Romance is one of the most popular movie genres, amassing over 60% of the views on Netflix. Many romantic comedies or rom-coms these days tend to be adaptations from bestseller novels and appeal mostly to younger, more impressionable women.
And therein lies the issue. There are a bunch of ideals that rom-coms spread that are problematic. At best, they are stupid and at worst, downright harmful. Today we are going to be tackling some of these issues.
1. They are unrealistic
Romantic movies more often than not tell stories that could never happen in real life. They create unrealistic expectations that will definitely end in tears. Even if it is fiction, you would have to be a child to believe in things like love at first sight or happily-ever-after.
This is not to say that it does not happen in real life. But also in real life, people get infatuated, fall out of love, end up hating each other and so on. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment by watching “The Notebook” over and over.
And it’s not just the storyline. Women in rom-coms get out of bed already made up, live in apartments their jobs cannot afford, and stay looking perfectly suited to the male gaze for the 100-minute run-time of the movie. Yeah right!
2. They glorify toxic relationships
There are too many romcoms where one or both of the partners are abusive or weird. Most times, it’s the guy. The story usually starts with the guy being a player or a total asshole. He meets the girl and after some time, she “changes” him.
And young girls watching this are told over and over that they can change a person or save them from their toxicity with their love or their bodies. Not only is this crazy; but this idea makes them stay in relationships that are bad for them because of the indoctrinated saviour complex.
3. Grand romantic gestures don’t make up for hurting someone
We’ve seen this trope a million times before. The man does something bad. Maybe he lies or cheats or both. Maybe he’s just avoidant or an all-round shitty person. Then when the woman leaves him, he tries to get her back by doing any of the following.
Maybe he runs through an airport last minute to confess his love for her. Maybe he brings her favourite band to perform or clutters her house with a thousand unwanted roses. Either way, she falls like a mumu and they live happily ever after.
First of all, doing something huge to cover up wrongdoing and earn forgiveness is manipulative. What is important is the commitment to change, not the number of flowers.
Secondly, try and stop someone from catching a plane in Lagos. With the traffic and the high cost of airline tickets, it will definitely end in tears.
4. They normalize abusers and creeps
Tying back to rom-coms glorifying toxic relationships, they take the extra step of normalizing abuse. When particular behaviours are considered normal or passionate on-screen, it sends the wrong message to young people.
Girls actually start to believe that a boy stalking them or being extremely jealous or possessive is okay and even cute. If a guy sneaks into a girl’s house or does something creepy, no one makes a big deal out of it in a movie.
That way, they don’t see abusive indications as red flags until it might be too late.
5. Terrible storylines
On a much lighter note, if you take a step back from the sentiments, you start to see that the storylines of a lot of romcoms either don’t add up or are just straight-up stupid.
Romcoms are usually formulaic, using story tropes that have been recycled for generations because it creates the same brain-numbing effect.
The dangerous bad boy is attracted to the shy girl that doesn’t know she’s hot. The heartbroken girl realizes that what she has been looking for has been right in front of her the whole time.
Don’t sell yourself short to movie writers that don’t rate you or your intelligence. Watch something else.
Rom-coms like these are not only harmful to girls. They are harmful to boys as well. If you believe that no matter what happens, you’ll get the girl in the end, you’ll see no need to stop behaving badly.
Hopefully, a time will come where streaming sites will be more populated with stories that reflect real life and help young people see the world for how it truly is.