and so the modern themes of love were quickly woven into them, as in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. The contemporary romantic comedy genre was shaped by 18th-century Restoration comedy and 19th-century romantic melodrama. Restoration comedies were typically comedies of manners that relied on knowledge of the complex social rules of high society, particularly related to navigating the marriage-market, an inherent feature of the plot in many of these plays, such as William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. While the melodramas of the Romantic period had little to do with comedy, they were hybrids incorporating elements of domestic and sentimental tragedies, pantomime “with an emphasis on gesture, on the body, and the thrill of the chase,” and other genres of expression such as songs and folk tales. In the 20th century, as Hollywood grew, the romantic comedy in America mirrored other aspects of society in its rapid changes, developing many subgenres through the decades, such as the screwball comedy in response to the censorship of the Hays Code in the 1920s-1930s, the career woman comedy (such as George Stevens' Woman of the Year, starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) post-WWII, and the sex comedy made popular by Rock Hudson and Doris Day in the 1950s-1960s. In 1972 What's Up, Doc? was a success, although the film follows the conventions of the screwball comedy, as its tagline confirms: "A Screwball Comedy. Remember them?". The more sexually charged When Harry Met Sally had a successful box office run in 1989, paving the way for a rebirth for the Hollywood romantic comedy in the mid-1990s. The French film industry went in a completely different direction, with less inhibitions about sex. Virginia Woolf, tired of stories that ended in 'happily ever after' at the beginning of a serious relationship, called Middlemarch by George Eliot, with its portrayal of a difficult marriage, "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Effects of romantic comedies There have been at least two studies conducted that examined the effect of watching romantic comedies on individuals' perceptions of romance and long-term relationships. See also Bromantic comedy Chick flick Screwball comedy Sex comedy Situational comedy or "sitcom" List of romantic comedy films List of romantic comedy television series References External links Romantic Comedy Movies – from the 1940s to future releases, with box office performance The Numbers Market Performance of Romantic Comedies in United States