It’s hard to tell when mankind first met the romantic comedy or as the kids these days like to call them “rom-coms”. From William Shakespeare”s The Taming of the Shrew to 1924 with the release of “Sherlock Jr. and “Girl Shy, audiences have proven that they have a lust for love. At this point more people have seen “Wedding Crashers” than have actually crashed a wedding (which is a shame, I mean what about that free food?)
Over the years the rom-com genre has morphed itself to fit the needs and desires of the era. In the 1940’s, looking for an escape from the dreary war-time conditions, studios released screwball comedies like “His Girl Friday”. 1950’s filmmakers frustrated by the morally-conservative Hayes Code produced innuendo-laden comedies like “The Seven Year Itch” (basically anything starring Marilyn Monroe). The 1970’s brought “Harold and Maude” and other transgressive films which showed relationships that were more introspective. In the “unsupervised age” of the 1980’s when more teenagers started going to movies, rom-coms shifted to be more youth-focused with films like “Pretty in Pink”. The 1990s - 2000s is my personal favorite era of rom-coms producing many classics like “10 things I Hate About You”. Sadly in the early 2010s, rom-coms faced a downturn. While there was the occasional studio-backed hit like “La La Land” they were few and far between. Today the rom-com genre is recovering and finding new homes in independent film.
The Meet Cute
I’m personally a huge fan of rom-coms, However, my personal relationship with rom coms started out rocky to say the least. They didn’t exactly “Have me at Hello”(Jerry Maguire) Despite my current 5 year rom-com obsession. I originally believed that they were formulaic and horribly vapid. It took one very special movie; Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World for me to begin to fall in love with the genre. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is the perfect gateway rom-com. It is a rom-com disguised as a Manga-inspired action movie that is filmed and set in Toronto.
Falling in Love Montage
After Scott Pilgrim, I decided to see if Scott Pilgrim was the “exception and not the rule” (“He’s Just Not That Into You”). As I continued on galavanting though rom-com land I slowly stopped watching these movies ironically. What I truly admire about these movies is that they are truly and honestly themselves and they don’t masquerade as more dramatic or serious movies. They know they are guilty pleasures and they serve that purpose excellently. Out of this category I found a mountain of movies that I have watched more times than I care to admit. One recommendation I have is “27 Dresses” in which Jane” always the bridesmaid but never the bride” has the difficult task of being the maid of honor for her sister who is marrying the man of her dreams.
Big Dramatic Fight
While galavanting through rom-com land I became acutely aware that a lot of the movies that I really liked had terrible critic scores. A constant criticism of rom-coms is that despite having women as their target audience, they perpetuate sexist regressive tropes. There are many examples of this from women not being able to maintain positive friendships with each other to women having to “fix men” and being put into essentially abusive relationships. The most prevalent and worrying concern is that people will get a tainted corrupted view of romance though rom-coms. In rom coms, there are many many amoral tropes passed off as “romantic”. For example, stalking someone or interrupting a wedding with a proclamation of love. In rom coms these actions are rewarded with romance and affirmations. However, if you were to attempt this in the real world with someone you were romantically interested in your actions would instead be met with horror and probably a restraining order.
Redemptive Arc
While I acknowledge these concerns, I feel if you judge every genre by its worst movies you won’t be able to watch anything. I would argue that most rom-coms are inherently femmist. As the Canadian Screen Award winning web series People Watching states “the first rule of feminism club is that there is no singular definition”. Rom coms have not only been pioneered by women like Nancy Meyers and Nora Efron but the genre has been inherently feminist from its conception. A great example of this is Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet denying Mr.Darcy’s first proposal because despite his status and her family’s pressure for her to marry, he disrespects her and her family.
The argument that people who watch rom coms will make them their “road maps” on their way to romance doesn’t make sense as it doubts the intelligence of viewers and their ability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Rom-coms like the characters within them are capable of positive development. In fact they’re extremely self-critical. The genre is filled with deconstructions of harmful tropes to remind the genre and its creators of present issues and remind them to fix themselves. A particularly great example of rom-com challenging the genre is the CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. In this show, the main character Rebecca Bunch works as a high-paid lawyer in New York and is completely miserable. Inspired by a chance meeting with her first boyfriend Josh Chan she moves to West Covina California to follow him. The show from that description sounds like every career woman finds love and second chances in a small town Hallmark movie. However crazy-ex takes a look back at these tropes and applies real work logic and consequences to them (albeit in a setting where characters will occasionally burst into song). What comes after is a heartfelt look at mental illness and the journey to self love.
Running to the Airport/Sailing away in a Boat
Honestly, I am personally conflicted with the term “guilty pleasure” because I feel that people should be proud of what they watch no matter what other people think. You should be proud of watching movies no matter if it’s a spoof movie from the 2000s, a Zombie B movie (I don’t know why zombies get so much hate) or even dare I say it Adam Sandler comedies. To me, romantic comedies are perfectly represented by the “running to the airport scenes” that end many of these films. The big speeches are always kind of embarrassing and would never work in real life but, they also are endearing and hilarious.
Image taken by Mira Seth