotions” (Tolhurst, 2017) and feed the female desire to fall in love (Tolhurst, 2017). It is fair to say that women are more likely to enjoy watching "unrealistic relationships" (Tolhurst, 2017) than men because by stereotype, women are expected to be "emotional" (Gender Identity & Roles, 2020), which makes the romantic comedy genre generally more attractive and more relatable to a female audience because they can identify with scenes featuring the emotion of love due to this emotional stereotype set for women. This idea follows Angela McRobbie's Gender Stereotypes Theory, which states that women are stereotyped as being nurturing figures such as "mums" (McRobbie, 2013). The largely female audience could also be explained by the nurturing stereotype that is set for women by society because "from a young age, girls are bombarded with ideals that are commonplace in a classic romcom” such as Barbie dolls finding their Ken (Baron, 2016). However, there are two types of female audience for the romantic comedy genre. The first type being the younger audience, who are most likely to watch teenage romantic comedies because "they feel they can relate to the characters” (Tolhurst, 2017) as they tend to be of "a similar age" (Tolhurst, 2017) and have "similar lifestyles" (Tolhurst, 2017) to the characters. The other type is the older audience, who are most likely to watch romantic comedies with a more "complex storyline" (Tolhurst, 2017) and include more "mature whit" (Tolhurst, 2017). So therefore, this evidence suggests that romantic comedies use certain types of plot lines to attract certain types of audiences. Additionally, some believe that repeated exposure to romantic comedy can lead to "an increase in sensitivity [to] moral intuitions [such as] care, fairness, loyalty, respect for authority and purity" (Borelli, 2016) so therefore, watching romantic comedy could make us better people. However, others believe that enjoying watching romantic comedy films can have a "lasting, negative effect" (Surrey, 2016) on their audience because it can create false ideas of “love, relationships and marriage" (Surrey, 2016) so therefore, they don't represent relationships in a realistic way (Surrey, 2016). Romantic comedy can have two different effects on their audience because while they may enjoy watching the story of an unrealistic relationship unfold, they may develop unrealistic expectations for their own relationships. 

After films such as Notting Hill (Michell, 1999) and Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) were commercially successful, earning a global box office figure of £158,000,000 and £282,000,000, respectively (Lee, 2015), the audience for the romantic comedy genre has diminished in the 2010s because Richard Curtis's 2013 comeback to the genre, About Time (Curtis, 2013), only earned a global box office figure of £62,000,000 (The Numbers, 2013). Additionally, the romantic comedy genre tends to attract more of an audience in the United Kingdom than in America because compared to the figures made by Notting Hill (Michell, 1999), Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) and About Time (Curtis, 2013), 2013 American romantic comedy The Big Sick (Showalter, 2017) made a global figure of £43,000,000 (Box Office Mojo, 2017). Evidently, this decline in box office figures shows that there is less of an audience for romantic comedy than there was in the 1990s, possibly because the audience are getting bored with the same format but different styles. Additionally, some believe that the British people have a different form of humour to the American people, for example, the comedian, Ricky Gervais, believes that whilst the American people "applaud ambition and openly reward success" (Gervais, 2011), whereas the British people tend to be "more comfortable with life's losers" (Gervais, 2011), which could suggest that the American people are more accustomed to watching humorous shows such as Friends (Crane, Kauffman, 1994) whereas the English people aren't quite so accustomed to these shows. As suggested by the evidence, the American people tend to have a more optimistic and joyful outlook on life whereas the British people's outlook tends to be more pessimistic and cynical. This idea follows Stuart Hall's Reception Theory because two different types of audiences can look at a media product in two very different ways. So therefore, some may argue that after the ‘golden’ Richard Curtis era of romantic comedy in the 1990s and early 2000s, the audience for the romantic comedy genre has diminished and that the romantic comedy is a genre that is generally enjoyed more by people living in the United Kingdom, rather than people living in America, possibly because the British people tend to find the romantic comedy genre as a form of escapism whereas the American people are more familiar with this more optimistic way of life. 

The theory of an auteur revolves around the idea that a director is the "major creative force" (Augustyn, 2017) of a motion picture and is often "more considered to be the "author" of a movie than is the writer of the screenplay” (Augustyn, 2017). Arguably, the filmmaker, Richard Curtis, could be considered an auteur for romantic comedy because he is considered responsible (White, 2017) for films such as Notting Hill (Michell, 1999) and Love Actually (Curtis, 2003), despite Curtis not assuming the role of the director of all of these films. Curtis uses similar actors for similar types of roles such as Hugh Grant, who plays a man trying to win a woman's heart in both Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) and Notting Hill (Michell, 1999). Additionally, in both of these films, Curtis follows a similar plot formula where the plot is very much based around the characters and focuses on the journey towards a relationship between two characters. Furthermore, one key reason why Curtis' films remain memorable and still have a strong popularity is because they are focussed on plot lines and characters that are relatable to the audience. Many would argue that commercially successful romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (Newell, 1994), Notting Hill (Michell, 1999) and Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) made Curtis one of the biggest auteurs of romantic comedy in the 1990s and the early 2000s and that he played a large role in making the romantic comedy genre what it is today. Some have argued that the release of Four Weddings and A Funeral (Newell, 1994), which was written by Curtis, saw the beginning of things getting better (Adams, 2009) for the romantic comedy genre, possibly because a lot of Curtis' films were released in a time when Britain was a place of broken homes (Adams, 2009) so therefore people would possibly look at the romantic comedy as a form of escapism. 

This essay set out to be informative about the romantic comedy genre and to explore how the genre has evolved in the past 26 years. A lot of the evidence examined established that the romantic comedy genre is used to tell the story of a romantic relationship in a comical and emotional way. The element of emotion helps to explain why the main target audience for the romantic comedy genre tends to be women and why they can teach the audience human morals through the stories they tell. Additionally, the audience's familiarity with the genre and the pessimism of the British audience may explain why the audience for romantic comedy has declined after the 'golden' Richard Curtis era ended after the early 2000s. Finally, general opinion shows that romantic comedies are films and television shows that centre around the subjects of romantic love and emotion. 

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