Rom-Com Unrealities, Redux

In the wake of this past year's "the genre is dead!" trope making the media rounds, we now have some statistics - actual facts and figures - to support the "why" of it all. Due to the enterprising efforts of the folks at Trivia Happy, you can see at glance some of the more blatant reasons for why the fantasy realm of the prototypical romantic comedy has lost some traction with the general public.

Might it be due in part to the fact that in mainstream formulaic rom-coms of the past two decades, the protagonists tended to be bakers and architects, as opposed to whatever the hell else it is that the rest of us more pedestrian humans do for a living? Or that the denizens of such movies lived exclusively in New York City or Los Angeles?

Perhaps. A quick perusal of the above chart - and Trivia Happy's more in-depth report, filled with data - reveals just how quirkily idiosyncratic, i.e. reality-challenged the world of such movies has been.

Meanwhile, friend-of-the-blog Robert Payne has sent me a pithy analysis of What Else is Totally Exasperating About the Traditional Formulaic Rom-Com, in the form of a brief amusing video from the people at Cracked: Why Romantic Comedies Are Secretly Bad For You. I'd say the secret is out, but anyway, this is a surprisingly astute presentation of the things that have been driving me crazy - and perhaps annoying you - about the once-popular subset of "romantic comedy" that I call the Career Girl Gets Alpha Guy movie.

Such CGGAG pics (clips from them pepper the Cracked video) have seen their day. Studios aren't making them so readily, because we've stopped going to see them. And the upside is, the larger romantic comedy genre, which despite exaggerated reports of its demise is still with us, will have to evolve to to survive.

 

Comments

[Sue Hepworth]

Looks like I am on the money, then, with a couple who don't even live in the US, but in the (UK) Derbyshire Peak District, fifty-something pensioners, with the woman being a volunteer welfare benefits advisor and the guy having undiagnosed Asperger syndrome. My time has come!

[mernitman]

Sue: Totally. You ARE the future...