“You don't want to be in love… You want to be in love in a movie.” The romantic comedy
is cinema’s version of comfort food. “You have your witty, British ones. Your workplace empowerment movies. And my personal favorite,
the late middle-age fantasies, where all the women wear
white cashmere turtlenecks and have fantastic kitchens.” This ever charming,
always idealistic movie genre all but guarantees a happy ending, after the good fun of a string
of wacky misadventures along the way. Let’s break down the key ingredients
of the rom-com formula: The two love interests
probably start out at odds. They may come from different worlds,
have competing goals, or simply get off on the wrong foot. “I realize that when I met you
at the turkey curry buffet, that I was unforgivably rude
and wearing a reindeer jumper.” But as the rom-com wisdom goes, there’s a very thin line
between love and hate, and the story frames all this friction
as kindling for sparks to fly. “You're angry, aren't you?” “Yes, I am!” “Mm-hmm. The love impulse in man frequently
reveals itself in terms of conflict.” The plot tends to involve
a big misunderstanding or even outright deception, as characters pretend
to be someone they’re not. “Well, what's your name? Maybe I've heard of you.” “Zip.” Common plot points include
a serendipitous meet-cute, a grand gesture, a love triangle, and a scene of the lovers
kissing in the rain. “Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed” The story is often set in New York, where the single protagonist lives
in a suspiciously large apartment, and the characters tend to have
whimsical jobs at magazines, in the fashion industry,
or managing independent bookstores. There’s a spunky and adorable heroine, often played by an actress who’s known
for her extensive rom-com portfolio. “Oh!” [Laughs] But lest she comes across
as too perfect, she has charmingly relatable flaws
like being improbably clumsy. A cast of zany side characters usually includes a best friend
with seemingly endless time to provide comic relief and discuss
the main character’s problems. “I don't want to see you
live a life of regret and think, ‘Maybe
if I tried harder…’” “What am I supposed to do?” “Just talk to Marcus.” Rom-com leads often start out
with a red herring love interest who seems very appealing
but turns out to be all wrong. "Nothing. I didn't feel a thing." Meanwhile, as the protagonist
spends time with someone they aren’t
actively trying to impress, they can be their unfiltered self and get to know
the other person in a real way. “And the great thing is,
I don't have to lie because I'm not always thinking
about how to get her into bed. I can just be myself.” This long-developing chemistry
leads to a moment of epiphany, where the character suddenly realizes the feelings that have been
crystal-clear to the viewer all along. “Oh, my God! l love Josh.” And the scene where the couple declares their love
and commits to each other tends to be saved for the very end. “I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.” Since the movie stops here, we don’t actually get to see
what happily ever after looks like. Today we’re in the midst
of a Rom-Com Renaissance, but there’s a lot of debate about
what happened to the romantic comedy since its 90s Golden Age, and whether a pure version
of this story type is still viable. Here’s our take on the rom-com: where it comes from,
what it says about love, and what its future looks like. “Romantic love is not an ending. It's just a part of your story,
a part of who you are.” If you’re new here,
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exploring your creativity. Part of what gives the rom-com
such a layered reputation is that it’s inherently contradictory. The genre is loaded
with conventions that are both empowering
and limiting to women, the demographic it’s most often
marketed to and beloved by. "Then I turn on the news
and I'm like. Then I turn on Sweet Home
Alabama and I'm like.” It tends to center on a spirited,
intelligent female protagonist, but it also suggests that finding love
is the most important thing in her life. “I have two choices: to give up and accept permanent state
of spinsterhood and eventual eating by Alsatians, or not.” It’s all about romance, but these farcical premises
can veer into behavior that would be considered
extremely creepy or inappropriate in real life. "All I can tell you is
that when you're my age, the guys will be lined up
around the block for you. Actually, I shouldn't say that
because I'm your teacher." Just look at some of the most famous
rom-com set-ups: dating someone for a bet,
stalking for love, or becoming obsessed with
and aggressively pursuing a person you’ve never even met. “What if this man is my destiny
and I never meet him?" Another common critique
is that rom-coms are unrealistic, hooking us on
the potentially damaging myth of a perfect soulmate
