Screwball comedy  Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is widely known for satirizing the traditional love story. Many secondary characteristics of this genre are similar to film noir, but it distinguishes itself for being characterized by a female that dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged. The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes, which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time. What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts its emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic ultimately accents love." Other elements of the screwball comedy include fast-paced, overlapping repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, physical battle of the sexes, disguise and masquerade, and plot lines involving courtship and marriage. Screwball comedies often depict social classes in conflict, as in "It Happened One Night" (1934) and "My Man Godfrey" (1936). Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Screwball comedy has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. "It Happened One Night" (1934), is often credited as the first true screwball, though "Bombshell" starring Jean Harlow preceded it by a year. Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942, elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in contemporary films. Still more, other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on. During the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. The screwball format arose largely as a result of the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code. In order to incorporate prohibited risqué elements into their plots, filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly. Verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand-in for physical, sexual tension. Though some film scholars, such as William K. Everson argue "screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking–and ridiculing– the dull, lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing. The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce, and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies.