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When I was younger,

this is how I pictured my wedding.

I'm standing at the altar with my fiance,

I have no idea that my best friend, Tom,

the man I truly love,

is galloping towards the church

on a huge black stallion,

racing to stop me from making the biggest mistake of my life.

Just as I'm about to say, "I do,"

Tom flies through the doors of the church, and...

My heart skips a beat.

Back then, I'd picture what it would feel like

to have my heart broken.

Maybe I'd be working in advertising

and I'd fall in love

with an inventor of mysterious confectionary

while on a work trip with him.

But then, I'd discover his true identity.

He's my arch nemesis from a rival company.

Understandably, I'm horrified.

Or, I'd imagine

how I'd meet the love of my life.

My new Gucci shoe.

Come on.

Or where I'd be working when I met my husband.

-Hello, Natalie. -Hello, David.

I mean, sir.

Shit. I can't believe I've just said that.

And now I've gone and said "shit."

It's fine, it's fine.

You could have said "fuck"

and then we'd have been in real trouble.

Thank you, sir.

I did have an awful premonition

I was gonna fuck up on my first day.

Or what it would be like

when I met my fiance's parents for the first time.

Good night, Mr. Banks.

Oh, you can call him George. Or Dad!

George will be fine.

And don't forget to fasten your condom.

Dad!

Seat belt! I meant... I meant seat belt.

And I'd often dream of being a chef

with magical powers,

which I could use to woo the man of my dreams.

And my best friend...

...would be a crab.

This is how dominant romantic comedies have been in my life.

As a young woman, they became

an obsession so powerful,

that they're now a part of my identity.

Maybe it'd be better if we start at the beginning.

And at most mythologized and beguiling of all places,

the suburban teenage girl's bedroom.

Mine looked a lot like this.

And it was here among the training bras, hair mascara,

and intense boredom

that my obsession with romantic comedies began.

They ease my fear of being alone forever

as they promised me that one day,

I, too, could have a fulfilling romantic life.

Just as long as I followed the rules.

A woman must always be laid back, easy-going and fun.

If you think you hate someone,

that might actually mean they're perfect for you.

And true relationship success is achieved

by one thing, and one thing only,

a big white wedding.

Which is wat happened to me, I got married.

Well, this isn't my wedding, but does it really matter?

Aren't all weddings basically the same?

Before I got married,

my relationship to romantic comedies

was pure and uncomplicated.

They reflected my experiences as a young woman

and dominated my outlook on love and relationships.

But because most romantic comedies

end with a marriage, after my wedding,

I felt like they'd abandoned me.

The connection was broken,

and suddenly, I began to see

all the other ways in which they were imperfect.

And I wasn't the only person who felt this way.

ANNE T. - I like that I don't have to think

when I watch romantic comedies.

I basically can just curl up and not really worry.

But I will say, the more...

The older I get, the more they do make me anxious.

Liar!

They're really heteronormative,

and they're really white,

and they're really schmaltzy.

I saw Cameron Diaz get poked in the face

by a penis in a glory hole.

And yet, I was still obsessed.

But now when the credits rolled,

I didn't feel elated,

I felt guilty.

Not that that stopped me.

I carried on watching them over and over again.

beyond this

and I feel it leads somewhere

They say for sure, once

for as long as you want

get up and run

Of all genres, romantic comedies are the films

that are most heavily targeted

towards a conventional female audience.

And so, they have the power to influence us.

Well, some of us.

We can see this in the way women respond

to one of the most successful rom-com heroines

of all time, Bridget Jones.

Some feel positive.

Everybody kinda likes Bridget Jones,

like, you have to love her

because she's completely who she is.

She never expresses that she feels complete

when she's with a guy.

She got happy and content by herself.

That's why Bridget Jones is just like the HBC.

The Head Bitch in Charge.

But if staying here means working within ten yards of you,

frankly, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's ass.

Others are not so positive.

You know what her weight is

and she's claiming to be very overweight.

And she weighs about nine stone or something.

Resolution number one,

obviously will lose 20 pounds.

I do remember seeing that film

when it first came out, and thinking,

"I weigh what this woman weighs.

"She's worried that she's really overweight,

"so I must be really overweight."

My own feelings on Bridget are also conflicted.

In the films, we're told she's a successful career woman.

Yet, I think this truth is undermined

by her many pratfalls at work.

Bridget wasn't the only clumsy career woman I saw in romantic comedies.

Rom-coms have painted career women

as these pathetic, clumsy, bumbling idiots,

because the idea of a woman

having her shit together is very frightening.

She's doing all this, like, nine to five,

but then, like, she's kind of a klutz.

Like, "I'll save her."

They always think that women need to be saved.

...must remember the way to a man's heart

is not through beauty, sex, or love,

but merely the ability

to fall arse over tit in the mud.

People wouldn't respond very well

to a portrayal of a successful woman

who wasn't somehow undermining her success at every turn.

There has to be something that takes away

from her own self-confidence

because I think people still don't particularly like

to see that on screen.

In order to better understand

how career women and women in general

are presented in the films,

we need to look at how they've been portrayed

in romantic comedies throughout history.

In the 1930s,

Hollywood wasn't taken seriously as a business.

Which meant people who normally existed on the margins,

namely, immigrants and women, were able to thrive.

There were far more roles for women than for men,

and female actors commanded bigger paychecks.

The romantic heroines of this era,

the screwball queens, reflected this female power.

They were strong, intelligent women

who excelled at exchanging pithy one-liners

with their male love interests.

This is my car.

-You mean this is your car? -Of course.

Your golf ball, your car.

Is there anything in the world that doesn't belong to you?

Yes, thank heaven, you.

-Now, don't lose your temper. -Well, I...

My dear young lady, I'm not losing my temper,

I'm merely trying to play some golf.

