In Defense Of Romantic Comedies

[redbrunja]

Are Romantic Comedies Dead is a great article by NPR's Linda Holmes (who I greatly enjoy on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast) about Rom-Coms. I think she makes some excellent, excellent points, especially how some of the best romantic-comedy in recent years, is not in movies billed as straight-up Rom-Coms.

I think she also has some wonderfully cutting things to say about actresses are treated by the media and the fans.

Comments

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I loved and linked to this article too. Big fan of Linda's from way back in the MightyBigTV days. heh. She wrote some great movie reviews on her own blog ages ago too.

So many interesting points raised and often I bristle when people criticize that a romance novel or movie is inferior for only focusing on....romance! But I like how she puts it and what she has to say about the romance in the background of other things often being more interesting than straight-up romances (in both print and screen) here: The ones that take nothing seriously except dating, those are the How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days ones, and The Wedding Planner ones. And they rarely work, and they've rarely ever worked, because love in life is usually mixed up with all kinds of other nasty stuff, and anybody who can put everything else on hold to think about banter for an entire movie's worth of life experiences doesn't come off as very interesting.

That idea of the facile-ness or faux-ness of the characters is often the problem for me with romances. Not enough depth and nasty parts.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

Yes! I want stories about characters having romantic feelings and relationships, not stories about romance! Those things are part of the characters and so they should be part of the story. I feel like romance is this label enclosing stereotypes and empty space.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Big fan of Linda's from way back in the MightyBigTV days. heh. She wrote some great movie reviews on her own blog ages ago too.


She's pretty awesome.

And they rarely work, and they've rarely ever worked, because love in life is usually mixed up with all kinds of other nasty stuff, and anybody who can put everything else on hold to think about banter for an entire movie's worth of life experiences doesn't come off as very interesting.

That idea of the facile-ness or faux-ness of the characters is often the problem for me with romances. Not enough depth and nasty parts.

So agreed, I can't even tell you.