Meeting the Parents: Romance's Comedic Ruptures in the Familial Rom-Com

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The familial romantic comedy extends the trajectory of the traditional rom-com into the wider family, further affirming the rom-com's reliance on heteronormative ideology, positing blood ties and a unified, cordial family unit as the ideal outcome for any coupling. But the comedic moments in familial rom-coms occur when the futureoriented trajectories of heteronormative couplings are ruptured and become incompatible with romance's warm fuzzy feelings and its optimistic look toward the future. Instead, comedy tears at the seams of heteronormative polite civility as a momentary rupture of its eventuality.