Well, you choose the funniest places.

This is a parking lot.

Will you get out of my car?

Will you get off my running board?

This is my running board!

All right, honey.

-Stay there then. -Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Unlike modern rom-coms, the female protagonists

of the '30s were often brilliant career women.

For example, Hildy fromHis Girl Friday.

It always thrills me that instead of picking the man

who offers her security, motherhood, and suburban lawns...

Oh, you're gonna live with your mother?

Well, just for the first year.

...Hildy returns to Walter

who loves and values her for her mind

and her journalistic talent.

He treats her as his equal.

They'll be naming streets after you. Hildy Johnson Street.

There'll be statues of you in the park,

The movies will be after you, the radio.

By tomorrow morning, I'll bet you there's a Hildy Johnson cigar.

I can see the billboards now. Says, "Light up with Hildy Johnson."

-Oh, Walter, will stop that acting? -Huh?

-We got a lot to do. -Oh, yeah, talking?

But this equality didn't last.

World War II killed the screwball

as it encouraged both genders back into conformity.

Men out fighting.

Women at home keeping the house in order.

Hollywood transformed into the patriarchal institution we know today.

If career women were shown onscreen...

I happen to be paying your salary, Ryan.

You can play games on your own time.

Now, get down.

Tip that light down a little, will you,

the one near his right shoulder?

They were always eventually tamed by the man.

Goodbye, Henry.

Oh! Oh, Ryan! Ryan...

In general, we see chaste innocent virgins

waiting for their man to come home and marry them.

But then in the 1950s, everything changed again.

Hi.

Well, hello.

Marilyn Monroe's charisma and talent

was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

Whilst rarely shown as a career woman,

her innate natural sexuality elevated her.

Her male counterparts would be reduced to bumbling idiots,

cowed by her immense female power.

I'd like to stay here with you tonight.

Mmm?

I'd like to sleep here.

Are you sure?

That is, if you don't mind.

Marilyn died in 1962.

I often wonder what the world of romantic comedies

would have looked like if she'd lived.

Her last film, Something's Got to Give,

was never finished.

It was remade a year later asMove Over, Darling

with another beautiful blonde, Doris Day.

But unlike Marilyn,

Doris' romantic heroines were not sexually confident.

Bedroom problems?

In fact, they were incredibly chaste,

protecting their virtue even when they were stranded

on a desert island for five years.

There was a man on that island with me.

How marvelous. No wonder you look so well.

But you silly girl, why did you tell Nick?

I didn't tell him!

He just found out.

Oh. Well, tell me then. I wanna know everything.

There's nothing to tell.

And whilst these women often did have careers,

they were very happy to relinquish them

in the name of marriage and motherhood.

In general,

it feels like the genre hasn't really progressed much

since Doris Day and her pastel twin sets.

In The Devil Wears Prada, when he's pissed

that she missed his birthday or something...

Yeah, she should miss your birthday.

She has a really important job.

You got a cupcake, why are you mad?

Nate, I'm so sorry.

I kept trying to leave,

but there's a lot going on and...

You know I didn't have a choice.

Don't worry about it.

Romantic comedies don't have a responsibility

to represent reality.

Way to go, Tess.

-Yay. -Beauty.

However, I can say that as a teenager,

dreaming of the relationships I one day hoped to experience,

I turned to them for guidance.

What I saw influenced, or even defined,

my future romantic behavior.

When I fell in love with romantic comedies,

Julia Roberts was the reigning queen.

Holy shit.

During that period, there was a surge of the films,

which were hugely successful at the box office.

And I watched all of them.

As the demand grew,

the genre began to cannibalize itself

and spiraled out of control.

I now realize it was presenting me

with increasingly more dubious narratives as romantic ideals.

I think that many of the premises of rom-coms

are deeply suspect and a bit twisted.

While You Were Sleeping...

I mean, that's quite a good horror movie title already.

Does she have a cat or not,

even, like, just pictures of a cat?

And she's just always in that little booth

in the train station not really talking to anyone.

She pretends to be with a guy

who's been in an accident, he's in a coma.

She's obsessed with him,

but she's never, ever talked to him.

And she goes to the hospital, and they won't let her in to see him.

Completely justified.

Whoa, whoa, you can't go in there.

-No, no, no, you don't understand. -No, are you family?

-No. -Family only.

No, you don't understand.

-I was... -You wait there.

But she lies and says that she's his fiancee.

Is that the woman that saved his life?

Yeah.

Whoa.

It gets even better than that.

She's his fiancee.

And then, his family show up.

And she feels it's normal to lie to them as well,

and just insinuates herself into his life.

I've fallen in love with men

who are in emotional comas, for sure.

Maybe not physical ones.

I feel like there's some sort of deformity

that he has on his testicles that she gets a look at

so that she can say to his mother, like,

"No, I really am his fiancee

"because I've seen his, like, watermelon-sized testicle."

Peter has one testicle.

-No way. -Way.

About a month ago, there was an accident,

and he was playing basketball,

and his friend had a pencil in his back pocket.

Ew.

She's not even interested in him in the end,

and she falls in love with Bill Pullman.

She falls in love with his brother

and ends up with the brother.

I think the prospect that you could fall in love

with somebody who's in a coma,

tell his family that you're his fiancee

and then, fall in love with his brother is psychopathic behavior

that should probably see you ending up in a courtroom.

The film that first made me realize

that the genre had lost its way wasFailure to Launch.

It's about a guy

who is too old to be living with his parents,

but he's still living with his parents.

Unhappy with this domestic situation,

they employ Paula, who is an expert

in making adult children fly the nest.

Based on the initial personality assessment,

I think that I can have your son moved out of this house

and living on his own by June 15th.

Ah! Hallelujah.

The most dubious part of the film, for me,

is that, while Paula is still in the the employ of Tripp's parents,

she has sex with him.

