Identifying with Rom Coms

The plan to do a series of posts on romantic comedies / chick flicks / movies designated for women has been floating around in my mind for probably years, but I could never figure out how to approach it.  There is a lot out there on this subject and while (of course) I'll retread some ground, I wanted to find a way to approach the discussion that wasn't just me melting down about The State of the Genre, or whatever.  So I did something super duper dorky: I made a spreadsheet of every rom com, chick flick and the odd tearjerker I could think of, and then I added any other movies I found on the bajillions of lists of "the best X" and "the worst Y" that seemed to fit.  The result was a chart of 275 movies.

On the chart are two columns with oversimplified headers: "Good Things" and "Bad Things."  For me, "Good Things" would be complex characters, a clever premise, funny, and so on, easy stuff.  The "Bad Things" column has two elements: a) general bad movie things like an ending that's ridiculously pat or awful dialogue; and b) bad things relating to this topic, so things like one-note characters, unlikeable leads and incredibly stupid premises.  I only made it through movies that start with "C" before I started taking notes on something else, abandoning this method of delineating between the good pieces and bad pieces of movies which, generally speaking, aren't that great.

I considered trying to smooth out this article, but let me just transcribe here the notes I took: Rom com article: Point is recognizing myself.  Most protagonists in "rom coms" or "chick flicks" I can't identify with or if I do with the character I don't with their actions choices or partner.  A lot are tangled up with unhealthy female relationships: mother/daughter best friends ex best friends sisters or stepsisters.  Why?  So often have two men as possibilities and one is always the teach her something wrong guy and then the clear right guy.  How often do I like each guy?  How often do I think the girl should be single?  How often is the chemistry real?  Why are most over a really short duration?  Why does "growing up" always make me mad?  Are the ones from male perspective (Forgetting Sarah Marshall for one) so often better more relate-able funnier and oddly more romantic?  Are ones written and directed by women overall better than those by men?

When I came back to this today, the part of my notes that struck me as the most significant was the unhealthy female relationships piece.  I can acknowledge that there is a lot of fun to be had watching movies with ridiculously over-the-top antagonistic relationships between people or where at least one of the main character is a caricature of some type of personality or another.  By way of an example: Cruel Intentions.  Oh, yes.  It's not a rom com or a chick flick, but I'd say it's definitely for women.  Beautiful people with fucked up morals who may or may not have legitimate reasons to be users who think life is a game they want to win.  Innocence lost, a bad boy trying to reform himself meeting a tragic end.  Bottom line, it's a melodramatic, rather operatic kind-of-romance, and let's call it a guilty pleasure.

But on the romantic comedy / chick flick front, why are there all of these unhealthy relationships among women?  There are movies about so-called best friends who sleep with each other's fiances, treat each other like shit, and don't seem to have more than the barest shred of reason to even talk to each other.  Bride Wars comes to mind first, along with fellow offenders Something Borrowed, You Again, My Best Friend's Wedding, Monster-in-Law, America's Sweethearts, Heartbreakers, and to a lesser extent Laws of Attraction and Hairspray. Of course, women do have complicated relationships with other women, especially when we're talking about family members or girls who became friends during adolescence when there's this feeling that you've somehow survived something together.  While I think it has a broader appeal than just to women (as it wasn't marketed solely to women or intended just for us), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has several complex relationships among the leading women.  In the rom com / chick flick genre, a good example is In Her Shoes.  A one-dimensional sibling rivalry characterized by two women who seem to be polar opposite in looks, temperament and quality becomes a deeper, more three-dimensional exploration  I'm not saying the movie is perfect, but it treats this relationship as more than a simple, petty rivalry and doesn't give in to the temptation to deviate from a story about sisters into one about sisters falling in love at the same time. (Practical Magic would be a campier example here too.)

As a sort of off-shoot of this thought about unhealthy relationships, there are movies made for women which have women who have incredibly strong bonds with each other in ways that I recognize.  The Jane Austen Book Club has women who are friends, who love each other, who listen to each other and offer advice that makes sense for their characters to offer, and who support each other but not blindly.

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Two men!  Both who want to be with her!  I suppose on the surface this seems pretty bitchin'.  Because the two men are always very different from each other and they both want her for slightly different reasons or because of slightly different parts of her, what I think women in the audience are meant to envy about the leading woman is this: This woman is so complex, so awesome, so interesting and so sexy that she appeals to all men; she could have any man.  To name but a few: Bridesmaids, Heartbreaker, It's Complicated, John Tucker Must Die, Moulin Rouge!, Moonstruck, Reality Bites, Runaway Bride, The Holiday, The Notebook and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!  (* An aside: I really like most of these otherwise.)

But of course, she picks one.  To be fair, a lot of the time it's not the rich, urbane man who treats her like a queen, but the guy who sees and appreciates her passion and quirks, like in Sweet Home Alabama and Leap Year.  And sure, I guess a lot of women find at least the fantasy of being fought over by two guys awesome, so I can see how it became a common set-up.  But I don't know many women who regularly find themselves in this sort of position.  For me, I can't imagine a scenario in which I would get fairly deeply and emotionally involved with more than one person at the same time.  And that's really what bugs me about this type of premise.  It's almost always blindingly clear from the start that the woman is only really feeling a true connection with one of them.  I hope it's not just to avoid the audience thinking the woman is a big whorish slutty slut.  The movie that comes the closest to a woman getting in deep with two men at the same time and having to pick, in my mind, is This Means War... and that whole movie, I just kept wanting the two men to confess their love to each other and dump her so they could be gay spies together.  (But that's just me, maybe.)  Okay, and Bandits, but I don't know as I'd categorize that as a rom com... exactly.

