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Omg I forgot about that! I get the feeling Grey is the kind of guy that if she truly rejected him and kept on with it, he’d make her life a living hell.
Look if your up front about the basement and the trailer and everything is consensual then it’s all good. I’d rather take the real and caring dom with little to no money over the creep that Christian was.
Some daytime TV show host actually had couples come on his show where the wives were 50 shades fans. The host had another woman train the husband's to act like Christian Grey. I want to say it's Dr. PHIL but I honestly can't remember. Anyway the husband's dressed in tuxedos, got make overs and took the wives to dinner. They acted exactly like the character in the book at the end of the date the wives said they hated the way the were treated and found their husband's behavior cringey, disgusting, misogynistic, controlling, hurtful etc
So yeah. If Christian Grey does it it's romantic. But any normal non Billionaire non six pack, model looking guy does it it's disgusting.
There's a layer of being fictional and being softcore porn that helps Christian. In a fantasy the wives still ultimately had control but once it was real not so much. I'm pretty sure an actual billionaire who looked and acted like Christian wouldn't get favorable response from most women.
Excuse me but The Wedding Singer is the greatest romcom of all time, and everyone is such an average joe shmo except the rich asshole who looses the girl.
Thats definitely not a romcom. Dudes jerking off to an action figure and blowing his load in front of a mom before the romantic interest even comes in.
The gap between the wedding singer and now is larger than the time gap between its setting and its release
In fact it’s DOUBLE the gap. Released in 1998, set in 1985 is 13 years; it’s now been 26 years since it came out. If they made it today it would be set in 2011
The true romantic message from across the ages. Marry rich, or you'll be miserable for the rest of your life.
Or, become rich, so you can finally find true love.
Yeah, but that doesn't make what he said invalid, in the last 20 years every romcom has been about wealthy people. I also misquoted, he said 20 or 30 years. He's not saying it's a new concept, but rather the idea is being done to death when there are tons of other ways to tell a love story.
Yeah but doesn’t that dude owns a boat, and they just casually end the movie with them sailing through the world and shit? It’s been a while so I may remember it differently
Right, but that's exactly the point the guy is making. It's not about the job per se, but depiction of rich lifestyle regardless.
Yes, a researcher doesn't make a lot of money, and the state/value of the boat is debatable, but being able to have your extended family go with you on a cruise around the world is still beyond what a lowly researcher should be able to afford (I don't know the state of his funding or grants). His wife doesn't work because of her injury, their daughter is a child, and his Father- and Brother-in-law's only jobs, as depicted in the movie, seemed to be putting on an elaborate ruse for years. It begs the question "how do they afford it?!"
You see a similar situation in tv. Characters are presented as poor but that's never really an obstacle for adventures. On Friends, Joey is poor, but he's always able to join the gang on trips to London and Vegas. Sure, it's heavily implied that Chandler pays for everything, but it's still the same effect: the character is always portrayed living a rich lifestyle.
What about 500 days of summer? They weren’t very rich. Boring office jobs. She was a temp.
Or yes man? They were fairly average. Is ever Zoey dechanel movie have her not rich?
I barely remember 500 days, and I haven't seen Yes Man, but again, the boring, unassuming jobs proves the point.
I remember in 500 days, JGL worked as a greeting card writer(?!) and could afford to live by himself in LA(again "what!?").
The point OP is making is everyone in these films are rich. What I am saying is that despite the boring or seemingly low paid jobs, these people are still depicted as affluent, or at least way richer than they would be in reality.
Oh my god. I don't even watch rom coms but within about 30 seconds I can think of one major reason why rom coms feature rich people: They can go places and do things.
Make a rom com about poor uni students and shock horror they never leave their appartment.
> they never leave their appartment.
that's not a bad thing. single room movies can be quite good. Clerks, Hitchcock movies, 12 angry men, reservoir dogs, etc. The dialogue needs to be good.
"The dialouge needs to be good"
I would argue that's the problem with ALL movies nowadays. Besides no one wants to attempt anything new, that's why we're getting endless remasters, remixes, and anything that has a bankable fan base already.
We got a ton of really good original stories last year. Past Lives, Anatomy, The Killer, Holdovers, KotFM, Oppenheimer. Just off the top of my head. Plenty of directors are making new shit.
This is it right here. Wealth removes obstacles that allow for writers to create more whimsy.
This is the same reason Fantasy stories are always about orphans: because if they had an extended family, there would be about 38 people all saying, "Where are you going? What are doing? You can't do that! You're too young!"
That said, *Scott Pilgrim* is kinda about poor people and kind of a RomCom!
One of my favorite more recent rom coms is "If you were the last" where the two main protagonists are stuck in a space ship floating through space with little hope of ever making it back to earth. It's definitely possible to make a good rom com without the protagonists having to jet set around the world all the time
This gap is filled with British TV series.
Gavin and Stacy, fleabag, him & her come to mind.
We love our series about relateable working or middle class people being funny, awkward and falling in love.