Paula?

Wow. Early risers.

Hey, listen, FYI, workwise, we're definitely on track.

Things are good. Tripp is good. Well, actually, he's fantastic.

Of course, I don't need to tell you that.

You're his parents. I'm just, uh...

Just trying to say you should be very proud of him.

Well...

You've got a lovely home.

She betrays him.

And yet, they still end up together.

Idealizing any relationship that starts with one person

having immense power and control over the other,

that's not a good place to start from.

Fundamentally, one person has been paid

to spend time with the other

and has had a particular motive,

and it can't help but be curdled by that.

I never found Failure to Launch romantic or aspirational.

But one part of it did stay with me,

the way Paula changed who she was

in order to secure her man.

How do you make sure that he'll fall in love with you?

You look nice, you find out what they like,

and then you pretend to like it too.

That is pretty much how it works.

This idea that a woman is appealing

to a man if her behavior resembles his...

Yeah.

is common to many of the romantic comedies that influenced me.

And consequently, I spent much of my 20s trying to conform

to what I now recognize were unachievable ideals.

She somehow can still have a magically perfect body

despite eating whatever she wants

like Sandra Bullock inMiss Congeniality.

Sandra Bullock did a lot of overeating on film.

Not even overeating, just eating,

and not talking about her diets.

But it isn't just food.

The Generation X rom-com heroine

loves everything that a man loves.

InThere's Something About Mary,

Mary is the beer-swigging, sports-loving,

physical embodiment of the ultimate cool girl.

When a guy can play 36 holes and still have enough energy

to take me and Warren to a ball game, and eat hotdogs.

I'm talking sausage hotdogs, beer.

Not light beer, but beer.

That's my ad. Print it up.

Watching this, I saw how attractive Mary was

to every man she met

to the extent that she has to take legal action.

Woogie, you know you're not supposed to be within 400 yards of me.

Let's not forget here.

You put me through a lot of bullshit, okay?

I had to change my name.

I had to go to court. I moved.

I mean, you stole all of my shoes.

She sounds like an embodiment of a writer's desire

'cause all of that is about how she's seen

rather than anything that's coming, like, internally

from her own desire.

Women just conform to certain forms of male behavior,

and they are "chill"

and they're willing to sublimate themselves

and adopt male characteristics

in order to get along better with men.

It's this thing of, like, women having to be effortless.

It's like how women always wake up

with, like, perfect makeup in films.

How come you always look so great in the morning?

Do I?

They started making jokes about it now, but even then,

you're like, "Yeah, but you do actually look a bit too nice."

Oh, I was having a nightmare. I was so scared.

Oh.

You look beautiful.

Oh, no, I'm sure I look terrible.

I just woke up. Are you kidding?

-I'm sure I'm a mess.

As a young woman,

one of my favorite rom-com heroines was journalist Andy

inHow to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

She's naturally cool.

She loves sports,

fast food, and, of course, beer.

But for a magazine article, she has to drive her man away.

So she forces herself

to become the type of woman she knows men hate.

Consequently, I saw how unappealing men find women

who are not "cool."

I did something kind of wacky.

-Huh? -Yes.

I used Photoshop at work today to composite our faces together

to see what our kids would look like.

"Our Family Album!"

She's emotionally needy.

You don't wanna see our children?

She asks him to share her interests.

And she takes care of him in front of his friends.

-Blow.

Nobody likes a Mr. Sniffles.

-I hate Mr. Sniffles.

Ultimately though, Andy's natural coolness shines through,

and is what lands her her man.

So I thought that if I could be more easy-going and uncomplicated,

then I'd have more success with men.

Women are often taught growing up

that you're there to, like, ease social situations

and to make people feel comfortable

and not to make a fuss.

But it's actually not just coolness that makes a woman attractive.

It's her willingness to play the part of the muse.

They're there to inspire and facilitate

the greatness of their male counterparts

rather than to have that within themselves.

For example, Sam inGarden State.

The scene where she's like,

"Sometimes, I like to make a noise

"that no one's ever made before."

And then they make these kind of squeaky, kooky noises.

Like, this is supposed to be the character trait

that makes you think that she's this really extraordinary person.

She's got no agency, or desire, or humanity

beyond being a mirror to reflect him

and to allow him to find himself.

Even500 Days of Summer,

which was marketed as a subversion of the genre

because of its unusual storytelling devices.

And the scene in which the leading man performs

a post-coital dance routine,

still presents its female lead, Summer, in a troubling way.

We're introduced to her riding on a bike.

And are told her height, weight,

and her uncontrollable effect on men.

In 1998, Summer quoted a song

by the Scottish band, Belle and Sebastian,

in her high school yearbook.

The spike in Michigan sales of their album,The Boy with the Arab Strap,

continues to puzzle industry analysts.

Summer's employment at The Daily Freeze during her sophomore year

coincided with an inexplicable 212% increase in revenue.

And her round-trip commute to work

averaged 18.4 double-takes per day.

Looking back,

I didn't realize that someone was being objectified

because she's shown through a lens of indieness.

"I am being different because I'm this, like, skinny white dude."

But really, it's like,

"Well, you're still treating them the same way."

Even though they're not in a bikini,

you're still using the same, basically, misogynistic tropes.

Why is it pretty girls think

they can treat people like crap and get away with it?

Centuries of reinforcement.

I rewatched 500 Days of Summer recently

and was struck by the title card that opens the film.

On the whole, romantic comedies of this era led me to believe

that my main priority

was to find a man and make him happy.

Women aren't supposed to be hungry

for anything except love.

Overeating, sleeping around, or overworking

are all ways to fill a void

that's been left by not having a relationship.

Which, of course, is... We all know is true, right?

Tell me, when is the last time

that you went on a real live date?

I'm concentrating on my career right now.

