When I wrote Invisible Storytellers in the mid-1980s, romantic comedy was not one of the genres that leapt out at me. Noir, of course, with its use of first-person detectives; adaptations of famous novels replicating the narrator’s commentary (whether first-person or third); semi-documentaries and epics with their god-like scene-setters—all appeared more prominent. When I look back at my now woefully inadequate filmography, compiled in the dinosaur days of modest VHS inventories and before people posted scripts on-line or sites streamed movies, I do spot a few romantic comedies. However, none of these occur during the golden age of screwball comedies in the thirties and the forties, when The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940) and other classics appeared. And indeed, having now taught and written about romantic comedy for many years, I know that screwballs avoided voice-over, as did most of the canonical romantic comedies in the following decades. Adam’s Rib (1949) doesn’t need it; Roman Holiday (1953) uses a fake newsreel to set the scene; Some Like it Hot (1959) eschews it, as does Pillow Talk (1959). You won’t find voice-over in my feminist favorite, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), nor in the smash hits late in the century, such as Moonstruck (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), French Kiss (1995), While You Were Sleeping (1995), or One Fine Day (1996).
However, voice-over has become—to varying degrees, and for different purposes—a staple element of contemporary romantic comedies, including Clueless (1995), The Opposite of Sex (1998), There’s Something About Mary (1998), Notting Hill (1999), High Fidelity (2000), What Women Want (2000), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), About a Boy (2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Wimbledon (2004), Hitch (2005), Waitress (2007), Sex and the City (2008), and (500) Days of Summer (2009). To figure out why, we have to think carefully about this genre’s mixture of romance and comedy and how these films have changed alongside changing social mores. Moreover, we need to consider the two particular advantages of using this narrative technique: providing us unique opportunities for intimacy because of its ability in offering insight into characters’ minds, and creating irony through the clash of verbal comments with thevisual track.