In defense of the romantic comedy

Romantic comedies have been around for so long, its rich history traced to one of the so-called first ever romantic screwball comedy helmed by Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

Titled It Happened One Night, a socialite finds herself falling in love with an unscrupulous reporter. Granted, the two actors loathed each other in real life, but in the world director Frank Capra built, they were head over heels for each other, as situations led them from being poles apart to getting pulled together happily ever after.

Josh Groban put it so aptly in romantic comedy musical Crazy Ex Girlfriend, as he sang to a devastated Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) after she finds herself doing the Walk of Shame. She slept with her ex-boyfriend’s dad–- a reversed The Graduate in play, wherein Mrs Robinson was Mr Serrano, and she was Benjamin Braddock at a low point somewhere – and while she walked with tear stained eyes down the dark road, he trills, “Life is a gradual series of revelations that occur over a period of time. Some things might happen that seem connected, but there’s not always a reason or rhyme.” But even as these characters like Rebecca Bunch break the fourth wall to explain otherwise, the romantic comedy has always defied that thesis time and time again, to societal acceptance at its best and worst. 

Why are romantic comedies so great, you may ask. Why not just get off to the sound of explosions from towers or Spiderman swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper as he comes to save the day? Believe you me, romantic comedies have had its share of complicated plots, but at the end of it all, the reason why sappy or non-sappy romance stories take the cake is because they give sneak peeks to the throes of love, a truth that is universally acknowledged, though denied many, many times. 

“There is the dream of someone else,” quips Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) as she dreamily stares off into space mid-conversation with her ex-boyfriend in You’ve Got Mail. The romantic comedies sell some sort of fantasy that we all have (admit it or not), that somehow we would want to be swept away by the idea of love at some point in our lives, and that one day we’d find our fingers interlaced with someone who somehow fits the bill.

Be it blue eyes, blond hair, raven hair, a French accent, a British accent, or whatever dream characteristic we think up, romantic comedies are the best friend we’ve always had to help draw names of forever in the sand. 

But even more than the dream, romantic comedies carry a difficult task from the moment an idea is pitched. While action movies have the thrill of the chase, the explosive effects that have you on the edge of your seats, most (if not all) romantic comedies come with characters, a plot and chemistry. Those 3 aspects must all be there to be an effective romantic comedy, and even then, the highest rating ones still get sold off because of high subjectivity bias. Romantic comedies are thought to be shallow, no-brainer, escapist trash that deserve no spot in the great movies of today (and even the list of yesteryears). But do you know how complicated these stories can get? 

The meet-cute

Every romantic comedy is defined by its meet cute, or as defined by The Holiday’s retired filmmaker Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach), “It’s how two characters meet in a movie. Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in, and they both go to the same men’s pajama department. And the man says to the salesman, ‘I just need bottoms.’ The woman says, ‘I just need a top.’ They look at each other, and that’s the meet-cute,” he says.’” The romantic comedy is also made or broken by the meet cute, and if the beginning doesn’t start out right, one may as well forget watching the rest of the film. 

Why? The meet cute paves the way for the chemistry of two characters to shine. It’s clearly evident in Serendipity when Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) and Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) meet when they choose the same black pair of cashmere gloves or when Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) almost runs Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) over with her car in To All The Boys I Loved Before. Romantic comedies are a constant chemistry final, and each one is just waiting for that passing mark. 

Think chemistry is easy to come by? Actors have to take a chemistry test to see if they fit with each other. Chemistry is that essential ingredient that makes the film work and could be the saving grace if the meet cute isn’t cute at all.

It’s seen when Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian dance away their annoyance at each other in La La Land – that spark and knowing that something rich is about to unfold, and your hands are tingling endlessly, yearning for those two characters to just kiss already! But alas pre-plotted destiny comes to play. Destiny is difficult if one has to define it and sometimes that decision doesn’t even please the audience, so these films are usually written off as “unrealistic.”

Escapism

Romantic comedies should have the right to be unrealistic to a fault, because it is the kind of escapism that people (myself included) crave. Is it so terrible to dream of an alternative life where you’re walking down the streets of Paris wishing that cute chef who happens to be your neighbor can bang too on your door anytime? Or kissing your long-lost lover under the rain and ending up writing letters to her in a notebook? No it isn’t, and we should have those. We should be allowed to have nice things. 

On top of that, how do you establish sexual tension without immediately resorting to sex? The effectivity of such stories comes when the two characters are ironically not yet together, and are still pining from afar. Take notes from K-Dramas, they can do wholesome, starry-eyed romance for 16 episodes without an invitation to bed. Intimacy comes in so many forms than just copulating – it’s in remembering the little things like how Captain Ri remembers Se Ri’s scented candle in Crash Landing On You, or Mr Darcy’s outstretched hand seconds after touching Elizabeth Bennett’s hand in Pride and Prejudice? Who can forget Miggy Montenegro and Laida Magtalas being trapped in a closed pantry in their office in A Very Special Love? 

Believe it or not, romantic comedies have a sliver of truth within them, and these stories are mostly inspired by real-life experiences peppered and dashed with clearly defined magic, of course. These stories provide an endless trove of journeys on the way to one ending, the ending of love. However they get there (or miss it) is up to the storyteller. 

Romantic comedies are so dependent on effective storytelling and are sadly subjected to the highest of criticisms, mainly because most are assumed to be low-grade cliches.

But I will never stop talking about romantic comedies, because I can never stop talking about love, and you shouldn’t too.  – Rappler.com