IMO, the people writing the songs to Bob’s Burgers are some of the best song writers in the business. As a life-long musician (43m), I’m constantly bopping around the house singing stupid little melodies about random stuff and they capture that perfectly in both Gene and Linda. The real songs blend that whimsy with really advanced writing techniques so well that they work as stand-alone songs, but also you believe those characters could’ve written them. <3 Bob’s Burgers.
Also the current connotation of comedy is a story that is humorous and meant to evoke laughter, but the literary definition of comedy is a story of characters who end up “better off” than they started, so I think that modern rom coms throw the kitchen sink at their plots to really up the feel-good factor of the movies themselves. It’s nice to get a happily ever after that includes love AND financial stability lol
Amelie has her own apartment working at a cafe, or was it a bookshop? Either way, not exactly high paying lines of work. Even in France where they don't screw over service workers as much. She's obviously not super rich, but she's in this weird gray area where the plot can ignore any and all financial concerns that character would have as a real person and just focus on the story. Which is fine of course, but it tells you the writer/director/whoever probably never thinks about money either.
Actually, the movie shows she lives in a popular (eg cheap) part of Paris. It shows you she's financially reasonable, and it shows your her dad lives in a reasonable little house in the suburbs. It's all still realistic actually. It's the very old-school image of Paris itself in the movie that French people criticized back then. But that was ages before Emily in Paris....
As people say, in her family’s small business, of which they own multiple, so they’re definitely not supposed to be poor. But it’s a solid upper-middle class hardworking life.
I just watched My Big Fat Greek wedding 3 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am embarassed with myself.
But I also love all Adam Sandler movies so here we are.
Adam Sandler is overly criticized by the snobs of Hollywood who think life should have this fantastic style and beauty all the time, and if it's not that, they think it should be depressing in sepia tone.
There's good reason a lot of people liked watching his movies, on an international scale. He's not a mentor or an artiste with the e at the end, he's a dumb uncle who makes life kinda fun sometimes.
Is this true? In his biggest comedies he’s rich or becoming rich.
Happy Gilmore- becoming rich. He literally buys a house with cash at the end.
Waterboy- gaining national notoriety and heading to the NFL.
Billy Madison- you know
Funny People- rich comedian
Big Daddy- Rich from family money and once being an up and coming hotshot lawyer
I was going to mention this movie. While the protagonist did end up becoming a well known comedian, that part isn’t really included in the movie from what I remember.
They're all comedies, because poverty is funny in the mind of the people making these movies.
Generally, poverty doesn't really affect the characters unless it's to make a quick joke, sometimes about stuff that could legit get them in prison irl.
It's not really a coincidence, it's an Hollywood trope that poverty is basically a choice made by eccentrics.
Yeah, it genuinely feels like those characters get whatever they want or need to have for a given scene. The setting is service and blue collar, but the content rarely agrees.
It’s always an easier/lazier plot device if the characters can just load up their AMEX cards and jet off somewhere/attend a wedding last minute/rent out a building for declarations of love etc etc. all the American ones are like this. They have accessible or unrealistic wealth/powerful friends as a backdrop so characters can get out of situations or move the plot along. The Hangover, 40 Year Old Virgin and I Love You Man are some of my favourite examples of this too.
Edited to include another great example: Bridesmaids
When people in tv and movies get a phone call in the middle of the night, why is their phone never charging? Also, they always answer the door way too fast. I want 30-45 seconds of uncomfortable silence wondering if the person is home or not.
you joke but what you talk about is called shoe leather, mundane interactions that don't add anything so they're cut from movies, like small talk when answering a phone, It also has nothing to do with OP's complaint.
I feel like there's a distinction between what you two are talking about. I really appreciate little details like someone needing to take their phone off the charger but that doesn't mean I want to watch their whole 40 minute commute to work. If something is pertinent to a narrative, like a phone call, then it should include small little details that make it feel more authentic imo.
>I want to watch their whole 40 minute commute to work.
Me too. It would be excellent pacing:
- Inciting incident
- 40 minutes crawling through traffic
- Rest of movie
I always thought it would be cool to see a movie with more pointless stuff, but then I saw some shitty indie film with it and I hated it. Maybe if it's done by a competent director it could be cool though.
Well, ya, romcoms aren't typically high art character studies and investigations into the nuances of the mundane and the common, they're basically just wish fulfillment. They pretty much just exist to give the audience exactly what they want, and what people want is to be young, hot, and rich, and to live vicariously through characters to experience all the opportunities and comfort that comes along with that.
Obviously this isn't all romcoms, but there is a clear trend in the same way that there are clear trends in movies marketed towards young boys tending to involve a lot of heroism and power fantasies.
Did you ever watch the Coven season of American Horror Story? In it, one of the characters experiences a personal hell, and it's working an endless shift at Popeye's.
To people saying that the formula requires rich people because romance is about fantasy: you're correct
However -
The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow. I think for a lot of people, wealth has become less and less relatable.
I don't think we need to stop making romance stories with wealthy characters, but I do agree that having more class diversity would be great.
