Romantic Comedies is a very popular sub-genre of the romance and comedy genres. In fact you could call it the wonder child of a very interesting union. Audiences love a good comedy and women enjoy watching a romance that ends happily. Comedy can be considered the oldest film genre. Comedy was ideal for the silent film because it relied on visual stunts and physical action rather than sound. Romantic Comedy or what we now call the classic romcoms developed in the 1930s and 1940s when sound made snappy dialogue possible.

The empowerment of women after the end of World War II ensured that women characters on film were no longer the timid wallflowers of before. The general theme of romantic comedies is the age old battle of the sexes. Conflicts were about the differences in male and female attitudes but they were always overcome in the end. There was also a reversal of the traditional gender roles, women were the ones that drove the action. Romantic comedies had wit, sophistication and elegance. Surprisingly it also had an unsentimental vision of love.

The romantic comedy films of this era was also known as the screwball. They presented a conservative view of marriage and tried to reassure and reinforce the previously dominant ideology of a patriarchal society. There were strong women character that were obsessed with their jobs but meeting a traditional man would most always result in marriage for the two. But before this happy ending there was verbal sparring between the couple as well as the usual conflicts with a blossoming relationship. This genre being a comedy there were also visual gags. In fact the romantic comedy is a hybrid of low and high comedy, meaning you get the slapstick comedy as well as the snappy verbal barbs.

Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were the king and queen of the romantic comedy during this period. They first paired up in George Stevens' Woman of the Year (1942) with Tracy as a brash sports reporter and Hepburn as a political columnist for a New York newspaper. They would make many more romantic comedies with a battle of the sexes theme.

The 1950s were all about presenting traditional values but there were underscores of the revolution of the next decade. The films were squeaky clean courtship romances. But the coming of a certain blonde bombshell heralded the advent of the sexual comedies of the 60s. Marilyn Monroe was indeed hot in Some Like It Hot (1959) and in Billy Wilder's subversive adult comedy The Seven Year Itch (1955).

The sexual revolution of the 1960s and the rise of the feminist and gay movements in the 70s made changes in the family structure and sexual relationships. There was an increase in divorce rates. The films of this period sought to redefine or question the concepts of monogamy and sexual identity. There was a promotion of the ideas of free love and promiscuity. The woman character was often portrayed in two different archetypes: the nun or the whore. She was a modern woman that was too hot to handle. There was general tension and confusion over sexual roles. Mike Nichols' The Graduate was a seminal film in not only romantic comedy but cinema in general in showing an older woman seducing the much younger Dustin Hoffman. Overall the romantic comedies of the 1960s and 1970s tackled many radical issues but it was done in a light hearted way that were nonetheless the start of much vigorous debate.

Romantic comedies made a strong comeback in the 1980s albeit in a vastly different form than its classical form. The post-feminist and post modern era made for parodies of the romantic comedy. There was a clear discrepancy between old fashioned romance and the uncertainties of modern love. These modern films shows that heterosexual coupling is not the goal but is rather an excuse for other forms of satisfaction. Romantic comedies of recent years also try to rescue heterosexual monogamy that was disregarded during the 1960s and 1970s but it did not ignore the new perceptions regarding love, sex, marriage and gender identity. Meaning women characters were allowed to have their own careers even after they have met the male half of the couple. Films were usually set in an urban landscape, bars, apartments. There is always a neurotic best friend. The male character is always afraid of commitment. Some notable films were: Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seatlle, PJ Hogan's My Best Friends Wedding, Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan and Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman.