I chose to do my Honors thesis on this subject because it provided me with the opportunity to combine my knowledge from my two majors, history and film, with my interest in gender studies. I was particularly drawn to this topic because of the lack of scholarship that has been done on the subject of masculinity and this is the only known study done on masculinity in the screwball comedy genre. This study focuses on the earliest years of the genre because it was at this time that men were making the biggest adjustments to their concepts of masculinity. This study will focus specifically on those men who saw themselves as members of the white, middle class because the information cited in this thesis is from studies focusing on these groups and screwball comedies were targeted towards these demographics.