Article written by Dylan Bell.
In a recent article, I briefly mentioned that I dislike romantic comedies – and with a few exceptions, this remains true. In fact, I can’t stand rom-coms in general. However, this is my bias and I am able to fully admit to that. Yet, I am not the only person who dislikes rom-coms. It seems that whenever I talk to people on this issue, they seem to either hate or love them, and it has gotten me thinking as to why. Most of the time when this sort of reaction occurs it is towards a franchise or particular movie, but an entire genre? It seems odd, doesn’t it? Well, I intend to get to the bottom of why or die trying.
Now, our first step is to make a rather clear observation. The majority of rom-com films are targeted primarily towards women, with stories and characters designed to appeal to a female demographic. This is not saying that men cannot enjoy these films, of course not, however it is undeniable that women are the main audience for these films, and in doing this it alienates a certain part of the male demographic. Once again, this isn't a bad thing by any means, but it is just a simple fact and does explain some of the negativity towards this genre.
You may be thinking, all genres are aimed at certain demographics and in doing that it alienates a different audience, and you would be correct in that this is true. Yet, rom-coms seem to attract more negative backlash than others, and there are two possibilities as to why. The first and most likely possibility is most rom-coms that are around suffer from crippling clichés and tropes that have been overdone to death. You can make this argument about any genre, but I personally feel rom-coms do this far more than any other – though, feel free to disagree with me of course.
The reason I feel these movies are riddled with clichés is because, well, think back to most rom-coms you have seen; most of them have similar bones to their stories, and when you identify these bones, it becomes difficult to miss. These tropes are not inherently bad by any means, but when you see these clichés repeatedly, after a certain point they become unbearable.
I said there were two possibilities as to why rom-coms usually have negative reputations –and I believe this to be true – however, the second possibility doesn’t have much to do with the actual films themselves. Now, be patient, because this is complicated. The second possibility for why I believe we have a negative view of the majority of rom-coms goes back to what I said in the beginning of this article; these films are targeted primarily at women. I said this wasn’t a bad thing – and it’s not – however, as a viewing audience we tend to hate films targeted at women, or at the very least view them with a harsher lens.
Now, what do I have to prove this claim, you may be wondering. Well, I said previously that one of the reasons I personally dislike rom-coms are the clichés thrown throughout those films, and this is a common complaint I hear from people who dislike these films. Yet, once again it is not the only genre with over played tropes. For example, action and disaster films; I cannot name many, if any at all, that don’t suffer from awful clichés. In fact, one could argue that action and disaster films have even more tropes then rom-coms. Yet, whenever we get bad films from those genres we tend to say, oh never mind it’s just a mindless action flick, and not much criticism ever seems to break that mentality.
A perfect example of this is with the transformers franchise, an enormous series that makes bank with every movie, despite each movie being riddled with clichés, plot holes and numerous other faults that for me, personally, make them unbearable. But those genres are not criticised as heavily and have nowhere near the amount of bad reputation that rom-coms get. Why? Well, primarily action and disaster movies are targeted towards men, and for one reason or another we seem to be forgiving of bad movies aimed at men.
Now, I simply do not have the time or word length to go into depth about this phenomenon, but this is not by any means a cold hard fact bound inside a conspiracy, it is simply just aspects of our society and film culture I have noticed. I am not blaming anyone for this – and by no means are any of us at fault – but next time you are critical of rom-coms or even action and disaster films, be aware of why you are criticising it and if perhaps you are being too harsh or too lenient.
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