I cannot identify with Romantic Comedies

Exactly what it says on the tin... I'm now outraged at this gender/sexuality inequality. I want the industry to change. Right now, and I want a shitload of money to soothe my hurt feelings.

Why are Romantic Comedies always so incredibly alien?

Because they all follow the same formula?

They're not supposed to be relatable. They're supposed to be a fantasy. In real life, half the relationships in those movies would've never gone past a 1st date.

Heck, most of them would have been over by teh end of the soup course.

I don't mind the rom-coms written by women. The others have a veneer of... well, hate. Hate for women, hate for the audience, hate for themselves for writing it.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

... I liked (500) Days of Summer though.

Film/{{500 Days Of Summer}} and Punch-Drunk Love are pretty much the only exceptions I have for any romantic comedy and that's because they're not really romantic comedies at all.

I'm on Youtube Reviewing Things Cause I can.

I think rom-coms need less straight-laced dudes. Forget the boring architects, I wanna see a rom-com with metalhead bartender as the male lead. It could work.

I think rom-coms are like every other popular genre - like, for example, action movies. Most of them are bad. But like in every genre, there are also some which are really, really good and make me smile. They are just hard to find.

This.

The last hurrah? Nah, I'd do it again.

Shaun Of The Dead is a pretty good romcom, I thought.

Then again, it's also a zombie horror film, so maybe it's the blending of genres that made it work so well.

I like Enchanted. It torpedoes a few Disney cliches, like the dreamboat boyfriend trope (played by James Marsden), while at the same time coaching us not to give up on them entirely. It had Patrick Dempsey playing against type as a sour divorce attorney. He's not convincing as a cad (Made of Honor), and he's tiresome as the hunk. Here I thought he struck a good balance and really had fun.

Some of my biggest disappointments have been romance movies about seniors. They are few. You expect a certain maturity from them, but they sort of pussyfoot around. Something's Gotta Give had a very, very, very cheesy ending. Never Again was an American Pie movie with old people.

edited 17th Jul '13 7:30:33 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

I don't get most romcoms, but since I'm not heterosexual or a woman, I'm not the target audience. C'est la vie.

OTOH, one persistent problem with the genre is that it's long on the rom and short on the com- I walk into a movie with "comedy" in the genre, I don't want to sit though 100 minutes of schmaltz. That's why I really like Intolerable Cruelty- it's a romantic comedy, but filtered through the weird lens of the Coen brothers, making it at once funnier and more cynical than most.

I am a heterosexual man and I hate Rom-Coms with passion. Specially the ones with ben Stiller in them.

I don't dislike rom-coms in principle. However, I really dislike it when characters are Strangled by the Red String, which happens far too often in the genre.

If I'm going to care about the characters' relationship, then that relationship has to be based on something more than "they're in love because the script says they're in love".

edited 17th Jul '13 8:45:12 PM by RavenWilder

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Oh, well, have I got news for you! The Ugly Truth was written by four women and drops any and all pretense and outright insults its audience all the way through by being as sexist as possible against both sexes—and not in a way that's supposed to be parody, but in a way that the movie wants you to think it's right.

Fun, fun, fun for everyone!!

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Well, you got me there.

Then there was this other time, right? I watched the remake of The Women. (directed by the creator of Murphy Brown, produced by Mick Jagger wtf). I'd seen the original, and I love Eva Medes, so what could go wrong?

It was the most surreal experience of my life. The entire movie takes place in a postage-stamp sized, frosted glass void... called Sachs Fifth Avenue. There is no Lower Manhattan. There is no Uptown. There is no east or west. There isn't even a 6th or 7th avenue. The entire world is concentrated solely in fifth avenue.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

I think that romantic comedies are at their best when they don't stop at being romantic or being comedies, but actually have some sort of substance...but I feel towards regular comedies the same way. Movies which are just there for the sake of being funny rarely do anything for me. To me the humour has to be based on an imaginable situation to work for me. "Music and Lyrics" for example is a romantic comedy from start to finish, but the comedy is mostly based on the characters in it, which are nevertheless realistic, and there are some serious and thoughtful moments in it. (Though, I admit, I can watch this movie again and again just for it parodying 80s pop groups).

The only romcoms I've ever liked are (500) Days of Summer, The Wedding Singer, and Knocked Up. They at least had a mildly different structure to most.

Romantic movies are targeted at women, not heterosexual men. I bet there are plenty of women who can't identify with action movies.

Let's just say that most women are less forgiving towards a stupid action movie than a lot of men, who are satisfied if they see enough explosions. But I think a lot of woman enjoy a well made one as much as men can enjoy a well made romantic comedy. I doubt that the audience for "Pretty Woman" was entirely female, for example.

I think almost all romantic comedies are crap, and yes, the characters don't fee like real people.

And I like good action movies (e.g.: The Avengers, Pacific Rim).

(I am female, by the way.)

edited 18th Jul '13 4:51:54 AM by WarriorEowyn

I dunno, anecdotal evidence here, but in my experience, men and women seem to both like action movies about as much as the next. Hell, one girl I knew in high school was really into the Transformers movies.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot about that one! Love that movie.

Really, this pretty much proves that as long as you've got solid writing and a decent enough premise, a romantic comedy doesn't have to be crap. Hell, this goes with anything. Besides, I think saying that only the romantic comedy genre is crap pretty much ignores Sturgeon's Law.

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I'm sure that there are a lot of women who enjoy action movies, but in general, it's not exactly a genre they tend to drift to. Though I really think a lot of people simply go for quality, and have some squicks they simply don't like to see. I for example could say that I don't like horror movies, thrillers and action flicks, but the truth is, I just don't like movies with a lot of gore. I love the haunted house (the original, not the crappy remake), Birds, Marnie, Con Air, like Die Hard 1, 3, 4 (nope, not 2).

Eh, gender stereotyping there.

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