who’s the answer to all our problems. As Mindy Kaling puts it, “I simply regard romantic comedies
as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules
than my regular human world.” “People waking up in bed
with full hair and makeup. It's so unrealistic.” But in spite of their belief in destiny
and the implausibly big apartments, rom-coms can also be
extremely relatable, tapping into the longings
and hang-ups we all experience. “Cause the more people
you let into your life, um, the more they can just
walk right out.” Mark Harris writes, “The sad/scary undertow
of every romantic comedy is, ‘What if I’m not in a romantic comedy
but a melodrama? What if it never works out for me?’” “Why am I always at dull weddings and never actually
getting married?” This deep-seated fear, which everyone has felt
at some point in their life, gives these movies
a visceral sense of high stakes. “I'm also just a girl,
standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Rom-coms almost always
end in finding love, but the real “meat” of the movie
is so much more than that. Because the couple usually doesn’t
get together until the final scene, this story implies that what
really matters is the journey there: the protagonist’s
ups and downs at work, their private doubts and struggles,
their nutty escapades with friends. "That's right, and then Park Lane." “No, no! Straight down to the Cromwell
route then left." “No!” [Indistinct yelling] "Stop right there! James Bond never has to
put up with any of this shit.” Often, the biggest obstacles the rom-com main character
needs to overcome are internal. “You are afraid not to be
an assistant anymore. I think you'd rather
run around, getting Kirstin coffee, than sit down, write something
and find out you suck.” The men in the women’s life
can be read as symbolic stand-ins for the versions of herself
she could become. Seeing beyond
the “red herring” guy represents outgrowing immature
or superficial misconceptions about what she expects
from life. “I’m just looking for something. I don’t know what it is really,
but it’s not here.” And the true goal of the story
is personal development, which is a necessary precursor for anyone to be able to dedicate
themselves to another person. “I complete myself.” The deeply ingrained tropes
and incongruities of the rom-com actually date back much further
than you might think. In the Elizabethan era, William Shakespeare made
early contributions to the genre with plays featuring
complicated love triangles, comic misunderstandings, and that classic rom-com
trope of deception. In As You Like It and Twelfth Night, a female protagonist disguises
herself as a man, while pining for a male
who’s fooled by her costume, and accidentally making
another woman fall in love
with her alter-ego. “By the roses of the spring, by maidhood, honour,
truth and every thing, I love thee so.” The Bard set the bar for the importance
of sophisticated dialogue in romantic comedies. “There is a kind of merry war
betwixt Signor Benedick and her. They never meet but there’s
a skirmish of wit between them.” A few hundred years later
in the Regency period, Jane Austen revolutionized
the form with her novels Pride and Prejudice,
Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, stories which also mined the tension and
turmoil of central misunderstandings. “Then, you are not married?” We can see a precursor
to the modern red herring love interest in the way that
many of Austen’s characters initially fall for
a dashing “bad boy” who turns out to be a rake. “He has broken no vow.” “He has. He has broken faith
with all of us. He made us all believe
he loved you!” Most importantly, Austen’s work
exemplifies the idea of the marriage plot. All of her six published novels
end with weddings. On the one hand, the author turns a critical eye
on the institution of marriage, emphasizing the social reality
that most women in that time had to marry shrewdly
to secure a livelihood. “With father's estate
entailed away from the female line, we have little but our charms
to recommend us. One of us at least
will have to marry very well.” At the same time, she empowers her female protagonists
by giving them the agency to buck that economic
and social pressure and choose their partners
based on true love. “He is truly the best man
I have ever known.” “I could not have parted with you
to anyone less worthy, Lizzy.” As Sophie Gilbert writes
in The Atlantic, “No one did more to challenge
the conventions and strictures of marriage for women
in the 19th century, while simultaneously enshrining it
as the ultimate happy ending for her worthy, intelligent,
and independent characters.” “Three daughters married! Oh, Mr Bennet, God
has been very good to us!” Modern rom-coms still tend to adhere to some version
of the Marriage Plot structure. Even when there’s not an actual wedding,
the movie usually ends with the implication
of monogamous commitment, “How about some coffee,
or, you know, drinks or dinner, or a movie, for as long