Do you own any colored underwear,

stripes or anything?

There are still these very archaic rules

about who's allowed what.

If you want sex, that means you don't get love.

I don't think I've ever watched a rom-com

and related to the main character

and been like, "Oh, but you know,

"we totally share the same views about sex."

You think of, like, Ashley Judd inSomeone Like You,

blowing the dust off her diaphragm.

Why was it stored somewhere that it was getting so dusty?

Like, where has it been? And also, are you...

You're not gonna wash that off?

Like, are we not gonna talk about that?

Women are very rarely sexy in sex scenes.

There's always, like, a guy on top,

and they're, like, trying to coax something out of him.

For films that are effectively about the ultimate goal

being romantic satisfaction and happiness,

it's never about sexual satisfaction.

Because if someone's sexually satisfied,

it means that they're a slut.

That selfish whore.

We're sluts, Emma. We're dirty, dirty sluts.

Barfing, fucking, screwing,

the great days of nobody's fool.

Why don't you start taking cash for your services?

It would be more honest.

That girl is a slut. She completely trapped that guy.

InWhat's Your Number?, a woman who's slept with 19 men

reads an article that tells her that women who have slept

with more than 20 men won't get married.

I see it in my practice all the time.

When you're too sexually available,

it messes with your self-esteem.

Next thing you know, you're 45, no self-respect, no husband,

and no muscle tone in your pelvic floor.

She treats this as gospel

and decides to marry the next man she sleeps with.

The next guy who vacations at Casa Esperanza

is going to be my husband.

It means that you're damaged goods,

that you're this object that someone wants,

and your premium is much higher if you're untainted.

A man is supposed to be attracted to a woman

who can be fully owned by him. It's really gross.

The romantic comedies I watched didn't expect me

to be concerned with my own sexual desire.

In them, women are there to make their partner feel good about himself

and his prowess.

The Sweetest Thing, written by Nancy Pimental,

attempts to skewer this ridiculous trope.

What do we always tell them no matter what?

Oh.

"Oh, my God. Your penis is so... Big."

Good girl.

They sing this weird goofy song

that I'm just gonna call, "The Penis Song."

You're too big to fit in here.

Too big to fit in here. Ow!

Too big to fit in here.

to fit in here

-Oh, my God. -Oh, my God, it's fame.

Everyone in the restaurant is, like, immediately on board.

No one's like, "Who are these annoying women ruining our lunch?"

Then there's this old woman that's completely stealing the scene.

Scene stealer!

Okay, it's pulling me round now.

It's my feeling that the films influence me and my behavior.

But for every rom-com queen there must be a king.

So, how do the men in the films behave?

Ew!

People don't really talk about the men

in romantic comedies too much.

When I watch these films now,

I'm always taken aback at how aggressive

the men are in the way that they pursue women.

-I said no. -No?

-No. -Why not?

Because I don't wanna go have a drink with you.

I wanna go home. Is that so hard to understand?

Hey. Hey. Hey.

What's going on? Are you mad or something?

Go on, say it. You know what,

no matter what it is, we're gonna work it out.

Hal, I'm not attracted to you.

So what?

InThe Last Kiss,

Zach Braff plays a man living with his pregnant girlfriend.

Finding himself unable to commit,

he begins an affair with a college student.

You make me feel ten years younger.

Ten years?

Then I'm seducing a younger man.

Excellent.

You're trying to make me lose my mind, aren't you?

I've already lost mine.

When his girlfriend finds out, she's devastated,

and kicks him out of the house.

Who is she?

-What are you talking about? -I want to know who she is.

Who were you with, Michael?

This girl I met. It was nothing. It was nothing.

Oh, God! You make me sick!

But it didn't mean anything, baby.

She made me realize I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

-I know that now. -I'm three months pregnant

and you're already out trying to fuck other women!

-Jenna. -Get out right now.

I'll tell you when you can come back and get your shit.

-Maybe Kimmy can help you pack. -Jenna, we're having a baby.

Get out of here! Go back to fucking Kim!

What, are you gonna fucking stab me, Jenna?

-Get out! -Are you out of your fucking mind?

-Get the fuck out of here! -Are you out of your fucking mind?

-Get the fuck out! -Fuck you! Fuck you!

He asks her father for advice,

who tells him that he should try and win back the daughter.

I will do anything in the world to get your daughter back.

Well, it's very simple.

Just do whatever it takes.

So he camps out on her porch for days,

waiting for her to forgive him.

I really worry about where he was going to the toilet,

for the three days that he was lying, not moving, on the porch.

It's horrible.

Can you imagine if your partner was lying outside

shitting themselves for three days

bullying you into you taking them back.

In real life, I hope that this kind of behavior

wouldn't end in reconciliation.

But in the film, it's successful.

And there are many more examples

of men exhibiting aggressive and controlling behavior

in romantic comedies.

The tenacious man is an incredibly harmful portrayal of men to watch.

It goes against every idea of consent,

and that you should respect women's boundaries.

It says, "If you just do this inappropriate thing,

"or stalk her a little bit more or catfish her,

"then one day she might fall for you."

People talk about romantic comedies

giving women a lot of unrealistic expectations about relationships,

but I think they give men, perhaps, some even more damaging ones.

Rob?

Laura, I just want to say something.

I think you're running.

And... And he doesn't love you.

And he doesn't understand you, not the way I will.

And I will even more so in the future.

I like you, Tom,

I just don't want a relation...

Well, you're not the only one that gets a say in this!

I do, too. And I say we're a couple, God damn it!

I don't love you anymore.

No, I...

I refuse to accept that.

Izzy, go home!

those girls a chance

It's easy to see

Into lies

at playing the nice guy

That you're a nice guy

Over your bed?

And round your head?

Matter at all

While I might claim

that romantic comedies negatively influenced my behavior,

at least I saw elements of myself reflected in them.