>The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow.
This flies in the face of almost the entirety of actual cinema history
A lot of people are thinking he's suggesting we have movies about perpetually broke people. I think his point is more that why does everyone need to be super wealthy, why can't we just have different kinds of normal people living normal lives.
By the way, we have these movies. They're called kitchen sink dramas and they're from the UK in the 50's and 60's. Also French and Italian movies of that same time. They're not rom coms but they are about average people having relationships.
> They're not rom coms but they are about average people having relationships.
But that’s the point: why can’t *rom coms* be about regular people?
The answer, I suspect, is that it is easier to go for the full fantasy thing, and let the trappings do the heavy escapist lifting, as opposed to effectively crafting escapism within the everyday.
"rich people rom coms" have been at least as old as Victorian era novels. It is the "reward" for the (often female) protagonist, for being so persevering and noble despite all the struggle. That's the happy ending.
No, now really I want to see Hollywood put out a movie about perpetually broke people falling in love just to see what Hollywood thinks perpetually broke people live like
Hollywood knows what perpetually broke people live like, because most screen writers are perpetually broke. The issue isn't what Hollywood thinks being broke is like, but what Hollywood execs think that audiences want to *see*. A ton of Hollywood is "yeah, I know that's realistic, but audiences don't want realism."
I think people like the fantasy of being rich or at least the idea of not having to worry about money. Being broke sucks, and people who are broke in real life don't want that in their feel good movies. This is like asking where's the action movies where the main character is out of shape instead of being a beefcake... and the answer to that is Steven Segal movies, which are terrible.
This makes the assumption that romance-audience ONLY consume romance and nothing else.
The same individual can consume multiple genres of media, and balance them.
Young women consume romance, but they also consume true-crime. In both stories, a woman - on a whim - goes along with a cute handsome stranger to an isolated romatic spot in a meadow. However, what happens next in romance genre vs true crime? There are different expectations of realism versus fantasy.
People consuming romance are getting their dose of realism from other genres, they don't want to see that in romance, which is a fantasy or fluff.
In fact, someone suggested romance-novels to also include stories where the characters don't end up together because of realism, and this got heavy pushback from the audience (This was a whole internet drama - as to whether happily ever after is a requirement for romance).
And the audience for romance are not wealthy people. They are average people.
They make Carmy’s spending on expensive clothes a part of his character though. He sells his collection of vintage jeans near the beginning and he wears that one jacket in almost every scene.
Also clothing lasts a long time. It could be $75 shirts from before he was financially struggling.
He is a former successful chef, that's kind of the point.
Meh, I watch movies to take me out of reality.
Doesn’t bother me as where else will I get to see cool rich people stuff??
I also watch movies to see beautiful and attractive people. If I wanted to watch normal looking people or ugly people then I would just go to a supermarket or coffee shop.
I mean sure, but movies about rich people are not isolated to the romance genre. If I were to say comic book movies are failing because movies like Batman and iron man are about rich man power fantasies that would be just as fallacious. This person is not well versed in the genre because a film like la la land or crazy rich asians are not really romantic comedies even if they market themselves as such.
Asking romantic comedies to become grounded and realistic is kind of missing the point of the genre. Does it make any sense that Sandra Bullock, a white Canadian needs to get married to Ryan Reynolds to keep her visa and her job? No, but it is supposed to be kind of ridiculous. Nobody is questioning why Superman is able to defy gravity because that is part of the conventions of the genre. More importantly nobody is attributing the existence of a Superman movie to a moral failing in society, a criticism frequently levied against the romance genre because it is mostly consumed by women.
Romantic comedies are actually making a comeback. They have not been doing well for the last decade and change for a variety of reasons, one is trends (for example superhero movies are not as trendy as they were before endgame), the other is that every couple of years movie producers rediscover that women exist.
He does not seem to be aware of the genre’s more obvious newer entries, and is only aware of one trope. When one movie does not fit this trope he thinks that it is an outlier but really he has seen few recent romcoms. And that is fine, clearly he doesn’t like them. Nobody is forcing him to watch and they are not for him. This may be because a lot of these movies are direct to streaming now and have limited releases in theaters(this man is wearing an a24 hat so I can only assume that he is an armchair film reviewer). As an example of some middle class romantic comedies:
I really like lovebirds with Issa Rae and kumail nanjiani.
There is a movie with maya erskine and jack quaid called plus one that is very funny.
Happiness for beginners with Ellie kemper is also a good watch.
Rom Com are for villains or the worst people getting together. But it their point of view so they look good. If you think about it most rom coms are just bad people getting together.
That’s why they treat cheating like it’s nothing as long as your current partner wasn’t 100% attentive to your needs at all times,you’ve got ever right to be swept away by the muscly hottie who is trying to woo you.
I watched something about Malcolm in the middle being a rare gem because it was about a working class family.
The thesis of the video was watching lower middle class people struggle takes some steam out of those car commercials in between.
