CanRomantic ComedyBe Gay?: Hollywood Romance, Citizenship, and Same-Sex Marriage Panic

Abstract

This article links recent trends in romantic comedy to the debate about same-sex marriage. By comparing contemporary heterosexual romantic comedies to same-sex romantic comedies, it argues that Hollywood colludes with efforts by the state and the conservative Right to ensure that heterosexuality remains the privileged mode of desire and marriage, the sanctioned form of bonding. The unarticulated anxiety over same-sex marriage is thus revealed to be the potential loss of marriage as a means of disciplining desire to a heterosexual end. Ultimately, romantic comedy is a genre about citizenship, impressing on viewers the form their desire must take for full citizenship to be granted.

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