ABSTRACT
I want to begin this chapter with a note on genre and canon-two topics that have been implicit in my argument all along. Before embarking on the paired-text analyses that form the core of my study, however, I need to make a few things explicit in terms of the assumptions underlying my comments regarding both genre and canon. Stanley Cavell’s Pursuits of Happiness meticulously and thoroughly establishes the generic features by which the “film comedy of remarriage” can be identified. Not all 1930s film comedies fit the bill-and, despite frequent allusions to the genre in reviews of more recent romantic comedies, no official addition to the canon has been recorded that has been accepted by Cavell himself. As he is the one who identified and described the genre for the purposes of philosophical investigation, his authority must be noted, although in Pursuits of Happiness, he often invites us to challenge his own readings of the films as remarriage comedies. Does it matter, for instance, that there is no “green space” in His Girl Friday? Or does the absence of the father, who is on the side of the daughter’s desire, disqualify Bringing Up Baby as a candidate for generic inclusion? Cavell explains that to his mind the answer is no on both counts-but he leaves to the reader the option of resisting and rejecting his principles of inclusion.
