Where Have All The Rom-Coms Gone?

Rom-com is short for romantic comedy. It is defined as a film telling a story about love that is supposed to make the viewer laugh. Among the most recognizable titles of the genre we may find ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’, ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, ‘You’ve Got Mail’, etc. Romantic comedies peaked in the 90s and made it to the 2000s, only to slowly lose their stamina and disappoint with performance. These rather low-budget productions used to make Hollywood big bucks and birthed legions of movie stars along the way. 

I used to love rom-coms. I think quite a lot of people did. So, why are they becoming extinct?

Two possible explanations came to my mind. First with the boring answers: Netflix and budgeting. The rise of the streaming platforms has proven severely damaging to several film genres and quite deadly to the quality of few. Truth is, with our ever-shortening attention span, TV series are bound to take over.  Producing a nearly two-hour long movie, hopefully ending with a kiss to fulfill the viewers’ utmost longing, no longer seems like the best choice of investment. Instead, the studio may find us interested in a looped chain of less-than-forty-minute episodes that essentially kill whatever mushy coherence there was to the initial plot with their blunt repetitiveness.

Don’t take this the wrong way - I am not bashing all TV series, there are definitely some out there worth being put on a pedestal. I just wish more focused on quality than quantity. 

My second response to the enigma is much more frightening. What if rom-coms are dying because- forgive the cliché - romance is dying?

I wanted to have my doubts dispelled, or at least backed up by some hard evidence. According to my humble research, over the last 50 years the marriage rates in the USA have dropped by almost 60%. In Europe, the divorce rate has doubled from 1964 to 2020. Looking solid. But then, how can we tell if romance corresponds at all with the institution of marriage? In many cases, it doesn’t even include the non-heterosexual members of society. This measurement isn’t accurate, I’ve decided.

One-night-stands are supposedly becoming more popular than relationships, but still, we are having less sex than previous generations. Do we have we no passion? Do we lack the vigour our grandparents had? 

Researchers often explain this phenomenon with the decrease in average income and alcohol consumption, and, funnily enough, the increase of interest in computer games. This paints a rather saddening image of sex as a replaceable form of entertainment, instead of something intrinsically humanising. Slavoj Žižek expressed his concern by bringing up the example of a strange masturbatory device, the Stamina Training Unit. The odd-sounding gadget is supposed to give the user the satisfaction of penetration, conveniently disposing of the need of a second participant. 

How are we to cope with this brave new world which undermines the basic premises of our intimate life? The ultimate solution would be, of course, to push a vibrator into the Stamina Training Unit, turn them both on and leave all the fun to this ideal couple, with us, the two real human partners, sitting at a nearby table, drinking tea and calmly enjoying the fact that, without great effort, we have fulfilled our duty to enjoy.

- SLAVOJ ZIZEK

We have been outsourcing sex for some time now - it is recently that we realised how by substituting the real thing we may actually substitute the real thing. 

Technology is also present in other aspects of the romantic sphere, like the initiation of a relationship. My parents met because my dad asked my mom which way to get to the bus stop. Today, he would have used Google Maps. 

Another digital advancement involved in the love business: dating apps. While in general rather harmful to romance and pretty humbling in use, they lead to an engagement or marriage of around 14% of their users in the US. Maybe technology is not all bad. 

The last decades have been pretty revolutionary when it comes to the establishment of relationships. Rise of individualism - in a broad sense - encouraged us to do two things: focus more on our needs, and focus only on our needs. Nothing wrong with that - but it does change the nature of interpersonal relationships. The more likely we are to focus on our career choices and the future steps needed to realize our goals, the less likely we are to fall for the guy who buys out our bookstore and simultaneously the only source of income at hand (‘You’ve Got Mail’). 

This movie provides a connection to another factor at play - feminism. What was seen as romantic in the 50s, will no longer stir the heart of a maiden in 2023. It is quite simple: given the choice, most women choose the life of a multi-functional person, not one with a stagnant task of being a husband’s accessory. Again, a case of expiry. Many white-knight gestures became outdated and are more likely to be seen as a nuisance rather than a blessing. 

So, is that it? Is romance just a pile of archaic ideals no longer fit to serve a purpose? I really hope not. 

There is no such thing as an indefinite definition. Romance - as a social construct - evolves with society. LGBTQ movements play a role worth mentioning here. 1,000 years from now there’ll be no guys and no girls, just wankers. (A quote from the ultimate source of wisdom - ‘Trainspotting’.) The whole concept of a relationship is being deconstructed and turned into something more pliant. Open-mindedness quite literally opens minds - and allows the ‘old’ to leave. With progressively more people questioning their sexuality, there is simply less space for tradition and more for experimentation. It does not mean the end of romance, but the contrary: new forms of it. A picnic for two may turn into a picnic for three, a boyfriend-and-girlfriend t-shirt set is now available as a girlfriend-and-girlfriend set too. 

People tend to have expectations of consistency they themselves hardly exhibit. If we want to keep romance, I say we accept its volatile state. 

It may so happen that romance will not be associated with romantic love, or love at all. Most fundamental drives are unchanging. So, as long as we long for closeness, acceptance and intimacy, and are able to witness them with a sense of companionship that rids of our indifference, romance will be there. Small smiles crossing the road, kind gestures at the grocery store, a call to grandma: those acts might accidentally fill our day with romance, with good. To quote Olga Tokarczuk, a man has eyes in front of his face to look ahead of himself - let’s not reminisce about the long gone courting rituals and ball gowns. Perhaps unfamiliar-looking, but romance is very much alive and ready for further moulding. Out with the old, in with the new. 

A good old movie date (maybe to see a rom-com?) couldn’t hurt, though.