Love Across the Atlantic US-UK Romance in Popular Culture

Barbara Jane Brickman is an Associate Professor of Media and Gender Studies at the University of Alabama.

Deborah Jermyn is Reader in Film and TV at the University of Roehampton, where she is Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Film and Audiovisual Cultures.

Theodore Louis Trost holds a joint appointment in the New College and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

INTRODUCTION - Still crazy after all these years?: The 'special relationship' in popular media

PART ONE - '[Not] just a girl, standing in front of a boy...': Feminism, women and transatlantic romance

1. 'Atlantic Liners, It Girls and Old Europe in Elinor Glyn's Romantic Adventures', by Karen Randell and Alexis Weedon

2. 'World Turned Upside Down: The Role of Revolutions in Maya Rodale's Regency-Set', by Veera Mäkelä

3. 'Bridget Jones's Special Relationship: No Filth, Please, We're Brexiteers', by William Brown

4. 'Sharon Horgan, postfeminism and the transatlantic psycho-politics of "woemantic" comedy', by Caroline Bainbridge

PART TWO - Love beyond borders: The global city, cosmopolitanism and transatlantic space

5. '"British people are awful": Gentrification, queerness and race in the US-UK romances of Looking and You're the Worst', by Martha Shearer

6. 'Catastrophe: Transatlantic Love in East London', by Frances Smith

7. 'On the Fragility of Love Across the Atlantic: Cosmopolitanism and Transatlantic Romance in Drake Doremus's Like Crazy (2011)', by Manuela Ruiz

8. 'Nancy Meyers's The Parent Trap and The Holiday, and the mise-en-scène of romance and transatlantic space', by Deborah Jermyn

PART THREE - Two lovers divided by a common language: 'British-ness', 'American-ness' and identity

9. '"It's the American Dream": British audiences and the contemporary Hollywood rom-com', by Alice Guilluy

10. '"American, a slut, and out of your league": Working Title's equivocal relationship with Americanness', by Jay Bamber

11. 'Business-like Lords and Gentlemanly Businessmen: The Romance Hero in Lisa Kleypas's Wallflowers Series', by Inmaculada Pérez-Casal

12. 'Imagine: The Beatles, John Lennon, and love across borders', by Theodore Louis Trost

PART FOUR - Political coupledom: Flirting with the special relationship

13. '"Political Soulmates": the "Special Relationship" of Reagan and Thatcher, and the Powerful Chemistry of Celebrity Coupledom', by Shelley Cobb

14. '"I Will Be with You, Whatever": Blair and Bush's Baghdadi Bromance', by Hannah Hamad

15. 'Holding hands as the ship sinks: Trump and May's special relationship', by Neil Ewen

16. '"Harry has gone over to the dark side": Race, Royalty and US-UK Romance in Brexit Britain', by Nathalie Weidhase