This isn't the case for everyone.

In the majority of mainstream romantic comedies,

there's a disturbing lack of any characters

who aren't white, heterosexual,

or middle-class.

It's insane that there isn't, like,

a really popular, funny rom-com

about an interracial couple.

Isn't that crazy?

The only interracial couple I can think of is,

and he doesn't even speak, I don't think, hardly,

inLove Actually, Keira Knightley's husband is black.

But then all the focus is on her white stalker.

It's kind of interesting to think about

romantic comedies as a brown woman,

because so many of the mainstream Hollywood ones

that I watched were about white women.

It can feel jarring or distancing

because you can see a tiny element of yourself.

But it's also not you.

It's not your world.

And it can be quite a weird experience to watch.

Studio executives assume

that white audiences won't "relate" to films that have got black leads in,

which is obviously a racist assumption.

And what about the women watching mainstream romantic comedies

who don't resemble the very specific Hollywood ideal?

The only images I see of someone who looks like me

in films are "Before" pictures,

and then a woman goes on to, like, hate herself

or lose weight and then be happy.

-You look fabulous. -Thank you.

Look at you. What did you do? Is it your hair? What is it?

It's my hair, and I have a little sun.

-It's... -She lost 60 pounds.

And... And I lost a little weight.

-I see that. Yeah. -Yeah?

-You look terrific. -Thank you.

-Sixty pounds? -Yeah.

-That's a Backstreet Boy. -Right?

Or I see the sassy best friend

who never has any kind of romantic potential.

I'm doing the Dr. Riverbed fast.

-Oh, yeah! -Yeah!

What is that?

Water, peach resin, apple pectin, shark extract,

and Lawry's seasoning salt.

What about food?

Look, I'm going to look amazing in that dress,

I'm going to meet a Scottish man...

And I'm gonna be happy!

It's kind of this moral imperative

for women to be thin.

Because thinness is linked to success,

and is linked to fuck-ableness,

and is linked to whether or not that person is lovable

and worthy to care about.

Being loved means caring about being thin.

What are you doing? You're hurting her.

I'm helping her. I did it to myself for years.

She can take it.

There it is.

-Good job.

Good job.

Why would you ever do that to yourself?

I wanted to be beautiful.

We don't see anything but exactly what has been taught

is, "normal and digestible."

And anything that, probably, our parents were told to subscribe to

and our grandparents were told to subscribe to, etc. etc.

When I sawIn & Out,

it was really affirming.

-You know what you need? -I need a wedding!

Again, looking back on it, all the stereotypes...

-You're an English teacher. -Exactly.

I mean, all this poetry, and odes, and bonnets...

Sonnets?

And you're kind of prissy.

Prissy?

All the weird tropes...

-Uncut. -Funny Girl!

...that now as an adult gay man, like,

I'm not that into.

If you see gay men, they have only one purpose,

and that is to make the main character

look like they have dimension.

Which is the whole purpose of Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding.

What dress to wear now

She calls him when he's in the middle of important stuff.

And it's not about her being selfish,

it's about he's at her beck and call.

George, answer this, damn it!

-I'm in a meltdown here.

She double-crossed me!

-The little twerp double-crossed me.

I'm running out of time.

I'm completely out of sneaky ideas.

I've come to the end of my rapidly fraying rope.

George, you have got to think of something!

Even when romantic comedies

do show gay characters in fulfilling relationships,

it's always within a heteronormative framing.

And it's often tinged with tragedy,

as we see inFour Weddings and a Funeral.

Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings.

He said it was easier to get enthusiastic

about a ceremony one had an outside chance

of eventually being involved in.

As ever, the problem with these things

is that these bits of representation

are being driven by people

with no real experience or familiarity

with the thing they're trying to represent.

I'm sure plenty of people in Hollywood

have a gay acquaintance

that they might see in this sort of stereotypical way,

because they don't see the full magnitude of their personhood.

They only see a very specific version of the person.

-What the hell was that? -I'm showing you the magic.

No, I said come 90 and then I come ten.

My mouth was open, Albert!

You overeager son of a...

Blecch!

-Oh, excuse me. -Yeah.

Are you running this whole thing?

Oh, sure.

Walk up to the first homo you see

and assume he's the wedding coordinator. Right? Nice.

No, no, I didn't mean that.

Nice stereotype, buddy. Nice.

Did I hear someone say, "Wedding coordinator?"

That would be moi. So, how can I help you?

-These aren't my clothes. -Well, where are your clothes?

I've lost my clothes.

Well, why are you wearing these clothes?

Because I just went gay, all of a sudden.

Why don't you just go to a gay bar?

At this point, it would be wonderful to talk about the portrayal

of gay women and bisexuals in the films,

and of trans people.

But I can't.

Because they almost never appear in mainstream Hollywood rom-coms.

And the films also rarely show people with disabilities,

or people from lower-income backgrounds.

Nobody is a drop out.

Everyone has post-secondary education.

Everybody lives in neighborhoods that are "good."

You have these characters who have, like, dead-end jobs,

but seem to live very, very stable lives.

Even if their job is, like,

getting fired from being a waiter in the first act.

But then again, you know, it was the '90s.

I'm never gonna find another part-time job,

and then I'm not gonna be able to pay my rent,

and I'm gonna have to move. To Brooklyn!

Ah, the joy of rent control.

Six rooms, $450 a month.

Perhaps the reason for this skewed or narrow representation

is because of the demographics of the people

in power behind the camera.

It's that, overwhelmingly,

there's a certain type of person whose perspective we hear,

like people coming from a certain background

or certain experience.

There isn't a space for enough challenge,

coming from different writers and different directors.

Men are the people that are in power,

like you always have male producers

or male heads of studios, and usually male directors.