Ah, and what about movies that might seem like rom coms except the protagonist is the man?  Let me name some so that you can get them in your mind: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Take Me Home Tonight, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Crazy, Stupid, Love, (500) Days of Summer, 17 Again, Chasing Amy, Definitely, Maybe, Four Weddings and a Funeral, High Fidelity, Wimbledon, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Notting Hill, Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers, Shakespeare in Love, The Girl Next Door and The Vow.  Some of them not seem necessarily like they fit in with the other movies I've mentioned?  Too true.  A lot of movies that are in fact both romances and funny that star a man are about more than the funny romance.  How strange...  They just wrap love and humor up in other things?  But my feeble female brain can't handle a movie that's about love and is funny and is about figuring out what I want to do with my life, interacting with my child, or growing up!

Ha.

Now in my opinion, the best romantic comedies do the obvious and have the male and female leads actually CO-STAR, as in, share things fifty-fifty, the way (one hopes) we do in real life.  I think they are the most successful because the idea is that women and men can watch them together.  The women in the audience can make fun of the male star and the men in the audience can make fun of the female star.  They can all laugh at the funny things.  They can all be happy at the happy ending, even if they show it differently.  It's extremely exciting.  Here are some I think do a stellar job at this piece of the puzzle: Zach and Miri Make a Porno, 10 Things I Hate About You, French Kiss, Going the Distance, Griff the Invisible, Hitch, How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days, Life as We Know It, Look Who's Talking, Love and Other Drugs, No Strings Attached, Friends with Benefits, The American President, The Break Up, The Princess Bride, and What Happens in Vegas.  Of course, not all of these are as successful overall as others, but I think the more even approach makes for a better piece.

To end, I'd like to take a second to lay out a few more that I think are just plain crimes that I haven't mentioned yet: 27 Dresses, As Good as It Gets, Because I Said So, Beastly, Made of Honor, Failure to Launch, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Killers, Must Love Dogs, New in Town, Post Grad, Eat Pray Love, Someone Like You, The Bounty Hunter, The Heartbreak Kid, Two Weeks Notice, and You've Got Mail.  They're lame, I don't like the protagonists or worse don't care about them, they make stupid choices and the films as a whole feel just forced, like they all knew they were making crap but did it anyway.

Now some of my favorites I haven't had the chance to mention yet because they didn't best illustrate a positive or a negative point.  These I'm going to take a little more time with, and I know that this type of movie is way more subjective than others, so feel free to argue with me later:

• A Knight's Tale: I don't get why men always do stupid things in the name of "honor," but I love the crazy soundtrack, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell and the chemistry between the leads
• Amelie: a sweet, adorable French love story about shy people
• Bend It Like Beckham: about two girls becoming friends, cultural differences that turn out to be similarities, coming-of-age, and bagging Jonathan Rhys-Myers
• Benny & Joon: an incredibly unique love story that's pure and sweet
• Bridesmaids: a raunchy movie about girlfriends with a side dish of love with a regular guy 
• Catch and Release: set against the accidental death of a man and with a kind of unfocused plot, it's a romance between the man's fiancee and his best friend
• Chasing Liberty: completely cheesy and I love it
• DEBS: an incredibly silly, over-the-top, deliberately B caliber romance between the perfect lady spy and the world-class lady criminal she wrote her thesis on
• Imagine Me & You: a great balance of realistic vs romanticized about a woman who falls in love with another woman just after she gets married to a great man
• Monte Carlo: don't laugh, it's awful, but it makes me smile
• My Best Friend's Girl: not that great really, but I love that what makes other women horrified and offended, this girl loves
• Secretary: not really a comedy, but an excellent S&M romance between two awkward people 
• She's the Man: bastardized Twelfth Night with cross-dressing, gender confusion, and sneaky awesome quips about high school, high heels and balding
• The Broken Hearts Club: a delightful, simple gay romance within a group of friends
• The Holiday: on the surface it's nothing special, but I love the unfinished ending and its energy
• The Proposal: a perfect dish, funny and touching, with great chemistry and supporting characters
• The Wedding Date: the novel it's based on (Asking for Trouble) was much better and it's far from perfect, but I like the quieter moments and the woman's arc

Oh, I sincerely hope this sparks some arguments!

PS Every single movie mentioned in here I have seen at least once.  My list, which wasn't all romantic comedies but included some heavy things like The English Patient, was 275 movies long.  Of those, 24 have a female co-writer; 78 have a female writer; 2 had a female co-director; and 37 have a female director.  So, 102 out of 275 or 37% had a female writer, and 81 out of 275 or 29% had a female director.  According to the MPAA's data (www.mpaa.org) on movie-goer demographics, among adults, Latinos see the most movies, but only 6 of the movies on my list had a Latin lead, male or female.