The genre of this week is the romanic comedy, more commonly referred to as the romcom. This week we watched a film that epitomises the romcom, Sleepless in Seattle (1993) directed by Nora Ephron. For this weeks blog I want to discuss the themes and tropes present in Sleepless in Seattle that often crop up in other films of the romcom genre. I felt the overarching theme of Sleepless in Seattle was the idea that every person should find true love, and that love will be know instantaneously, in the case of Sleepless in Seattle, with the first ‘magical’ touching of hands. Themes of destiny, fate and signs are all at play.

In Sleepless in Seattle, as well as many other romcoms, all other aspects of life seem to be “normal”. All the characters seem to live otherwise affluent, clean, calm lives. The only tension, drama or absences that exist, exist solely in the field of romance. Take the character of Sam Baldwin for example. Sam is the essense of what the romcom depicts as the perfect man, keeping in mind, who the target audience for this film is. Sam is a well off, sensitive, kind, clean, single, attractive, looking for love, middle aged man.

The reading for this week by Claire (2010) states ‘The romantic comedy is about the celebration of love and relationships, lifting the central characters out of the tedium and loneliness of normality’ p. 70. Therefore, is could be concluded the ideology of a romcom is that romance is the essentual, problematic, exciting, and the driving force between behind all abnormality and action.

Annie Hall, directed Woody Allen has been heralded as as an inspiration for the romcom, ironically Annie Hall breaks many of the boundaries of a romcom. For example it does not have typical happy ending.