In 2018, this beloved genre of ours came back after a few years in the wilderness. Clearly the romantic comedy had to "die" in order to be reborn, i.e. to shed some conventional cliches, stereotypical gender tropes, and un-woke wish fulfillment fantasies in order to catch up with where we are as a culture and a society today.
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, speaking in a Swedish master-class a few years ago, had this to say about the dangers of (old school) romantic comedy:
“It sets up unreal expectations, which I think you then project onto your partner and it destroys the possibility of an actual conversation between people."
Conversely his approach to writing a love story involves a conscious pursuit of reality:
"If you do something that is truthful, truthful in the subjective personal sense, not in any kind of larger sense, maybe someone else in the world can hold on to it and not feel like they’re a complete freak for not living in this 'Romantic Comedy world.'”
Romantic comedy at its best is an intimate, inspirational conversation that the culture has about how we're loving each other in this time and place (and what there is to laugh at, in all that). In thinking about we want from the genre now, I'm reminded of a quote from Virginia Woolf that seems all the more relevant, as we forge a path through what's been an overwhelming barrage of dishonesty and deception polluting the atmosphere:
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
What are the truths that only you know about you? What are you willing to reveal about how you feel about love and relationship and trying to live more compassionately, on the cusp of this new year? If romantic comedy's going to thrive and evolve, these are the truths it needs to articulate. That's what I'm focusing on as I begin to write today, wishing you the best of inspiration, process, and fruition in the days ahead.
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