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From Issue 2: The Hitch Hiker’s Love on Screen: by Lucy Scher, Co-Director of The Script Factory Before you subvert genre conventions, know what they mean to audiences. Lucy Scher of The Script Factory compares romantic comedies with tragic love stories. In the last issue of ScriptWriter, I suggested the principles of a theory of genre that offers an interesting way into script analysis for both script editors and screenwriters. Using the genres of Romantic Comedy and Tragic Love Story I want to illustrate in practical terms how valuable the theory of genre can be. Just to reiterate, genre theory is not about being ‘commercial’ (asking writers to compromise their voice and integrity), but rather it is about considering the expectations of an audience and understanding why it is so important for new writers to concern themselves with these expectations. The genres of Romantic Comedy and Tragic Love Story share two fundamental characteristics; in each there are two people whom the audience must want to be together and there are obstacles to that union. Given this key similarity, these two genres are useful to compare as an illustration of the application of the theory. In Romantic Comedy it is the present situation of the characters that is important. The obstacles to the union of our two main characters are situational and/or internal to the characters and are invested with humour. The audience doesn’t need a wealth of information about the characters’ histories; we come into a situation and we work it out and this, in fact, is part of the pleasure of the genre. Romantic Comedies tend to be defined by the era in which they are set. I have lost count of the number of times that friends have said to me that their friend is ‘just like Bridget!’ Bridget Jones’ Diary is very much of our current time and I wonder if this film would have been possible to conceive and make in the 1980s. Equally, Sally in When Harry Met Sally makes a case for a career rather than a man that seems rather dated now. However, this sentiment doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the film now because it evokes an era that was in part defined by independent-but-sexy women. It is an understanding of genre that allows us to think about stories in this way and ask fundamental questions of the script that we are writing or reading. If the lovers know that they want each other from the outset and this is their goal, it is unlikely to be a romantic comedy. If the lovers are not motivated by desire for each other but end up together and we understand that there are many obstacles in their lives to such a union, we are not dealing with a tragic love story. I have read several scripts that try to deliver a genre piece where the key component about the relationship between the lovers is at odds with audience expectations and these scripts are likely to fail.CONT. in Issue 2. © Lucy Scher 2002
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