Thursday, July 2, 2009

Dinova (English 170W)

Dinova C. Castaneda
English 170W: Introduction to Literary Study

THE PROPOSAL

The film The Proposal is a romantic comedy intended for women. This film meets its expectations, because it’s the typical dysfunctional couple that in the process of going threw many differences they make it hilariously funny and surprisingly fall in love. For example there is a scene when Margaret one of the main characters played by: Sandra Bullock is running around in the backyard with the dog in her hands trying to get her cell phone back from an eagle and Andrew Paxton mother and grandmother the other main character played by: Ryan Reynolds thought she was bonding with the dog. This scene is really funny. When it came to romance there are a couple of scenes that met the expectations of a romantic comedy as well. There is a scene when Margaret starts to feel jealous when Andrew is talking to his old girlfriend while they are in Andrew’s home town. Margaret starts to realize that Andrew is a great guy and comes from a very loving family.

In most romantic comedies there is always a reason why they can’t be together or how something or someone is involve that makes is impossible for the couple to be together. There is also always a character that is ridiculously funny like the old grandma or single best friend. Towards the end of the film there is usually always a funny twist to the movie and suddenly everything is happy ever after. I think romantic comedies are intended mostly for women, because women enjoy talking and listening to stories. Women could identify more with relationship movies since we pay more attention to details. Many times we try to identify ourselves with other people relationship and make sense out of the situations.

Quoting from Chandler essay An Introduction to Genre Theory, according to film theorist, Robert Stam some genres are based on story content like a war film, but comedy borrowed from literature. Andrew Tudor argued that genre is what we collectively believe it to be. David Buckingham argues that genre is not simply given by the culture: rather, it is in constant process of negotiation and change. Abercrombie said genres change over time; the conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are discontinued, but to note that some genres seem particularly long lasting. Tzvetan Todorov argued that a new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres.

As we can see the theorist all have a different but interesting point of view. I find that Abercrombie and Tzvetan Todorov seam to have similar points of view, which I find to be true. New films and books are combinations of old genres and repetitious stories. The only difference is that it’s intended for a newer generation and time period, which unfortunately involves more graphic bloody violent scenes and nudity.

1 comment:

  1. A good start. To be truly successful, you'd need to cut the first paragraph (which is more about how you think the film funny than establishing your argument for the reader), and then, once you've given us that next paragraph, start showing us in which specific scenes and moments in your film you see these typical elements. Then, once you've done that, you can move on to the broader discussion of genre, but again remember to come back to your own chosen work. That is, how do these lines from these theorists specifically illuminate your work?

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