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