3. Bringing Up Baby

Sometimes it’s just fun to watch performers bounce off each other. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn could make reciting dictionary definitions entertaining and combative, but when they have this script to work from?

I wonder what kind of influence seeing so much screwball comedy at a young age had on my ideas about romantic love. Bantering isn’t the same as bickering, and animosity doesn’t mean affection. Opposites can attract, but we never get to see how long their differences balance each other out once the external conflict resolves.

Then again, it also gave me expectations for a partnership of equals. Power dynamics where someone’s love wasn’t a prize to be won, but something that builds upon your time together and the complications you work through together.