as we both shall live.” and this climactic moment
of romantic happiness is framed as the emotional payoff
the whole story has led up to. To this day, Shakespeare
and Austen’s works are still being channeled
into beloved modern rom-coms, from the Shakespeare-inspired
10 Things I Hate About You and She’s the Man to Austen adaptations
Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless. Jumping ahead to early film, the 30s and early 40s ushered
in the heyday of screwball comedy, which again proved
that witty dialogue was the key to
a satisfying rom-com. “Anyway, David, when they find out
who we are, why, they'll let us out.” “When they find out who you are,
they'll pad the cell.” These films, usually centered on a
strong, independent female protagonist, were remarkable for their portraits
of equality between the genders. “You're a newspaperman.” “That's why I'm quitting. I want to go someplace
where I can be a woman.” “You mean be a traitor.” “A traitor? A traitor to what?” “A traitor to journalism! You’re a journalist, Hildy!” A subgenre of the screwball
is what Stanley Cavell calls “comedies of remarriage,” stories about separated spouses
who ultimately get back together. “You've got an old-fashioned idea divorce is something
that lasts forever, ‘til death do us part.” While most of the screwball comedy involves the partners verbally sparring
or manipulating each other, ironically, all this fighting emphasizes how these clever,
vigorous characters have truly met their match. “Oh, Walter, you're wonderful,
in a loathsome sort of way.” Ultimately, the screwball’s “can’t live with them, can’t live
without them” take on love would inform many later
romantic comedies. “l hate your big dumb combat boots
and the way you read my mind. But mostly, I hate the way
l don't hate you, not even close, not even a little bit,
not even at all.” In the 50s, movies like
The Seven Year Itch, How To Marry a Millionaire,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Some Like it Hot, all starring Marilyn Monroe, focused on women wanting
to lock down a rich man, emphasizing the fundamentally economic
nature of marriage. “But I prefer a man who lives
and gives expensive jewels.” They were also more
transparently about sex, even if it was only alluded to, "Don't stop, don't stop,
don't ever stop.” due to the Hays Code: a set of guidelines that,
starting in the 30s, required movies to avoid
nudity, profanity, and even prolonged kissing. 1959’s Some Like it Hot follows two male characters
disguised in drag, being romantically pursued by men, “You must be quite a girl.” “Wanna bet?” and trying to seduce
Monroe’s sexy Sugar. This box office hit helped
take down the Hays Code (which officially ended in 1967) by pushing boundaries
in exploring gender and sexuality. “I’m a man.” “Well, nobody’s perfect.” The late 50s and early 60s
gave us campy sex comedies starring Doris Day
and Rock Hudson, which focus on
a battle of the sexes. “And if I weren’t a lady I’d tell you
what profession you are in.” Despite their name, the sexual
content in these movies was comprised mostly of innuendo. “I don't know what's bothering you, but don't take your
bedroom problems out on me.” “I have no bedroom problems. There's nothing in my bedroom
that bothers me.” “Oh. That's too bad.” The casting of Doris Day,
known for her wholesome image, underlines how these movies
eased audience into a more sex-conscious age. As A.O. Scott writes, “Her presence simultaneously upholds
the pretense of virtuous normality and utterly transgresses it.” Part of why so many early rom-coms end in a wedding or focus on
a previously married couple is that this takes away the issue
of premarital sex. But in 60s rom-coms, some filmmakers stopped
shying away from this reality. "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying
to seduce me.” 1960’s The Apartment explored
the darker territory of adultery and a boss exploiting his younger
female employee for sex. "Some people take,
some people get took, and they know they're getting took. and there's nothing
they can do about it.” 1967’s The Graduate is essentially a bleak mash-up of major
rom-com plot points that expresses ambivalence
towards settling down at all. [Singing] “Within the sound of silence.” 70s films continued to explore
disillusionment with forever-love, “Of course I'm mad,
because you love me. I know that." "Alvy, I can't say that that's true
at this point in my life. I really just can’t say
that that’s true.” but found consolation in the message that temporary loves can still improve
and add dimension to our lives. “I love you!” “That is wonderful. Go and love some more”. In the 80s came the birth
of the high-school rom-com, making the genre more accessible
to young people. “Make a wish.” “It already came true.” In the same period, viewers got to see more female leads
in professional settings, navigating their careers
and love lives, “I have a head for business