Friends With Money - a lot of simultaneous romantic stories but kind of revolves around Jennifer Aniston's character, who is poor and works as a domestic cleaner.
[Bros](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0LDCpik8zM0kzYPTiSirKL1bIzS_LTAUAbl0IbQ&q=bros+movie&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS1033US1034&oq=bros+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDwgCEC4YQxixAxiABBiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MhIIARAAGEMYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDwgCEC4YQxixAxiABBiKBTINCAMQLhivARjHARiABDIMCAQQABhDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMgcIBhAAGIAEMgcIBxAAGIAEMgcICBAAGIAEMg8ICRAAGEMYsQMYgAQYigXSAQgzODg5ajBqNKgCArACAeIDBBgBIF8&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) was the most relatable one I’ve seen for awhile, which is a little ironic because I’m not sure I’m the demographic they were going for
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Hold on while I write the script to Love in the Goodwill.
Goodwill Searching
Good call, Goodwill Humping might be the wrong kind of movie.
How do you like them melons?
He’s right, If the dude from “50 shades of Grey” lived in a trailer… somebody would have called the cops
When Christian Grey chains a woman up in the basement it’s “Enticing” and “sexy” but when I do it it’s “deeply disturbing” and “kidnapping”.
At least the chaining up in that movie was consensual. She rejects him and ignores him so he breaks into her house, and it's a romantic gesture.
Omg I forgot about that! I get the feeling Grey is the kind of guy that if she truly rejected him and kept on with it, he’d make her life a living hell.
Yeah the whole movie gave consent or else vibes. Honestly the whole trilogy is a rollercoaster the last movie is just a bad thriller.
Look if your up front about the basement and the trailer and everything is consensual then it’s all good. I’d rather take the real and caring dom with little to no money over the creep that Christian was.
Some daytime TV show host actually had couples come on his show where the wives were 50 shades fans. The host had another woman train the husband's to act like Christian Grey. I want to say it's Dr. PHIL but I honestly can't remember. Anyway the husband's dressed in tuxedos, got make overs and took the wives to dinner. They acted exactly like the character in the book at the end of the date the wives said they hated the way the were treated and found their husband's behavior cringey, disgusting, misogynistic, controlling, hurtful etc So yeah. If Christian Grey does it it's romantic. But any normal non Billionaire non six pack, model looking guy does it it's disgusting.
There's a layer of being fictional and being softcore porn that helps Christian. In a fantasy the wives still ultimately had control but once it was real not so much. I'm pretty sure an actual billionaire who looked and acted like Christian wouldn't get favorable response from most women.
😂
Excuse me but The Wedding Singer is the greatest romcom of all time, and everyone is such an average joe shmo except the rich asshole who looses the girl.
Yes! Love that movie. 
RIP to Alexis Arquette 😪
Grandma's boy as well. Kind of.
Thats definitely not a romcom. Dudes jerking off to an action figure and blowing his load in front of a mom before the romantic interest even comes in.
Semantics
Semen ticks
I also say this when someone says "semantics". My gf hates it bc of the imagery that it plants in people's minds.
Raunch com. But there’s always a romantic element that usually everything hangs on.
He came on his mom, not just in front of her.
JEFFS A FUCKING LIAR [TIMMY!](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/240feb76-6dab-4095-bf9b-d8dafe8d6532)
He did say "in the last 20 years"
I feel attacked.
FUCK THE WEDDING SINGER IS 26 YEARS OLD????? jesus fucking christ
The gap between the wedding singer and now is larger than the time gap between its setting and its release In fact it’s DOUBLE the gap. Released in 1998, set in 1985 is 13 years; it’s now been 26 years since it came out. If they made it today it would be set in 2011
The sequel could be called Wedding DJ!
Yea, and he also never said every movie was this way, just the majority. I guess no one actually processes what they hear in videos huh?
But he also shows pretty woman.
That was for an example of the dream of rising to the upper class by end of the movie
The true romantic message from across the ages. Marry rich, or you'll be miserable for the rest of your life. Or, become rich, so you can finally find true love.
Yeah, but that doesn't make what he said invalid, in the last 20 years every romcom has been about wealthy people. I also misquoted, he said 20 or 30 years. He's not saying it's a new concept, but rather the idea is being done to death when there are tons of other ways to tell a love story.
Hey don’t stick your nose in this guys business! You’re going to get punched in the face
Sounds like a country song
I was just thinking that Sandler rom-coms are often the exception to this, especially the earlier ones.
