My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 3 #8, August 22, 1997

SAVED BY KATHARINE HEPBURN

Swallow, but believe us, you won't die of boredom.
"Garden of Earthly Delights." XTC.

I've been reading a hysterically funny novel which reminds me that when I told you all about romance novels, I left out the screwball comedy, which is, in fact, a romance. While in most romance novels, the hero is wild and in need of taming by his woman, in the classic screwball comedy--think Bringing Up Baby, with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn--the man is entirely too tame, too boring, and about to become moreso because he is on the verge of marrying a woman even more bloodless and passionless than he is. He is rescued by a woman who erupts into his life and commandeers it. Trailing helplessly in her wake, he finds himself doing everything from catching leopards to spending the night in jail, and realizes that he has never really enjoyed being alive before. He ditches his boring fiance and, amid a hail of falling dinosaur bones, asks Katharine to marry him.

Such women are not standard heroine fare, of course. More likely to be cute than pretty, these women are eager, lively, bright, and boundlessly curious. Also disaster prone and a little bit screwy--there is a reason these stories are called "screwball" comedies. Those of you who are old enough can think of Gracie Allen and Pamela North. Those who aren't, well, you'll have a harder time finding an example. Maybe Janeane Garofolo in The Truth about Cats and Dogs, if she was not quite so insecure. Mary Tyler Moore, perhaps, if she got into trouble on her own hook, instead of being dragged into it by her friends--she at least has some of the endearing perkiness. Phoebe, from Friends, has some of the ditsiness, though less of the smashing-cheerfully-into-life quality.

The problem with more ordinary romances is, women of all stripes read them, but a lot of us can't quite picture ourselves as those pretty, graceful, sweet little things who walk off with the heroes in them. Just like we have a hard time seeing ourselves as the objects of Shakespearean sonnets--we're too bumbling, too irrepressible, too mouthy to be anybody's romantic, mysterious Dark Lady.

No, the first love poem I could believe myself as a possible object of was John Frederick Nims's lovely poem that begins "My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck glasses..." And the first romance I could believably fantasize myself as heroine of was Elizabeth Peters' The Camelot Caper, because the heroine, smack in the middle of implausible and curiously inept villainy, calmly enjoys it as she and her Cyrano-ish new male friend try to figure out what's going on. Exchanging witty quips, they hit all the tourist high points of southwest England while figuring out a preposterous archaeological scam.

In many of Georgette Heyer's regency romances, the hero is perfectly competent, far from the absent-minded academic hero of Bringing Up Baby, or What's Up, Doc? (a homage to screwball comedies). But he IS cynical about women, and bored out of his skull. Rich and aristocratic, he is stalked by women who are pretty and suitable and dull, who would very much like to share his wealth and position. His life is bounded by routine and obligation--until a young woman is cast in front of him who is intelligent, loving, and utterly amused by the absurdity of life. Not only does she not throw herself at him, she isn't even all that impressed with him. He actually has to make an effort to win her. In short, what has made Heyer so enduringly popular is her ability to write witty variations on a theme by Jane Austen.

Now of course this kind of romance would appeal to me, and to all the other odd ducklings who try so hard to fit inside our gender roles and never quite manage. But I think the reason this theme is widely popular, and continues to show up in movies and books and TV shows is that there is truth here--people who live constricted, boring lives ARE attracted to people who live life more fully. Like Tom Petty says, "ain't it funny how a crowd gathers 'round anyone living life without a net?"

And it need not be men being rescued from boredom by appealing women, either. Some of the screwball comedies (including some of the Tracy and Hepburn classics) featured brisk, efficient women falling for splendidly spontaneous men who never let schedules or bills interfere with their real life. In The African Queen, Humphrey Bogart, with all his crudity, showed Katharine Hepburn that she had been living her entire life at long distance. Gender isn't the issue. The point is, when a stick meets a firecracker, you know which one is going to be converted.

One of the books I grew up reading was Osa Johnson's autobiography, I Married Adventure. Osa was a sweet Victorian girl from Kansas, clearly destined to become a housewife and mother, until Martin Johnson married her and carried her off to the wilds of Africa, to live among lions and headhunters. It was the early 1900's, when next to nothing was known about the continent. Sharing his excitement, she became his collaborator, helping him take photographs, make films, write articles about its tribes and wildlife, and fill in the blank spaces on the maps. Had she stayed home in Kansas, becoming that conventional Victorian homemaker, she might never have known exactly what it was she missed. But I bet she would have forever had this gnawing sense that there must be something more to life than that.

We all have our jobs to go to and our bills to pay, more than enough reminders that life is real and life is earnest. But can't we all use someone who is able to see life its own self, in all its silliness and splendor, and knows how to revel in it? I don't think I was born with that kind of talent for living, but I learned it from my friends, and from watching my son when he was 3. No wonder the screwball comedy endures. It reminds us that joy is catching--so we should go where it is and take a long, deep breath.

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

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