ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the conflict between the romantic and social perspectives embodied in the narrative figure of the unlikely couple explains the preoccupation with practices that occlude democratic/egalitarian social relations. By focusing on the socially critical elements present in the narratives themselves, the chapter attempts to steer a middle course, one that analyzes the “textual” meaning that viewers must incorporate into their more individualized, “contextual” responses to a film. Rejecting the individualism of the modern Western philosophic tradition the unlikely couple film celebrates the possibilities for accelerated self-development offered by romantic love. By contextualizing the threats to self-development in structures of social hierarchy, the unlikely couple film provides a more various and yet also more specific account of the power of romantic love. Unlikely couple films are themselves concerned that their own transgressive depictions of unlikely love not elicit in their audiences the very prejudices they are trying to counter.