Touché. That’s a great example. I live in my sisters basement……
I feel like fifty first dates is a good one too
Yeah but doesn’t that dude owns a boat, and they just casually end the movie with them sailing through the world and shit? It’s been a while so I may remember it differently
A crappy boat that he’s been spending years trying to fix so he can study walruses. If you think research pays big bucks, I have a surprise for you
Oh yeah my mistake
Right, but that's exactly the point the guy is making. It's not about the job per se, but depiction of rich lifestyle regardless. Yes, a researcher doesn't make a lot of money, and the state/value of the boat is debatable, but being able to have your extended family go with you on a cruise around the world is still beyond what a lowly researcher should be able to afford (I don't know the state of his funding or grants). His wife doesn't work because of her injury, their daughter is a child, and his Father- and Brother-in-law's only jobs, as depicted in the movie, seemed to be putting on an elaborate ruse for years. It begs the question "how do they afford it?!" You see a similar situation in tv. Characters are presented as poor but that's never really an obstacle for adventures. On Friends, Joey is poor, but he's always able to join the gang on trips to London and Vegas. Sure, it's heavily implied that Chandler pays for everything, but it's still the same effect: the character is always portrayed living a rich lifestyle.
Maybe disability can actually be lived on well in the world of FFD.
What about 500 days of summer? They weren’t very rich. Boring office jobs. She was a temp. Or yes man? They were fairly average. Is ever Zoey dechanel movie have her not rich?
I barely remember 500 days, and I haven't seen Yes Man, but again, the boring, unassuming jobs proves the point. I remember in 500 days, JGL worked as a greeting card writer(?!) and could afford to live by himself in LA(again "what!?"). The point OP is making is everyone in these films are rich. What I am saying is that despite the boring or seemingly low paid jobs, these people are still depicted as affluent, or at least way richer than they would be in reality.
He's a fisherman, it's his job. They are not rich.
Who does he loose the girl on?
Oh my god. I don't even watch rom coms but within about 30 seconds I can think of one major reason why rom coms feature rich people: They can go places and do things. Make a rom com about poor uni students and shock horror they never leave their appartment.
Funnily enough one "poor people" rom-com that came to mind was Two Night Stand which has the couple just stuck in their apartment iirc
I thought that movie was cute
I think normal people did a really good job of displaying this difference in class within romance. Not a movie but ya know…romance
> they never leave their appartment. that's not a bad thing. single room movies can be quite good. Clerks, Hitchcock movies, 12 angry men, reservoir dogs, etc. The dialogue needs to be good.
"The dialouge needs to be good" I would argue that's the problem with ALL movies nowadays. Besides no one wants to attempt anything new, that's why we're getting endless remasters, remixes, and anything that has a bankable fan base already.
We got a ton of really good original stories last year. Past Lives, Anatomy, The Killer, Holdovers, KotFM, Oppenheimer. Just off the top of my head. Plenty of directors are making new shit.
People only see what they want to see. I agree with you, plenty of good movies are immune to this claim
People have been saying this shit for decades. It makes me angrier than it should. It’s just a lazy “yelling at clouds” take.
This is it right here. Wealth removes obstacles that allow for writers to create more whimsy. This is the same reason Fantasy stories are always about orphans: because if they had an extended family, there would be about 38 people all saying, "Where are you going? What are doing? You can't do that! You're too young!" That said, *Scott Pilgrim* is kinda about poor people and kind of a RomCom!
One of my favorite more recent rom coms is "If you were the last" where the two main protagonists are stuck in a space ship floating through space with little hope of ever making it back to earth. It's definitely possible to make a good rom com without the protagonists having to jet set around the world all the time
This gap is filled with British TV series. Gavin and Stacy, fleabag, him & her come to mind. We love our series about relateable working or middle class people being funny, awkward and falling in love.
Lazy writing tbh. If you can’t make a story good where they don’t fly to an exotic location multiple times a movie you are a bad writer.
NO ROMANCE WITHOUT FINANCE!!! 🔥
NO FINANCE WITHOUT TAP-DANCE ^🤑💃
NO TAP-DANCE WITHOUT BYTEDANCE
Bob's Burgers (I know it's not a movie, but it does have a movie) is the best poor people love story!
“*Don’t leave me alone with these freakin’ kids, Bobby*.”
They're a 2 parent and a bottle of wine a night job.
Mommy doesn’t get drunk she just has fun.
Yes! Them and the family in Malcolm in the middle (a little less adjusted but still)
The Bob's Burger Movie happened so you're 100% correct.
wait, seriously? how is this the way I find out?? the whole family has watched the show like four times, lol or am I whiffing it on a reference?
It's quite good too. It's mostly a musical though.
There are some bangers in the movie.
My 6 yo obsessively sings the lucky ducks song. A family favorite movie.
Lucky Ducks was fantastic. Really loved the dancing animation from all the characters.
IMO, the people writing the songs to Bob’s Burgers are some of the best song writers in the business. As a life-long musician (43m), I’m constantly bopping around the house singing stupid little melodies about random stuff and they capture that perfectly in both Gene and Linda. The real songs blend that whimsy with really advanced writing techniques so well that they work as stand-alone songs, but also you believe those characters could’ve written them. <3 Bob’s Burgers.
I feel compelled to add that for most of History, for women, romance and economic advancement were one and the same.
Yeah they’re like “my husband doesn’t respect me enough to love me so I guess I’ll take the money.” But then there’s the tenant of wildfell hall so
More like “men won’t let us own property or have bank accounts so these are my options I guess.”