For all the Hollywood liberalism,

all the guys that are making these decisions,

are the same 60-year-old white dudes.

It could be Wall Street.

You're not here to love anybody.

You're here to promote a movie. That's it. Period.

I've worked in film

and I've seen how it works behind the scenes.

It's about money,

and it's about what the industry thinks people want to see,

which is never what people actually want to see.

Gay people, black people, women, are all capable of making good movies.

So what's the hang-up?

And I don't have anything against straight white guys,

but to say that it isn't disproportionately in their favor is ludicrous.

Now, as an adult,

in a happy, balanced relationship,

I can clearly see the negative aspects

of so many romantic comedies I once loved.

And yet, I still find myself watching these films.

And I'm moved by them, despite their flaws.

It's wonderful watching people fall in love.

Like, it's very uplifting.

It's a thrill, it's a fantasy,

it's like something that you're experiencing

for a cinematic emotion.

And not because you necessarily condone or agree

with everything that's happening on the screen.

Disneyland of the heart or something.

You wouldn't want to go there all the time,

it's not something you would want for yourself,

but it's not an unpleasant fantasy to entertain.

You're given all the little tiny, bubbly feelings

of what it would be like to be in love.

But it's never treacherous.

They resonate because,

even if the circumstances in them are completely ludicrous,

there are moments of real humanity written into them.

It's the watching someone ride off into the sunset, isn't it?

You only imagine something beautiful is going to happen,

but you don't know what it is.

Romantic comedies tap into universal human desire.

We all want to be loved.

Maybe we want that for a lifetime.

But maybe we only want that for one night.

Either way, the desire for that connection is always there.

The films have a very simple way of showing this.

They present the love interests as two parts of one whole.

Plato tells us we began as circles.

And when we strived to be like the gods,

we were punished by a thunderbolt that struck us,

and cut us right down, dead-center, in half.

And we scattered to the ends of the earth,

searching and searching

for our other half.

Or to put it another way...

You...

Complete me.

For me, the pinnacle of romantic comedies

is Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally.

And this masterpiece wholeheartedly embraces

the idea that the two lovers should be opposites,

who unite and complete each other.

Harry is doomy and full of cynicism,

which is in stark contrast

to Sally's upbeat, positive persona.

-Yes, basically I'm a happy person. -So am I.

And I don't see that there's anything wrong with that.

Of course not. You're too busy being happy.

Do you ever think about death?

-Yes. -Sure you do.

A fleeting thought that's just in and out of the transom of your mind.

I spend hours. I spend days.

And you think this makes you a better person?

Well, when the shit comes down,

I'm gonna be prepared and you're not,

-that's all I'm saying. -In the meantime,

you're gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.

At first, their differences drive them apart.

But then, as they grow older and move through the world,

they're faced with challenges.

You're not with Joe anymore?

We just broke up.

Aww.

I'm sorry. That's too bad.

Yeah. Well, you know... Yeah.

So...

-What about you? -I'm fine.

How's married life?

Not so good. I am getting a divorce.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm really sorry.

Yeah, well, what're you gonna do?

Gradually, through sharing

their contrasting worldviews with each other,

they begin to make sense of themselves,

and their lives.

Harry, you're gonna have to try and find a way

of not expressing every feeling that you have,

every moment that you have them.

Oh, really?

Yes.

There are times and places for things.

Well, the next time you're giving a lecture series on social graces,

would you let me know? 'Cause I'll sign up.

Hey.

You don't have to take your anger out on me.

Oh, I think I'm entitled to throw a little anger your way.

Especially when I'm being told how to live my life

by Miss Hospital Corners.

What's that supposed to mean?

I mean, nothing bothers you.

You never get upset about anything.

Don't be ridiculous.

What?

You never get upset about Joe.

I never see that back up on you. How is that possible?

Don't you experience any feelings of loss?

I don't have to take this crap from you.

If you're so over Joe, why aren't you seeing anyone?

I see people.

See people. Have you slept with one person

since you broke up with Joe?

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

That will prove I'm over Joe,

because I fuck somebody?

Harry, you're gonna have to move back to New Jersey

because you've slept with everybody in New York,

and I don't see that turning Helen

into a faint memory for you.

Besides, I will make love to somebody when it is making love.

Not the way you do it, like you're out for revenge or something.

Are you finished now?

Yes.

Can I say something?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Ultimately, it's their differences

which make them an ideal fit.

This is a pattern we see repeatedly.

Sometimes, it's mundane.

InStranger Than Fiction,

an uptight IRS man falls in love

with the rebellious, tattooed pastry chef,

he's supposed to be auditing.

Mr. Crick.

Yes, what is it?

You're staring at my tits.

Uh, I what? I don't think I was.

I don't think I would do that.

If I was, I can assure you,

it was only as a representative of the United States government.

But sometimes, it's more metaphorical.

InSplash, a man afraid of the sea...

Then you wouldn't want me to do this.

Stop! God, no. Please.

Falls in love with a mermaid.

This way of seeing romantic connection is incredibly satisfying,

and emotionally overwhelming.

In fact, so powerful is this way of portraying lovers

as two opposites attracting to complete each other,

that it's existed since at least the 17th century.

Shakespeare used it inMuch Ado About Nothing.

I wonder that you will still be talking, SignorBenedick.

-Nobody marks you. -What?

My dear Lady Disdain!

Are you yet living?

Is it possible disdain should die

while she hath such meet food to feed it as SignorBenedick?

I do love nothing in the world so well as you.

Is not that strange?

As strange as the thing I know not.

It were as possible for me to say

I love nothing so well as you.

We also see this in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice,

where the relaxed and unconventional Elizabeth Bennet

is the perfect match for the highly reserved Mr. Darcy.

I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry

-in driving away love.

I thought that poetry was the food of love.

Of a fine stout love, it may.

