Description
Book SynopsisIn
Guilty Pleasures, Alice Guilluy examines the reception of contemporary Hollywood romantic comedy by European audiences. She offers a new look at the romantic comedy genre through a qualitative study of its consumption by actual audiences. In doing so, she attempts to challenge traditional critiques of the genre as trite escapism at best, and dangerous guilty pleasure at worst. Despite this cultural anxiety, little work has been done on the genre's real audiences. Guilluy addresses this gap by presenting the results of a major qualitative study of the genre's reception, based on interview research with rom-com viewers in Britain, France and Germany, focusing on
Sweet Home Alabama (2002, dir. Andy Tennant). Throughout the interviews, participants attempted to distance themselves from what they described as the typical rom-com viewer: the uneducated, gullible, overly emotional (American) woman. Guilluy calls this fantasy figure the phantom spectatrix. Guilluy complements
Trade ReviewThose who study the rom-com as a genre will benefit from the fresh outlook on how these films are appreciated on the fringes of fan culture. Additionally, scholars focused on European reception studies will enjoy Guilluy’s deft articulation of how different European audiences respond to the comedy stylings of contemporary Hollywood. * EuropeNow *
At last, a serious study of romantic comedy, so often dismissed as 'chick lit' for frivolous feminine filmgoers. Alice Guilluy explores with great subtlety the pleasures and problems of female rom-com consumption through three European viewing groups, addressing one exemplary film,
Sweet Home Alabama. The result is an original and lively contribution to audience studies, offering new insights into the role of romance in women's imaginative lives -- Helen Taylor, University of Exeter, UK
There is much pleasure to be gained from Alice Guilluy’s absorbing investigation of European viewers’ consumption of the Hollywood romcom, and no guilt, since this book fully justifies its readers’ attention.
Guilty Pleasures delivers a provocative and robust defence of an often-derided genre, and in so doing both brings to light the tacit assumptions about taste, gender and class that underlie such critical snobbery, and casts doubt on their validity. -- Tamar Jeffers McDonald, University of Kent, UK
This is a fascinating exploration of the romantic comedy’s feminist viewers and the cultural taboo of ‘woke’ audiences enjoying the ‘guilty pleasure’ of watching these movies. -- Maria DeBlassie, University of New Mexico’s Honors College, USA
Embrace the politics of pleasure in Guilluy’s groundbreaking feminist fieldwork and brilliant analysis on rom-com audience reception, where viewers negotiate the heady pleasure of critique and heart-tingling delight of emotional and social engagement! Gratification guaranteed for film and gender scholars alike. -- Catherine M. Roach, The University of Alabama, USA
Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Transcription Conventions Series Editors' Foreword Introduction: ‘Lights, action… and pure treacle’ 1. ‘Health warning: high-sugar content’: The Rom-com and the Critics 2. ‘The pudding works splendidly’: Genre, Emotions and Pleasure 3. ‘Candy-pink cage?’ Gender, Feminism and the Phantom Viewer 4. ‘Chomping on a burger with a glass of coke’: the Americanness of Romantic Comedy Conclusion: ‘Cinder-fuckin’-rella’ Endnotes Works Cited Appendix 1: Semi-Structured Interview Questions Appendix 2: Participant Tables Appendix 3: Sweet Home Alabama Synopsis Index