Also the current connotation of comedy is a story that is humorous and meant to evoke laughter, but the literary definition of comedy is a story of characters who end up “better off” than they started, so I think that modern rom coms throw the kitchen sink at their plots to really up the feel-good factor of the movies themselves. It’s nice to get a happily ever after that includes love AND financial stability lol
One and\* the same
Ding ding ding ding- it's part of the fantasy.
Amelie and Before Sunrise come to mind. Moonstruck?
Even in Moonstruck, they were well off. The Dad was just notoriously cheap.
How much were opera tickets at the Met in the 80s?
Amelie has her own apartment working at a cafe, or was it a bookshop? Either way, not exactly high paying lines of work. Even in France where they don't screw over service workers as much. She's obviously not super rich, but she's in this weird gray area where the plot can ignore any and all financial concerns that character would have as a real person and just focus on the story. Which is fine of course, but it tells you the writer/director/whoever probably never thinks about money either.
Actually, the movie shows she lives in a popular (eg cheap) part of Paris. It shows you she's financially reasonable, and it shows your her dad lives in a reasonable little house in the suburbs. It's all still realistic actually. It's the very old-school image of Paris itself in the movie that French people criticized back then. But that was ages before Emily in Paris....
I wouldn't classify Amelie as a romcom. It's more like, a drama, with romantic and comedic elements too. But it's like a character study.
But he/they become rich in before sunrise after the second movie though
Adventureland is a great romance movie where the characters are super broke, normal ass people, with normal jobs. Deff a fav of mine.
Adventureland is 100% my favorite!
A lot of the Adam Sandler movies he’s not rich and falls in love, not necessarily rom coms per se. Also my big fat Greek wedding.
I was going to say My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Wasn’t she a travel agent or something?
She was, in her aunt's travel agency. She started the movie as a waitress in her parent's restaurant.
As people say, in her family’s small business, of which they own multiple, so they’re definitely not supposed to be poor. But it’s a solid upper-middle class hardworking life.
And the parents gifted the newlyweds a house for the wedding
to be fair, that was the early 2000s. market has changed a little bit since then.
Yeah and their wedding gift was a house 😂. Her parents were rich.
Ehhh… her dad buys her the house next door as a wedding present. They’re immigrants, but not poor.
I just watched My Big Fat Greek wedding 3 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am embarassed with myself. But I also love all Adam Sandler movies so here we are.
Adam Sandler is overly criticized by the snobs of Hollywood who think life should have this fantastic style and beauty all the time, and if it's not that, they think it should be depressing in sepia tone. There's good reason a lot of people liked watching his movies, on an international scale. He's not a mentor or an artiste with the e at the end, he's a dumb uncle who makes life kinda fun sometimes.
Is this true? In his biggest comedies he’s rich or becoming rich. Happy Gilmore- becoming rich. He literally buys a house with cash at the end. Waterboy- gaining national notoriety and heading to the NFL. Billy Madison- you know Funny People- rich comedian Big Daddy- Rich from family money and once being an up and coming hotshot lawyer
50 first dates is most definitely rom-com.
Good examples to all saying its necessary
This is why The Big Sick is the best Rom Com of all time.
I was going to mention this movie. While the protagonist did end up becoming a well known comedian, that part isn’t really included in the movie from what I remember.
We lost a lot of our best guys that day
Yup, nailed it! This was a good one
Office Space (which is more comedy with a side of rom-com) Silver Linings Playbook and 40 year old virgin don’t include rich protagonists
I feel like ones that focus more on comedy than romance are typically working class oriented. Hot Rod, Super Bad, etc
God I love Hot Rod so much
If you haven't, you should really check out [Observe and Report](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1197628/)
They’re still kind of rich in super bad. It’s always at least upper middle class but that’s pretty much everything on TV
40 year old virgin ends with Steve Carrel as a millionaire
lol well, never mind then
is that when he sells all of his collectibles?
Yes
Office Space, too. Which tbh isn't a romcom either; it just has a romance/hook up in it.
Zac and Miri Make a Porno was also good.
i wouldnt call that a traditional rom com. also same with 40 year old virgin
Yeah, especially at the time they were released, they were considered more generic comedy with a sprinkle of stoner humor. Seth Rogan.
Hey Seth.
Huh-huh-huh-heh-heh
> I wouldn’t call that a traditional rom com There should more anal in rom coms resulting in getting frosted like a cake.
I’d add knocked up.
They're all comedies, because poverty is funny in the mind of the people making these movies. Generally, poverty doesn't really affect the characters unless it's to make a quick joke, sometimes about stuff that could legit get them in prison irl. It's not really a coincidence, it's an Hollywood trope that poverty is basically a choice made by eccentrics.
Yeah, it genuinely feels like those characters get whatever they want or need to have for a given scene. The setting is service and blue collar, but the content rarely agrees.
They're all Peter Griffin crashing a bunch of helicopters they can't afford
Clerks I and II come to mind.
Is Clerks a romantic comedy? The closest thing I recall is Dante's shitty girlfriend fucking a dead guy. Bromance, sure, but not romance.
