In It Happened One Night, Ellen Andrews (Claudette Colbert) comes to realize who she truly loves the moment she stands on the altar waiting for her fiancé, King Westley (Jameson Thomas). In The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) plays an innocent graduate student who has been striving very hard to fulfill his parents’ expectations. He never has a chance to make decision autonomously and has been seduced several times by Elaine Robinson’s mother, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). Bursting into Elaine Robinson’s (Katharine Ross) wedding ceremony and convincing her to run away with him are his only two significant decisions in the film.
According to Mike Nichols’s comment on the introspective final sequence, the director of The Graduate considers the previous runaway scene to be an impulsive mistake. While I do not want to challenge this authorial opinion, I do want to offer my own interpretation of the ending sequence. As Elizabeth Grosz declares, “all readings are interpretive through and through.... Interpretations come from particular
perspectives and represent particular values” (141). To me, the acting out of blind impulse in this film presents the gist of wedding comedy, which takes over the power of determination as long as the leading character is willing to admit his or her mistake, and then advance to the next level of self-understanding.
Furthermore, in Moonstruck, Loretta Castorini (Cher), a 37-year-old accountant, is about to marry Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello). During the wedding preparation, she is attracted to Johnny’s estranged younger brother, Ronny (Nicolas Cage). As
Loretta’s mother, Rose, exposes her husband’s affair and announces her decision not to tolerate it any more in a family gathering, Loretta accepts Ronny’s proposal after throwing the engagement ring at Johnny, who halted their wedding because of the disapproval of his dying mother. The abandoned wife-to-be always represents the image of a victim in a conventional role, who can only gamble or rely on her “Prince Charming” to rescue her. However, in Moonstruck, the submissive wife and the ungrateful fiancé start to reverse such prototype, leading our attention to another unique feature of wedding comedy, which is the character of the Mother. In this film, Loretta’s mother, Rose Castorini, is expected to deal with her treacherous husband’s affair in a conventional and obedient way, accepting the betrayal and tolerating the affair. Surprisingly, the aged Rose refused to compromise with such infidelity. Instead, she faces it with confidence and wisdom, subverting the conventional image of the conservative woman, who constantly lives under patriarchal oppression. Rose’s words and deeds serve as an inspiration for her daughter. The chain reaction that leads to rejecting passive acceptance of traditional roles boosts up female power and solidifies images of strong women in wedding comedy.
In another example, Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) decides to sabotage the wedding of her old acquaintance, Michael O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney), in My Best
Friend’s Wedding since Michael promises her that they will be marrying each other if
none of them is engaged at the age of 28. In the last chasing scene, she realizes that Michael does not love her as she loves him. She maturely accepts the truth and walks away. Instead of making Michael accept Julianne’s expectation or even themoviegoers’, the director, P.J. Hogan, presents a fresh message to his audience: that finding the answer to one’s selfhood is more valuable than to simply giving away a predictable ending. True happiness outshines the clichéd happy ending. As Thomas states, “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (3), women in wedding
comedy finally break through the assumption of “what if” and lead to the destination of self-transformation.
In order to analyze the various stages of females’ self-transformation in wedding comedy and to indicate its flaws, the following section will focus on the historical backgrounds of each period. As historical events influence the development of
feminism and the revolution of female awareness, the portraits of female characters in wedding comedy as well as their responses while making crucial choices demonstrate the significances of the dramatic increasing in number of wedding comedy in the early 21st century.
I. The Early Period from 1930 to 1950: From Great Depression to WWII
In the 1930s, the historical background of screwball comedy13 influenced by The Great Depression, which erupted in 1929. Insufficient job opportunities with intense competitions led mass depression and helplessness. The setting of the film satisfied the audience and balanced their disquietude toward the society. Therefore, the films at the time presented the rich in an ambiguous way—they did not live as happily as common people presumed. For the rich, money and privileges were not equal to happiness, and deep down in their soul they were still lonely and unsatisfied.The female characters in wedding comedy are mostly born with a silver spoon.