But if it is only a vague inclination,

I'm convinced one poor sonnet will kill it stone dead.

So, what do you recommend to encourage affection?

Dancing.

Even if one's partner is barely tolerable.

His anguished declaration of love is so successful

in eliciting an emotional response in audiences,

that it's become a trope,

used over and over again in romantic comedies.

I've fought against my better judgement,

my family's expectation,

the inferiority of your birth, my rank and circumstance...

All these things that I am willing to put them aside

and ask you to end my agony.

-I don't understand. -I love you.

Most ardently.

Please do me the honor of accepting my hand.

It's always one of the most human

and relatable moments in the films.

People convey those kinds of thoughts piecemeal

over the course of a relationship.

I don't mind the cinematic license

of presenting them in aggregate.

You become more wordy in moments of crisis.

Of course, I've performed speeches of love for guys,

I'm an actress. Everything is a movie to me.

Someone has formed a declaration of love for me,

but they didn't say any of the things

that I needed them to say.

It was awful.

I've done them in airports, in a supermarket.

Like, you just say it to each other in a mundane setting.

You can hear yourself. And it's like, "Wow.

"If anybody else hears me right now, can they actually just kill me?"

Because I would wanna kill myself.

He said stuff like, "If we had met on a dating app,

"we would have matched."

And that we had sparkling banter.

They must have been, "Yo, like she's insane."

They must've done!

They must have just been like, "Why does she think

"that she's in a Disney film right now?"

They must have done!

Do you wanna know the real reason why I came here tonight?

I closed my world off.

I put myself in a little box.

It was all my fault. I mean...

I'm the bastard here.

I'm immature, I'm unthoughtful, I'm a friggin' idiot.

I'm a liar and a phoney. A saxophone player.

But something's happened to me since I've...

Met you and...

I'm happiest when I'm being myself.

And I'm myself when I'm with you.

So...

I thought that I would come here and tell you something.

I like you.

I like you.

I want you.

I love you.

I love you.

I'm totally, completely in love with you,

and I don't care if you think it's too late,

I'm telling you anyway.

I'm crazy about you. I think about you all the time.

And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

'Cause like you said, "This is it."

"This is life."

I came here tonight because 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.

And don't forget,

I'm also just a girl

standing in front of a boy,

asking him to love her.

Something about her

You see her clearly

You knew is shifting

It shows

This woman's in love

This woman's in love

You found her

She's in love

Recently, I've noticed a spate of films

that, while not marked as romantic comedies,

will exploit, enlist, or twist the structures and tropes of the rom-com

to their own ends.

They employ many of the same time-honored tricks

as the traditional rom-com,

and fall into some of the same traps.

I need a taxi. I got to get to the airport right now.

I gotta stop someone from getting married.

Flight leaves in... Oh.

I got like four hours.

The Break-Up attempts to subvert the rom-com narrative

by, as the title might suggest,

refusing to give its protagonists a happy ending.

You think that I nag you?

That's all you do!

All you do is nag me.

"The bathroom's a mess.

"Your belt doesn't match.

"Hey, Gary, you should probably go work out."

Nothing I ever do is ever good enough.

I just want to be left the hell alone!

-Is that what you want? -Yeah.

-That's what you want? -Yeah.

Fine. Great. Do whatever the hell you want.

You leave your socks all over this house.

Dress like a pig.

Play your stupid ass video game, I don't care. I'm done.

-What? -I am done.

I don't deserve this. I really do not deserve this.

I deserve somebody who gives a shit.

I'm not spending one more second of this life

with some inconsiderate prick.

You're a prick!

A far more interesting twist

comes from 2012'sRuby Sparks,

written by Zoe Kazan.

This rom-com plays with the genre's conventions.

and directly confronts the insidious "cool girl" trope

and the power of the male writers who indulge it.

A novelist describes his ideal woman in his new book

and is stunned when one day she appears in his house.

I missed you in bed last night.

Did you get some good writing done?

He falls in love with her.

And resolves not to write about her again,

as he wants her to be her own person.

However, when she begins to seek a life outside their relationship,

he feels insecure.

-I'm so lonely. -No.

Don't say that. Please.

I think I should start spending some nights at my apartment again.

He starts writing about her again,

so he can control her behavior.

First, he makes her completely obsessed with him.

and crushes her desire for independence.

Then he makes her unrelentingly happy.

Eventually, we are shown how disturbing it is

to have a female character whose every thought and action

is driven solely by the male creator.

If this is how you think about people,

then you are in for a long, lonely, fucked-up life.

Do you hear me?

Calvin.

Less radical than Kazan's offering isI Love You, Man,

a film which is a rom-com in every aspect but one.

Our soulmates are platonic friends instead of lovers.

Sydney, I'm really sorry for all the stuff that I said.

Pete, you called me on a lot of my issues.

I appreciate it.

I'm really glad you're here, Sydney.

Me, too.

I love you, man.

I love you too, bud.

-I love you, dude. -I love you, Bro Montana.

I love you, homes.

I love you, Broseph Goebbels.

-I love you, muchacha. -I love you, Tycho Brohe.

Okay.

In 2013,The Heat did something similar.

It's a rom-com dressed up as a buddy movie.

This time between two female cops.

The uptight loner Ashburn, played by Sandra Bullock,

and Melissa McCarthy's loose cannon, Mullins.

-Ashburn. -Hey, it's me.

Hey.

So, uh, did you get that package I sent over?

Oh, God, I haven't even opened it yet. I'm sorry.

I signed it. On the front.

Okay, I see it. That's very funny.

I know. I'm just kidding.

Just look at the... Look at the back.

Well...

Don't make it weird.

Later, nerd.

Takes a nerd to know a nerd.

The success of these bromances

and womances,

proves that the power of the rom-com

is strong enough to survive being transplanted

into buddy movies.

