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

One of narrative’s most powerful abilities is its capacity to create and sustain desire. It teaches us what — and whom —we should want. Screwball offers infinite possibilities for fun, and for pleasure. Sex and the City has two: orgasms, and shopping. The irony is that the notoriously ‘uncensored’ fantasies of Sex and the City are so barren, while the heavily censored screwballs offered such extravagant, exuberant variations on wish-fulfilment. To be sure, both present elitist fantasies in which happiness is defined as romance and luxury — but then so do all fairy tales. At least screwball sets high standards for its idealised central couple. The men and women in screwball yield to no one in the elegance and glamour stakes: it was Cary Grant who invented and perfected the metrosexual, while the peculiar veil that Katharine Hepburn wears during the Ritz scene in Bringing Up Baby looks like it was designed by Le Corbusier and makes her somewhat resemble a Martian. It was a far more outré fashion statement than any of Sarah Jessica Parker’s studiedly kooky outfits in Sex and the City. The women of screwball comedy wear gorgeous shoes with killer heels as a matter of course: they just have better things to talk about.

Sarah Churchwell is senior lecturer in American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia. She is currently working on a book about screwball comedy.