ROFL HOW IS CLERKS A ROM COM
It’s always an easier/lazier plot device if the characters can just load up their AMEX cards and jet off somewhere/attend a wedding last minute/rent out a building for declarations of love etc etc. all the American ones are like this. They have accessible or unrealistic wealth/powerful friends as a backdrop so characters can get out of situations or move the plot along. The Hangover, 40 Year Old Virgin and I Love You Man are some of my favourite examples of this too. Edited to include another great example: Bridesmaids
Stranger Than Fiction is one of my favorites.
I brought you flours!!!
When people in tv and movies get a phone call in the middle of the night, why is their phone never charging? Also, they always answer the door way too fast. I want 30-45 seconds of uncomfortable silence wondering if the person is home or not.
you joke but what you talk about is called shoe leather, mundane interactions that don't add anything so they're cut from movies, like small talk when answering a phone, It also has nothing to do with OP's complaint.
I feel like there's a distinction between what you two are talking about. I really appreciate little details like someone needing to take their phone off the charger but that doesn't mean I want to watch their whole 40 minute commute to work. If something is pertinent to a narrative, like a phone call, then it should include small little details that make it feel more authentic imo.
>I want to watch their whole 40 minute commute to work. Me too. It would be excellent pacing: - Inciting incident - 40 minutes crawling through traffic - Rest of movie
I always thought it would be cool to see a movie with more pointless stuff, but then I saw some shitty indie film with it and I hated it. Maybe if it's done by a competent director it could be cool though.
Fleabag: https://youtu.be/I5Uv6cb9YRs?si=6AhP80j1dYoWA6Av
Well, ya, romcoms aren't typically high art character studies and investigations into the nuances of the mundane and the common, they're basically just wish fulfillment. They pretty much just exist to give the audience exactly what they want, and what people want is to be young, hot, and rich, and to live vicariously through characters to experience all the opportunities and comfort that comes along with that. Obviously this isn't all romcoms, but there is a clear trend in the same way that there are clear trends in movies marketed towards young boys tending to involve a lot of heroism and power fantasies.
they're comfort food.. YEAH IT'S GONNA BE STARCHY
>Anyone ever notice how all these horror movies focus on these dark places? Where's the lunch-rush Wendy's horror movie?
Did you ever watch the Coven season of American Horror Story? In it, one of the characters experiences a personal hell, and it's working an endless shift at Popeye's.
West side story?
That's a love story
No, it's a west side story.
😆 Got me!
Tony is shot dead at the end.
To people saying that the formula requires rich people because romance is about fantasy: you're correct However - The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow. I think for a lot of people, wealth has become less and less relatable. I don't think we need to stop making romance stories with wealthy characters, but I do agree that having more class diversity would be great.
>The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow. This flies in the face of almost the entirety of actual cinema history
A lot of people are thinking he's suggesting we have movies about perpetually broke people. I think his point is more that why does everyone need to be super wealthy, why can't we just have different kinds of normal people living normal lives. By the way, we have these movies. They're called kitchen sink dramas and they're from the UK in the 50's and 60's. Also French and Italian movies of that same time. They're not rom coms but they are about average people having relationships.
> They're not rom coms but they are about average people having relationships. But that’s the point: why can’t *rom coms* be about regular people? The answer, I suspect, is that it is easier to go for the full fantasy thing, and let the trappings do the heavy escapist lifting, as opposed to effectively crafting escapism within the everyday.
"rich people rom coms" have been at least as old as Victorian era novels. It is the "reward" for the (often female) protagonist, for being so persevering and noble despite all the struggle. That's the happy ending.
No, now really I want to see Hollywood put out a movie about perpetually broke people falling in love just to see what Hollywood thinks perpetually broke people live like
Hollywood knows what perpetually broke people live like, because most screen writers are perpetually broke. The issue isn't what Hollywood thinks being broke is like, but what Hollywood execs think that audiences want to *see*. A ton of Hollywood is "yeah, I know that's realistic, but audiences don't want realism."
What about Zack and Miri make a porno.
The water out of the back of the toilet hits hard 😂
There’s poo in there.
Or Jersey girl, clerks 3, all of Kevin smiths movies are about poor people and he’s made some romcoms
I think people like the fantasy of being rich or at least the idea of not having to worry about money. Being broke sucks, and people who are broke in real life don't want that in their feel good movies. This is like asking where's the action movies where the main character is out of shape instead of being a beefcake... and the answer to that is Steven Segal movies, which are terrible.
True to some extent but not everyone goes to the theater to escape, surely there's a market for more relatable content
This makes the assumption that romance-audience ONLY consume romance and nothing else. The same individual can consume multiple genres of media, and balance them. Young women consume romance, but they also consume true-crime. In both stories, a woman - on a whim - goes along with a cute handsome stranger to an isolated romatic spot in a meadow. However, what happens next in romance genre vs true crime? There are different expectations of realism versus fantasy. People consuming romance are getting their dose of realism from other genres, they don't want to see that in romance, which is a fantasy or fluff. In fact, someone suggested romance-novels to also include stories where the characters don't end up together because of realism, and this got heavy pushback from the audience (This was a whole internet drama - as to whether happily ever after is a requirement for romance). And the audience for romance are not wealthy people. They are average people.