and a bod for sin.” a clear precursor to modern
workplace rom-coms. The decade ended with what is widely considered
the best romantic comedy of all time: When Harry Met Sally. “I’ll have what she’s having.” Part of the reason this movie
retains such a special status is its universality and simplicity. It’s working title was actually
Boy Meets Girl. Instead of hooking us
with a wacky premise, the film seeks to answer
a fundamental question: can a straight man and woman
ever be just friends? “Men and women can't be friends because
the sex part always gets in the way.” And the movie’s thesis—that no,
they cannot—is foundational to countless rom-coms where the protagonist’s friend
turns out to be their true love. “So the best friend you've
always had a ton of chemistry with is the guy for you? Oh, my God, who could've
seen that coming except every single person
ever of all time.” On the other end of the spectrum
from When Harry Met Sally’s model of the down-to-earth, no frills
investigation of human relationships is a second major type of rom-com, which revolves around a high-concept,
sometimes absurdly ridiculous premise. This category is exemplified
by 1987’s Overboard, a heartwarming story
about a woman with amnesia falling for the guy
who’s kidnapped her, and 1990’s Pretty Woman, the fairytale of a cold-hearted
businessman being transformed by a week with a prostitute. "So what happened after he climbs
up the tower and rescues her?" "She rescues him right back.” Which brings us to the so-called
Golden Age of the rom-com in the 90s and early 2000s. During this era, genre masterminds like Richard Curtis, Nancy
Meyers and Nora Ephron became household names. A cadre of stars like Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant,
Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson became expected fixtures
of the genre. This period offered sophisticated,
well-executed takes on the form, that occasionally played with
or subverted certain audience expectations. Significantly, the genre also took
positive strides forward in becoming more diverse: Latina star Jennifer Lopez made
her mark on the genre, and after the success
of 1988’s Coming to America came more black rom-coms like Boomerang, The Best Man,
and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. “You're good?” “Yes.” “You real good?” “I'm real good. Whoo!” “Don't scare the white people.” Through all these decades,
the romantic comedy was often commercially and
critically successful. “And the winner is Annie Hall”. But somewhere around
the late 2000s, something changed. Ticket sales for this kind
of movie declined, and suddenly, there was a lot of talk
about the death of the rom-com. As Mindy Kaling wrote in 2011, “The genre has been so degraded
in the past 20 years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission
of mild stupidity.” “What are you doing here?” “Oh, I'm like a ghost now. Yeah, the ghost
of girlfriends past, in fact.” So, what happened? One explanation for the rom-com’s
stagnation in the late aughts is that mid-budget studio movies
were becoming a thing of the past. But another concern was that, even among those rom-coms that did
get made and were profitable, there was a clear decline in quality. Old, gendered tropes were becoming
stale and outdated. “Rule #3, men are very visual. We have to change your look.” Evidently, the genre needed
a makeover on both fronts, not just to remain in existence,
but to stay relevant. How, then, did the form
adapt to a modern world? “How many girls
have you slept with?" "I’ve slept with three women." "Me too. I have slept with three women too." First, rom-coms might come
in different packaging. 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook incorporated darker themes
of mental illness and grief into the rom-com formula, “I'm just the crazy slut
with a dead husband!” [Laughs] and was rewarded with box office success
and eight Academy Award nominations. Movies like Wedding Crashers, Forgetting
Sarah Marshall, and Knocked Up found a new audience in gearing
themselves towards men. “You know they say
don't drink and drive?” “Uh-huh.” “Don't drink and bone!” “Wow.” More recently, Deadpool can be
seen as a superhero twist on a male-oriented
romantic comedy. "Some of the best love stories
start with a murder. And that's exactly what
this is: a love story." Modern rom-com-esque movies
also present new takeaways: like that a woman might
prefer to be single or that our platonic best friends
are the great loves of our lives. “I'm not going to get to live
5 minutes away from you, and it makes me so sad.” Crucially, this notoriously
straight, white genre has found modern relevance by putting people of color and queer
characters front and center. And finally, romantic comedies have mostly moved from the movie theater
to TV and streaming services, a format that allows more time for character development and exploring
