Blast from the Past and the Origins of Screwball Comedy

Brendan Frasier plays a guy born in a 1962 bomb shelter to two parents who steps out into a world as a complete newbie. As a sheltered 35-year-old who’s never had sex, let alone experienced the joy of interaction with a girl his own age, he’s itching to find himself a lady when he gets out of the bunker. Viola, within a few minutes, he meets Alicia Silverstone, who happens to not just be pretty (something most audience members will agree on) but someone he has that extra spark of magical attraction.

Although, she sensibly has no interest in overeager strangers who approach her on the street, there’s a tolerable series of deus-ex-machina to keep them latched together long enough for them to agree to work together selling his baseball cards and things take off from there.

Born Yesterday, Splash, My Stepmother is an Alien, and most recently Poor Things comprise a sub-genre of romantic films where there’s a vast difference of social experience between a man and an extremely innocent woman. By today’s standards, some vociferous critics might look upon these tropes as a casual condoning of grooming.

While I would caution those critics to read each of those films with an eye towards the climate they were made, it’s important to note that a lot of romantic comedies came from a less squicky set of circumstances like Ball of Fire, It Happened One Night, and Roman Holiday where these were two consenting adults but their differences in social grace were explained through other…