Sex and the City has nothing on screwball comedy

21 July 2007

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Sarah Churchwell says the romantic comedies of the 1930s have more glamour, wit and sexual equality than the smash-hit television series now destined for the silver screen

Hildy: Of course I remember it. If I didn’t remember it, I wouldn’t have divorced you.

Walter: Yeah, I sort of wish you hadn’t done that, Hildy.

Hildy: Done what?

Walter: Divorced me. Makes a fellow lose all faith in himself. It gives him — it almost gives him a feeling he wasn’t wanted.

Hildy: Ah, now look, junior, that’s what divorces are for.

Walter: Nonsense, you’ve got an old-fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever. ‘Till death do us part.’ Divorce doesn’t mean anything nowadays, Hildy, it’s just a few words mumbled over you by a judge. We’ve got something between us nothing can change.

Hildy: Oh, well I suppose you’re right, in a way, Walter.

Walter: Sure I’m right.

Hildy: I am fond of you, you know.

Walter: Thattagirl!

Hildy: I often wish you weren’t such a stinker.

Sex and the City never came near this kind of wit, in part because its comedy relied on the one-liner, a self-indulgent and short-circuiting form of humour that creates conversations as abortive as the characters’ relationships. More important, the men never participated. Screwball relied upon give and take, distributing cleverness equally, and without gender bias, between its central couple. Sex and the City only cares about satisfying its women, who only care about satisfying themselves. It makes for fairly onanistic viewing. There are certainly some sharp lines, but the women get all of them. Of course, such chauvinism flatters the women watching it, but one wonders why they would ever desire the stereotyped, boring cartoons who pass for the men in the series. Sex and the City concerns women; screwball comedy concerns heterosexuality. It’s about couples battling it out, and achieving a truce, overcoming difference in a comedy of reconciliation. Sex and the City is about self-gratification.