Idle, Hattie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4627-5006 (2026) On the outside looking in: Suburban aesthetics and awkwardness in New Zealand/Aotearoan romantic comedy. Film International, 22 (3-4). pp. 9-23.

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Abstract

This article explores the ways in which ‘awkward’ spatiality is constructed in recent New Zealand/Aotearoan romantic comedy films. Focusing on Taika Waititi’s (2007) Eagle vs Shark and Madeline Sami and Jen van der Beek’s (2019) The Breaker Upperers, I read these films in conversation with the US quirky film tradition and its use of suburban space as means of portraying misfit or ‘outsider’ identities, as well as the Hollywood rom com more broadly. While the films (and Waititi’s in particular) have largely been described as merely a translation of the US indie style, I argue that both depart from the latter’s aestheticizing and gentrifying tendencies. Instead, they deploy awkwardness as a political positioning, dwelling in the marginalized spaces and experiences – of the New Zealand landscape, of non-normative femininity, of indigeneity – which have been pushed to the periphery.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	Published
DOI:	10.1386/fint_00264_1
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Films
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/16346

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