Possession, attraction, and the thrill of the chase: Gendered myth‐making in film and television comedy of the sexes

Abstract

This study examines articulations of “egalitarian”; courtship in romantic comedy films of the 1930s and 1940s and recent television series resurrecting their conventions. It gauges the extent to which such texts are open to a negotiated reading that re‐contextualizes heterosexual monogamy in anarchic rather than patriarchal terms. The television versions constrain this negotiated reading due to the dissemination of culturally masculine assumptions treated as professional lore and regarded as postulates by television authors and journalists who write about these creators and their creations.