O'Keefe, Dominic (2025) The politics of gender and comedy in British and American romantic comedy films (late 1980s to present). Doctoral thesis, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.

Abstract

This thesis argues that depictions of gender in British and American mainstream romantic comedy (rom-com) films made between the late 1980s and the present, despite integrating apparently progressive representations of difference, sustain a socially conservative ideological discourse constituted around norms of sex, gender, body type, whiteness, and sexuality through their comedic moments. To pursue this argument, I develop four key thematic areas for critical analysis : the heteronormative basis of gender ideology as found in mainstream rom-coms : the complication of heteronormative rom-com gender ideology through a critique of gender, race, and the tacit whiteness of Hollywood ; the objectifying uses of queerness to reinscribe an implicit homonormativity ; and finally, how heteronormativity, race, and queerness contribute to gendered body difference as a sign of moral failure in relation to the neoliberal body project. This thesis develops a hybrid methodology to analyse comedic moments as sites of ideological encoding that combines intersectional feminism, Althusser's writing on ideology, theories of comedy, and close reading of selected romantic comedies as case studies. Through these analyses, I examine the ways in which the case study films construct their comedic moments, and on the basis of the analysis I aver that romantic comedies use humour to maintain a perceived status quo, even when superficially satirizing hegemonic patriarchal norms. I have selected my case studies based on commercial success, critical acclaim, and the prevalence of the thematic area within the film's plot in order to prioritise films that have contributed to the wider cultural understanding of gender and related issues during this time period. Through this analysis, my project makes an original contribution to feminist film theory by incorporating into sites of current feminist concern an analysis of humour as providing the basis for an ideological critique of the rom-com genre.