Sea of love: place, desire and the beaches of romantic comedy

Abstract

This article argues that within romantic comedy, the setting of the beach has come to function as a highly potent and privileged setting, evolving into a generic ‘magic space’ (Deleyto 2009) that sanctions and protects those desiring love, while allowing for certain forms of speech involving intimacy and the (sexual) self that cannot be uttered elsewhere. Our analysis finds that, time and again, the sea functions as an alternative, liberating space away from the intellectualism and emotional cynicism of the modern city, constituting an arena where characters can find intimacy and give themselves over to love in ways impossible elsewhere. But importantly, at the same time, we argue, it is also a setting that may function in a compelling manner to suggest, finally, the elusiveness of everlasting love. The meaning of the sea in romantic comedy in this respect is not entirely stable, and is not used only to endorse romantic notions about ‘authentic’ love and natural ‘soulmates’. Rather, a certain paradox is at play in the genre's use of the shoreline, since the liminal space of the sea/beach stands simultaneously both for enduring natural wonder that will outlast each of us, and the very essence of evanescence. Always changing, never fixed, inescapably different from one day to the next, it is a reminder of the capriciousness of love and life, an expressive signifier which by its very nature reminds us of the transience of all things.

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