Abstract
Relationships between people from different cultures are frequently represented with reference to animosity, misunderstanding, or outright conflict. Yet romantic comedy offers an alternative version of the interpersonal relationship: one that is structured through desire, unity, and the social bond of marriage. Premised upon the successful union of the romantic leads, the genre reassures that the couple might function as guarantors for the future of the communities brought into contact through their union. This chapter focuses on interethnic relationships in Mixed Blessings (1978–1980) and Mischief Night (2006). I argue that these works comparably exploit the genre’s function as social unifier, bringing together cultures deemed not to mix, before addressing the implications of making the romantic couple bear the burden for problems of social division in contemporary Britain.
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Notes
- 1.
Mixed Blessings overtly references Till Death Us Do Part and Curry and Chips in Series 1, Episode 4, when Tom jokes “that’s all this country needs – a black Irishman!” in reference to his brother-in-law Winston’s aspirations to write like George Bernard Shaw. I understand this to represent an intertextual jibe directed at Spike Milligan’s blacked-up “Paki-Paddy” character, who appeared in both of Johnny Speight’s shows.
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Ilott, S. (2018). British Multiculturalism, Romantic Comedy, and the Lie of Social Unification. In: Davies, H., Ilott, S. (eds) Comedy and the Politics of Representation. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90506-8_4
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