nuance in relationships. Netflix essentially reignited the genre
with its 2018 “Summer of Love,” during which it released 11 rom-coms including the popular Set It Up
and To All the Boys I Loved Before. “I need you to know that
I like you, Peter Kavinsky. And not in a fake way”. On top of all this, in recent years there’s been
a growing self-awareness and deconstruction of stereotypical
rom-com tropes. “Good looking people
who hate each other but secretly have
the hots for each other? They are always getting stuck in snowy cabins and bank vaults
and the trunk of a car.” Most interestingly, some stories
have investigated what happens to people who have internalized
the lessons of romantic comedies. The Mindy Project’s rom-com addicted
protagonist Mindy Lahiri can’t help applying their conventions
to her own love life. “Met in an elevator. My hair came undone. Are you kidding me? I'm basically Sandra Bullock. And then it happened.” “Did the elevator just stop?” In a classic rom-com device, her constant bickering
with her fellow OBGYN Danny sets up the revelation
that they have feelings for each other. But because this is a TV show, that storyline only takes us
to the end of the first season, and we go on to see
the conflict that ensues when this unlikely couple
actually tries to build a life together. “Stay-at-home mom. Can you remind me
what that job entails?” “Cooking, cleaning, keeping the piano
in tune, stocking the pantry, raising our son, and maintaining
a positive attitude that sets the tone for the rest of the household.” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was also inspired
by applying rom-com lessons to reality, as a way of elucidating
how twisted they really are. “People in romantic comedies
generally are psychotic. Okay, a woman moving across
the country to be with a guy, a woman bursting into song. And then we said, okay,
if this took place in reality, she would be dreadfully unhappy.” The protagonist Rebecca’s
romance-obsessed worldview is framed as a symptom
of her mental illness that leads her to act
in totally unhinged ways, like pinning all her hopes of happiness on a pretty average guy
she dated years before after a random “meet-cute”
run-in with him. “I was in New York,
I ran into Josh he made me feel warm inside
like glitter was exploding inside me, then I moved here.” Natalie of 2019’s Isn’t It Romantic is yet a third heroine
who grew up watching rom-coms. But unlike Mindy and Rebecca, she has been rudely disabused
of their idealistic notions. “Forget about love. In real life, girls like us
don't get that.” Natalie must confront
her cynical hang-ups when she hits her head and wakes up in a world
of rom-com tropes. “New York doesn't smell
like shit anymore. Everything smells like lavender.” And she’s actually empowered by learning to view her life
through rom-com glasses. Up to this point, she’s been missing the rom-com potential that was already
there in her life because she believed she wasn’t good enough
to deserve the fairy tale. “It looks like you have the dream job,
the guy that really likes you, the really cool best friend—me. It's like you are in one of those
love stories that you hate so much.” Ultimately, though, both Isn’t
It Romantic and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend end in an affirmation
of self-love. “My god, this whole time, I thought I had to get somebody
else to fall in love with me, but I… I had to love me.” Rebecca’s healing comes from letting go of a socially-prescribed,
restrictive narrative “The moment you’re craving
isn’t anchored in real emotion. It’s a script dictated to you by our
society’s patriarchal love narrative.” and instead creating something
entirely original. “When writing songs, the most important
thing is to learn to tell your story, not a story you get
from the outside world, but your own story.” This is the same lesson
the rom-com genre itself had to learn. It had to chart a new course
to evolve with the times. “I know you think that
she was the one, but I don’t.” The rom-com isn’t cinema’s
definitive take on love. It co-exists with romantic tragedies, melodramas, and dissections
of relationship breakdowns. “I can’t believe I have
to know you forever!” And on some level, we might view these genres
as just falling at different points in a relationship timeline. Rom-coms capture how
the early stages of love are often experienced
through rose-colored glasses. “There's only one person that
makes me feel like I can fly. That's you.” So when the arguments,
disappointments, and compromises create bumpier roads ahead, the couple can sustain themselves by remembering how
this picture-perfect time felt, when everything was still
a beautiful beginning. “When you realize you want to spend
the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life
to start as soon as possible.” Hi everyone! I’m Susannah. I’m Debra. And we’re the creators
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