The emotional politics of limerence in romantic comedy films - Research article

Aug 27, 2026

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The paper examines how cinematic storytelling represents limerent emotions and how audiences are guided to generate meaning from them, with particular attention to political selfhood. Building on the concept of limerence as intrusive obsessive thinking and intense passionate feeling, the study contrasts screen depictions of being-in-love with long-term relational care. It analyzes selected romantic comedies from the early 2000s, focusing on social and cognitive references underlying romantic feeling, narrative simulation, and interpretive negotiation of genre formulas.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Limerence as an emotional and narrative problem

Cinematic resources and audience meaning

Political selfhood and emotional interpretation

Case study films (early 2000s)

Comparative genre context and prior scholarship

Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Wyatt Moss-Wellington The emotional politics of limerence in romantic comedy ﬁlms 2019 [https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/4173](https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/4173) [Ver](Ver)ö[ffentlichungsversion / published](ffentlichungsversion / published) version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Moss-Wellington, Wyatt: The emotional politics of limerence in romantic comedy ﬁlms. In: NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies, Jg. 8 (2019), Nr. 1, S. 191–209. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/4173](https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/4173) . Erstmalig hier erschienen / Initial publication here: [https://necsus-ejms.org/the-emotional-politics-of-limerence-in-romantic-comedy-](https://necsus-ejms.org/the-emotional-politics-of-limerence-in-romantic-comedy-)ﬁlms/ Nutzungsbedingungen: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0/ Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz finden Sie hier: [https://creativecommons.org/l](https://creativecommons.org/l)icenses/by-nc-nd/4 .0/ Terms of use: This document is made available under a creative commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0/ License. For more information see: [https://creativecommons.org/l](https://creativecommons.org/l)icenses/by-nc-nd/4 .0/ The emotional politics of limerence in romantic comedy films Wyatt Moss-Wellington NECSUS 8 (1), Spring 2019: 191–209 URL: [https://necsus-ejms.org/the-emotional-politics-of-limerence](https://necsus-ejms.org/the-emotional-politics-of-limerence)in-romantic-comedy-films/ Keywords: Emotions, existential feelings, liminality, love, political emotions, romantic comedy When we discuss falling in love, we tend to use terms that point to a division in thinking and feeling. Consider, for instance, the phrase ‘my head wants one thing but my heart wants another’. The experience of falling in love isnot simply a change in our thoughts about another; it is a marked biological shift, one that is felt. In the literature on the psychophysiology of pair-forming and attachment, the distinctive intensity of those changes is referred to as a period of ‘limerence’. Dorothy Tennov coined the term in Love and Limerence, referencing a pattern in subjects’ self-reported descriptions of falling in love: a state of intrusive obsessive thinking and intensity of passionate feelings toward a limerent object (a partner or love interest), typically lasting anywhere from a couple of weeks to several years.[1] The romantic experience of ‘being in love’ is distinguished from love as a long-term, pair-maintaining care for another’s welfare.[2] Because limerence is a space of intensified emotion more so than logical deliberation, it appears ripe for narrative representation, as storytelling modes introduce resources for representing phenomenal experience that argumentation might describe, yet not truly reflect the dynamic feeling of; but crucially, screen fiction also offers a simulative space for attaching meaning to one’s emotional responses, and then querying their relation to emotions we might experience in the world. This paper addresses some of the cinematic resources for representing limerent emotions, and the different ways in which audiences might be encouraged to draw meaning from those emotions, especially meanings that relate to a sense of political selfhood. In particular, I look at the presentation of limerence in Two Weeks Notice (Marc Lawrence, 2002), The Girl in the Café(David Yates, 2005), Outsourced (John Jeffcoat, 2006), and Waitress (Adrienne Shelly, 2007), among other ‘political romcom’ films (that is, romantic comedies with substantive political subtext, or prominently featuring characters whose occupation is political in nature) . I have narrowed the field of the present study to films released in the first decade of the 2000s, as this

FAQs

What does the paper mean by “limerence” in romantic comedies?

Limerence refers to a distinctive phase of intrusive obsessive thinking and intensely passionate feelings toward a love object, typically lasting from weeks to years. The paper treats this intensified emotion as especially suitable for narrative representation on screen.

How does the study connect limerent emotion to “political selfhood”?

The paper argues that screen fiction can simulate emotional responses and help audiences attach meanings to those responses. It focuses on meanings linked to a sense of political selfhood rather than only individual romance.

Which films are analyzed in the study, and why those?

The study examines Two Weeks Notice (2002), The Girl in the Café (2005), Outsourced (2006), and Waitress (2007), among other “political romcom” films. It narrows attention to releases from the first decade of the 2000s because that period seemed to encourage political meaning in popular English-language cinema.

Aug 27, 2026

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