ABSTRACT

The 'Til politics do us part' story recalls mainstream media coverage of the courtship of Bill Clinton's chief strategist, liberal Democrat James Carville, and George Bush's political director, conservative Republican Mary Matalin, in the heat of the 1992 US presidential campaign. This chapter focuses on a particular group of films the author call the political romance genre. The premise of Hollywood's political romance, that a liberal woman and a conservative man fall in love, is usually established in one of four distinct plot lines. In the first, the initial attraction of a man and a woman to each other is mutual, and their profound political differences come to light only after an exciting flirtation or fledgling romance has begun. He hero is typically tolerant of the heroine's political philosophies when discussed in private but annoyed or embarrassed by them when displayed in public.