Film and TV graduate student Michele Schreiber would like you to consider a striking proposition: Doris Day, the virginal icon of film comedies in the fifties, has something in common with the adventurous women of HBO's Sex and the City. Sure, Doris might blush at some of the conversations Carrie has with her girlfriends, and certainly, they would find her attitudes hopelessly coy and prim. But Doris played bright, strong-willed women, often in careers where she and the HBO crowd might cross paths. And, most important, all of them are working the same turf: romantic comedy.

"The resurgence of the romance narrative in films and television of the 1980s and 1990s" is the topic Michele has chosen to pursue for her PhD dissertation. Recent years have seen not only a sharp increase in the number of romantic films and programs, Michele says, but also a return to an optimistic tone about romance and the family that recalls Doris's films.

In between, romances were few in number and less hopeful in tone. In The Way We Were, the heroine loses the man she loves and ends up alone. In Love Story, the heroine dies. In sharp contrast are such films as Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Bridget Jones's Diary. In their happy endings, the girl not only gets her man, she usually marries him. "There's a real shift in the tone of films in the 1980s," Michele says, who hopes to explore "whether or not this shift has something to do with a response to feminism."

In this respect, Michele's mother has had an influence. Although she proudly calls herself a feminist, her mother always wants to go see a romantic comedy, Michele says. Why do "intelligent women who are aware of themselves in the world" still enjoy these romantic fantasies, she wonders.

Just beginning her dissertation research, she speculates that it has to do with "something magical about movies for women, allowing them to lose themselves, leave behind the demands made on them as women, and move into an alternate world."

Feminist film theory often focuses on the negative portrayals of women in films. Acknowledging that many portrayals are negative, Michele asks: "Then why do we go? We can't say that all women are dumb, or they lose their feminist consciousness once they're in a movie theater," she says. "I've always wanted to paint a more complex picture."

Michele was still in elementary school when she started renting classic films at the local video store. Midway through her undergraduate years as a media studies major at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus in New York, she "realized that I could actually do this for a living." She took a master's degree in film at San Francisco State, where her adviser, Bill Nichols, suggested that she pursue a PhD at UCLA, as he had done.

"There are few programs that offer a PhD in film, and UCLA is considered one of the best," Michele says. "Everybody is at such a high level, it can be intimidating." Upon arriving at UCLA, Michele says she learned very quickly that she had to take her career into her own hands. "No one is waiting with opening arms ready to guide you down the right path. You have to find ways to distinguish yourself and your work to your peers and to the faculty." Learning how to make her way, Michele says, "I've learned a lot about myself."

Once she made connections, Michele found supportive faculty, in particular Janet Bergstrom, her dissertation chair. Michele has done well: In 2000, she received a film school fellowship, and last spring, she won the UCLA Jack C. Sauter Award for Critical Writing on Television. She also presented a paper at the 11th annual Thinking Gender Conference, sponsored by UCLA's Center for the Study of Women.

Because her interests combine feminist theory and film theory, Michele is considering pursuing a minor in women's studies as well as a PhD in film studies. Professor Bergstrom says this combination of interests is "one of the exciting things about Michele's work." Her study of romance "will open up new venues for people interested in film issues and in patterns of film and television," her mentor says.

Michele aspires to a general as well as academic readership. Some feminist scholars have been "writing important books, but nobody can read them, except for people trained in that terminology," Michele says. Professor Bergstrom applauds her desire to write "in a way that's clearly nondoctrinaire and seems fresh and alive to younger women, as well."

She also sees in Michele "a very warm teacher/mentor figure." Indeed, besides working as a teaching assistant and associate at UCLA, Michele has returned to San Francisco State for three years to teach film courses in the summer session. Her love of teaching is one motivation for pursuing an academic career. "I feel, maybe naively, that I can help the media-savvy younger generation to understand why they're drawn to films and TV programs," she says. Moreover, new film makers need to learn "the very rich history of Hollywood."

By the time Michele reaches her goal of being a university professor, her graduate research and teaching experiences will have made her savvy about that life, she says. Film romances are fine, but "you shouldn't have romantic ideas about what academia is like."

Published in Winter 2002, Graduate Quarterly