Betty Kaklamanidou - Genre, Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism: The New Millennium Hollywood ROM Com

Genre, Gender and the Effects
of Neoliberalism

The new millennium Hollywood rom com

Betty Kaklamanidou

First published 2013
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2013 Betty Kaklamanidou

The right of Betty Kaklamanidou to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kaklamanidou, Betty, 1972
Genre, gender and the effects of neoliberalism : the new millennium
Hollywood rom com / Betty Kaklamanidou.
p. cm. (Popular culture and world politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Romantic comedy filmsUnited StatesHistory and criticism.
2. Motion picturesUnited StatesHistory21st century. 3. Love in motion pictures. 4. Sex role in motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.9.C55K35 2013
791.43'6543dc23
2012029648

ISBN: 978-0-415-63274-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-07010-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books

When I first met Dr Kaklamanidou in 2010, we were both on the same panel at the Second International Conference on Popular Romance, in Brussels. In a relatively new field, Dr Kaklamanidou or Betty, as I would come to know her, was already able to make fascinating historical, literary and popular references and exciting contributions to this burgeoning field of academic studies. One of the key tensions that she discussed was the way in which the field of popular romance studies needed to somehow transcend the stereotypes of popular romance as only Harlequin Romances with Fabio on the cover. As the conference unfolded, and as I was later to learn about Betty's work, there was neither anything simple or unproblematic about how these seemingly benign and frothy confections of popular culture were produced, received or ultimately analyzed. Whereas other genres of film have been theorized and dissected not only historically, but also in terms of contemporary films, the romantic comedies of the past decade have had relatively few commentaries or attempts to understand how they function within the larger culture.

Dr Kaklamanidou has responded to this gap in the literature by producing a scholarly work that is both accessible and timely. This focus on popular romantic comedies of the new millennium arises both as a response to the lacunae in the literature, as well as a kind of invitation to take seriously what some would deride as simply a hackneyed and formulaic Hollywood product that deserves no special scholarly attention. Dr Kaklamanidou offers us a rich analysis based not only on a careful and scholarly reading of the mainstream rom com films Hollywood produced during the last decade, but also ties them to larger developments happening in North American culture and society. Much like their forebears of the 1930s and 1940s, contemporary romantic comedies speak directly to the hopes and desires of an entire generation. And, just as those films offered both a release valve, or escape, from the dire economic situation audiences found themselves in, contemporary romantic comedies similarly reflect on and question the neoliberal political climate that viewers are inhabiting. If we have just lived, and are arguably still living through, what has been referred to as the worst economic turn since the Great Depression, then we can begin to understand the ways in which the films of this decade represent an attempt both to take flight from, and express, the extraordinary stresses and strains that viewers find themselves in.