Yes!

Other film-makers employ the same structure

as traditional rom-coms, but disguise it.

There's a number of reasons they might want to do this.

Foremost among them,

the sad fact that marketing a film as a romantic comedy

is a quick route to critical disdain.

Perhaps, because so many of the people

who are reviewing these films are men.

A film-maker hoping to be awarded accolades and acclaim

would do better if they presented their romantic comedy

as something else.

David O. Russell used some romantic comedy tropes

inSilver Linings Playbook.

The screwball dialogue.

So how's your thing going? The dancing thing?

It's good. How's your restraining order?

The declaration of love.

I love you.

I knew it the minute I met you.

I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up.

I just got stuck.

And the happy ending.

But the film avoided the cloud of critical distain

that surrounds the genre

because it's tonally much darker

than the romantic comedies I grew up watching.

Instead of being clumsy,

its characters dealt with real problems

like suicide and depression.

Silver Linings Playbook was billed as a comedy drama,

not a romantic comedy,

and was Oscar-nominated across the board.

Other secret rom-coms might be even more critically acclaimed.

2016'sLa La Land employs all the beats of a romantic comedy.

But likeThe Break-Up, it skips the happy ending.

It's important to note that although these films use

the structure of romantic comedies to great effect,

eliciting powerful emotions,

they yet again only show us straight, white, middle-class relationships.

Earlier, I said that there was a lack of romantic comedies

with people of color as the leads,

or mixed-race couples,

or queer relationships.

But this isn't strictly true.

Many examples of those films do exist.

It's just that as a white, straight woman

who is heavily catered for by mainstream romantic comedies,

I never went looking for them.

And because of that, I missed out on this moment

from 2001's Kissing Jessica Stein.

I didn't see a blond Zack Braff

and Justin Theroux in the queer rom-com,

The Broken Hearts Club.

Or the sweet perfection of 2010'sJust Wright.

I'd never seen Stella getting her groove back.

And I'd also never watched Alice Wu'sSaving Face

about a Chinese-American surgeon

who falls madly in love with a ballet dancer.

Despite not being represented

in terms of race or sexuality by these films,

I love them just as much as I love While You Were Sleeping,

orWhen Harry Met Sally.

Because romantic comedies aren't about race or gender or sexuality,

they're about human connection.

I realize now why I'm obsessed with romantic comedies,

it's so simple.

They show people falling in love

and when anyone watches any two people fall in love,

we see nothing but their humanity.

My favorite film of recent times

is 2017's critically-lauded God's Own Country.

The love story is structurally a romantic comedy,

but instead of watching a straight middle-class couple

falling over each other in a New York office,

we have a struggling Yorkshire farmer

falling for a Romanian migrant worker.

They call you Georgie or summat?

-Gheorghe. -Whatever. Get in.

It's got all the beats of a Nora Ephron classic.

Two young people meet

and find themselves clashing over their differences.

I'm from Romania.

Gypsy.

Please don't call me that.

However, they're forced to share experiences

and in doing so, they're drawn together.

Fuck.

If you leave it, it will get infected with disease.

Eventually, they realized they complete each other.

I was thinking.

I can stay a little longer.

After circumstances force them apart,

there's no option but to make an anguished declaration of love.

I'm trying to do this.

Don't you see, I'm...

I'm trying to sort it out.

And I've come all this way up here,

on a coach and everything.

And I want you to come back...

With me.

And I want us to be together.

I don't want to be a fuck-up anymore.

No, leave me. I'm fine.

I want to be with you,

and that's what I needed to say.

And the rom-com closes in the traditional way

giving the audience the ultimate satisfying ending,

a kiss between the two lovers.

God's Own country isn't considered a romantic comedy,

which, while understandable, is perhaps a shame

because it left me with all of the uplifting feelings of elation and romance

that I get from re-watching Sleepless in Seattle

for the 35th time.

Another film I loved from the same year asGod's Own Country

isThe Big Sick,

which is based on a real-life relationship

between writers Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani.

What were you like in high school?

They called me chashmullee.

What is that?

It roughly translates to "dweeb."

I'll show you a picture.

Of you in high school? Oh, my God.

-Boom. -No.

And I'm thinking, "I'm killing it right now."

What inspired this haircut?

Hugh Grant.

-No. -Yeah.

The film was critically acclaimed,

Oscar-nominated,

and most importantly, a romantic comedy

that sticked to the traditional formula.

But unlike the films that I grew up watching,

its characters are complex and fleshed out.

I was going to tell you about that.

These are women in Pakistan who wanna marry you?

They're not in Pakistan.

You've met these women?

Just with my parents and stuff, we haven't like...

But you're not serious about this, are you?

It's my mom's thing, I just go along with it.

So what does your mom think about you and me then?

She doesn't know about me, does she?

No.

They're not from high-income backgrounds.

So are you ever gonna let me sit in the front seat?

No, I'm a professional, and you're paying for this ride.

I don't wanna pay for this ride, it's surging right now.

And they deal with real problems.

In the future, I hope film-makers will continue

to use the power of rom-coms

to put different types of relationships

in front of the camera.

I hope studios will realize

that there's a hunger for these films.

And that they'll reach a mainstream Hollywood audience.

Because love doesn't only happen

to white, straight, middle-class people.

And it doesn't have to end with a wedding.

And it doesn't always last forever.

Are you breaking up with me?

But it is wonderful to watch.

Any fireworks

At first sight

Waiting for me

It wouldn't bother

All the time

This would work

Walked away now

We'll be next year

To make plans

Yeah, I'm honest

When I wake up

The love of my life

The love of my life

The love of my life

The love of my life

The love of my life

I'd only get one shot

Had one plot

To treasure what you've got

And it was never enough

And then then it stops

In a little box

The love of my life

The love of my life

The love of my life

The love of my life