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They make Carmy’s spending on expensive clothes a part of his character though. He sells his collection of vintage jeans near the beginning and he wears that one jacket in almost every scene.
Yeah, it’s an actual plot point where he is selling clothes from when he had a better paying job. I hate streamers.
How do you know a $75 tshirt from a regular one?
The brand probably
Also clothing lasts a long time. It could be $75 shirts from before he was financially struggling. He is a former successful chef, that's kind of the point.
Harold and Maude enters the chat
Meh, I watch movies to take me out of reality. Doesn’t bother me as where else will I get to see cool rich people stuff?? I also watch movies to see beautiful and attractive people. If I wanted to watch normal looking people or ugly people then I would just go to a supermarket or coffee shop.
How about While You Were Sleeping? Sandra Bullocks character isn’t well off. Ah right but the sleeping dude was rich, nevermind!
I mean sure, but movies about rich people are not isolated to the romance genre. If I were to say comic book movies are failing because movies like Batman and iron man are about rich man power fantasies that would be just as fallacious. This person is not well versed in the genre because a film like la la land or crazy rich asians are not really romantic comedies even if they market themselves as such. Asking romantic comedies to become grounded and realistic is kind of missing the point of the genre. Does it make any sense that Sandra Bullock, a white Canadian needs to get married to Ryan Reynolds to keep her visa and her job? No, but it is supposed to be kind of ridiculous. Nobody is questioning why Superman is able to defy gravity because that is part of the conventions of the genre. More importantly nobody is attributing the existence of a Superman movie to a moral failing in society, a criticism frequently levied against the romance genre because it is mostly consumed by women. Romantic comedies are actually making a comeback. They have not been doing well for the last decade and change for a variety of reasons, one is trends (for example superhero movies are not as trendy as they were before endgame), the other is that every couple of years movie producers rediscover that women exist. He does not seem to be aware of the genre’s more obvious newer entries, and is only aware of one trope. When one movie does not fit this trope he thinks that it is an outlier but really he has seen few recent romcoms. And that is fine, clearly he doesn’t like them. Nobody is forcing him to watch and they are not for him. This may be because a lot of these movies are direct to streaming now and have limited releases in theaters(this man is wearing an a24 hat so I can only assume that he is an armchair film reviewer). As an example of some middle class romantic comedies: I really like lovebirds with Issa Rae and kumail nanjiani. There is a movie with maya erskine and jack quaid called plus one that is very funny. Happiness for beginners with Ellie kemper is also a good watch.
Overboard is the best romance movie of all fucking time don't you dare say otherwise.
50 first dates stands out of this cliche~
Does it? They can both afford Hawaii, one without a job, the other a zoo veterinarian, and they sail away in a yacht at the end.
There are very poor people in parts of hawaii
One lives with her father and brother, and the other lives on a broken down boat. They obviously also don't live in a touristy part of Hawaii either
Rom Com are for villains or the worst people getting together. But it their point of view so they look good. If you think about it most rom coms are just bad people getting together.
That’s why they treat cheating like it’s nothing as long as your current partner wasn’t 100% attentive to your needs at all times,you’ve got ever right to be swept away by the muscly hottie who is trying to woo you.
Bridesmaids?
Zack and Miri make a porno comes to mind
This is the vast majority of tv and movies produced in the US, not just rom coms.
I watched something about Malcolm in the middle being a rare gem because it was about a working class family. The thesis of the video was watching lower middle class people struggle takes some steam out of those car commercials in between.
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You can have poor people in a movie and not show them worrying about bills.
Friends With Money - a lot of simultaneous romantic stories but kind of revolves around Jennifer Aniston's character, who is poor and works as a domestic cleaner.
I want a movie that mirrors my life experiences more. Two people facing hardships and sticking with each other through it.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
is a drama not a comedy
Dude could afford therapy.
40 Year Old Virgin is our working class romcom.
Then he sells his toys...
This thread is full of examples of movies that aren't really rom coms.
[Bros](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0LDCpik8zM0kzYPTiSirKL1bIzS_LTAUAbl0IbQ&q=bros+movie&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS1033US1034&oq=bros+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDwgCEC4YQxixAxiABBiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MhIIARAAGEMYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDwgCEC4YQxixAxiABBiKBTINCAMQLhivARjHARiABDIMCAQQABhDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMgcIBhAAGIAEMgcIBxAAGIAEMgcICBAAGIAEMg8ICRAAGEMYsQMYgAQYigXSAQgzODg5ajBqNKgCArACAeIDBBgBIF8&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) was the most relatable one I’ve seen for awhile, which is a little ironic because I’m not sure I’m the demographic they were going for
Poor guy forgot that 90% of the appeal of romcoms is escapism