ABSTRACT
We like some of our stories so much that film studios often update older offerings for
contemporary audiences. Remakes of films “spaced years apart offer observations on cul-
tural mores, roles and relationships in the same culture at two different times”
(Champoux, 1999, p. 210). Therefore, the originals and their remakes offer a unique
opportunity to examine what we think about sex, love, and romance in the mass media
across relatively large periods of time. In this chapter I examine three pairs of such films:
An Affair to Remember (1957)1 and Love Affair (1994); both the 1961 and 1998 versions
of The Parent Trap; and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and You’ve Got Mail
(1998).2 I identify the myths about love in both the original and the remake of the films,
compare each original with its remake, and draw some conclusions.
