Comedy of remarriage

The comedy of remarriage is a subgenre of American cinematic comedy from the 1930s and 1940s. At the time, the Production Code (aka Hays Code) banned any explicit references to or attempts to justify adultery and illicit sex. The comedy of remarriage enabled filmmakers to evade this provision of the Code. The protagonists divorced, flirted with strangers without risking the wrath of censorship, and then got back together.

The genre was given its name by the philosopher Stanley Cavell, in a series of academic articles that later became a book, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Cavell argues that the genre represented Hollywood's crowning achievement, and that beneath all the slapstick and innuendo is a serious effort to create a new basis for marriage in mutual love—religious and economic necessity no longer applying for much of the American middle class.

In response to Cavell's article, scholar David R. Shumway claims it is possible "to make too much of the remarriage 'genre.'" He points out that "only two of Cavell's seven comedies deal with characters who we actually see interacting as husband and wife for any length of time..." and points out that all seven films fit into the screwball comedy genre.^[1]

More recently, film critics A.O. Scott and David Edelstein both argued that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a 21st century example of the genre.

Notable comedies of remarriage

Bold text denotes inclusion in Pursuits of Happiness.

• It Happened One Night (1934), d. Frank Capra (starring Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert)
• The Awful Truth (1937), d. Leo McCarey (starring Cary Grant & Irene Dunne)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938), d. Howard Hawks (starring Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940), d. George Cukor (starring Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn)
• His Girl Friday (1940), d. Howard Hawks (starring Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell)
• My Favorite Wife (1940), d. Garson Kanin (starring Cary Grant & Irene Dunne)
• The Lady Eve (1941), d. Preston Sturges (starring Barbara Stanwyck & Henry Fonda)
• That Uncertain Feeling (1942), d. Ernst Lubitsch (starring Melvyn Douglas & Merle Oberon)
• Woman of the Year (1942), d. George Stevens (starring Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn)
• Adam's Rib (1949), d. George Cukor (starring Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn)
• Phffft! (1954), d. Mark Robson (starring Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon)

References

1. ^ Shumway, David R. "Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage." Film Genre Reader III. Grant, Barry Keith, Ed. University of Texas Press, 2003.

Further reading

• Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage Harvard Film Studies, 1981.