Abstract
“Casablanca,” released to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa, seems particularly sensitive to its historical context. Indeed, the filmic “text” is all but universally read as the triumph of history over romance. This paper posits, however, that the respect for the demands of history, those seemingly promoted by the film—its apparent questioning, in the context of impending world historical disaster, of the continued relevance of the same old Hollywood stories—is functionally indistinguishable from its commitment to the sexual politics of those stories. The erotic trumps the historical, even as history serves as an alibi for erotic revenge. “Casablanca” is, as it turns out (and as the artists turn it out), the same old story—an exposition of female crime (infidelity) and punishment.