Conversely, the leading male characters often represent the image of the poor and are mostly unemployed. Such settings of the male characters are intended to urge the audience to identify with the male protagonists in the film. As mentioned earlier, the heroines in wedding comedy of this period are mostly born in a wealthy family. As Glitre mentions that they have been pampered since their childhood and none of them
13According to Claire Mortimer, the definition of screwball comedy is “…a warring couple are placed in the center of the narrative and are responsible for the madcap escapades, chaos slapstick and witty, fast-paced dialogue that marks the progress of their explosive relationship” (11).
possesses sufficient social experience (25). When the Father resolutely forbids his lovely and naïve daughter to get into a relationship with some snobbish young men, the only way for the innocent daughter to stay with her lover is to break through the cage in which her father imprisons her, whether mentally or physically. Thus, in the beginning of It Happened One Night, spoiled heiress Ellen “Ellie” Andrew (Claudette Colbert) jumps off her father’s luxurious yacht, swims away to the river band and disappears. Ellie’s exaggerative behavior underlines her determination to marry the one she truly loved. Meanwhile, Ellie lives in a time where the society is governed by men. Under such patriarchal society, the Father has total economic control, not to mention his absolute power over the household. The women, on the contrary, have to rely on men financially and domestically. Such recourse compels them to be mere men’s subordinate, let alone to pursue their own happiness. Hence, it takes more than stubbornness and obstinacy for a woman to act independently as she may suffer from famine or, even worse, death, once she leaves the patriarchal guidance. Ellie’s
steadfast determination and staunch faith to be with her lover send the audience a message: women yearn to gain independence.
Meanwhile, Mortimer points out that watching screwball comedy in the movie theaters became a way for the needy and disappointed people to escape from the cruel reality temporarily. No matter how intensely the main male and female protagonists argue with each other, they will come to peace and the movie will end happily
eventually. Such happy endings provide something these moviegoers aspire to, that is, Hope. As Mortimer observes:
…chaos reigned supreme and resulted in happiness and hope for its hero and heroine.…strong contrast to the harsh realities of life in mid-1930s America, offering an exhilarating sense of escapism and, ultimately,
optimism, as the audience remains comfortable in the knowledge that out of
the chaos there will be a happy ending. (11)
The structure of the film has reflected the emotion of the audience. On the one hand, they had no alternative while confronting the chaotic economic depression; on the other hand they were still faithful that the crisis could be solved eventually and they would be led to a better future, just like the ending of the films in the 1930s.
During the time of World War II, 1935-45, more than seven million women started to devote themselves to vocations. As a result, female characters during this period had undergone a massive transformation. Heroines might have jobs or even become important people with high social status. Mortimer further states:
…the themes and narratives shifted, reflecting a concern with the new gender politics stemming from the movement of women out of the home and into work. Films such as His Girl Friday, Woman of the Year…explore what happens when a woman penetrates a man’s world and the domestic war of the sexes enters the workplace. (13)
In addition, the first and second wave French Feminism permeated through public arena, influencing women around the world significantly. Margaret Mead, an anthropologist and a professor of University of Columbia, was one of the leading feminists, who published Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies in 1935.
It is a book that affected profoundly the way women dressed and talked in this period.
The audience can notice that women in wedding comedy have gradually changed from a constrained and willful girl to a mature lady who possesses the ability to decide her own future in rational ways without making a tearful scene. In one of the well-known screwball comedies, and also wedding comedies, The Philadelphia Story (1940),14 Tracy Samantha Lord Haven (Katharine Hepburn) is a wealthy Main Line
14 The Philadelphia Story (1940) received 6 nominations, and won two Academy Awards, Best Actor (James Stewart) and Best Writing, Screenplay (Donald Ogden Stewart). Film Daily named the film as one of the ten best of the year. Moreover, in 1995, The Philadelphia Story film was being commend for
Philadelphia socialite and she breaks off her own wedding and firmly says “No” to her fiancé in the presence of everyone instead of running away from the ceremony. In
It Had to Be You (1947), the situation gets more interesting. Not only does Victoria
Stafford, plays by Ginger Rogers, refuses to get married in front of the altar, but she retreats from her own wedding thrice before saying the two magical words, “I do.” As we can see, the resolution of the two female protagonists mentioned above shows that they are no longer constrained by common customary. Choosing to walk away from the wedding typifies Tracy’s and Victoria’s autonomies, or, to a larger extent, women’s independence.Overall, towards the end of the early period, the leading female characters in wedding comedy are no longer a target to be easily manipulated as in the early 1930s.
Although the heroines in such films mostly commence to decide their own fate and choose their own path at the last moment, the self-knowledge behind the actions to refuse and further to quest deserves a fair appreciation.