(B)rom Coms

Hitch

They Came Together

Howdy, my happy-go-lucky readers. Romance and pollen must be in the air, because this week I wanted to lighten things up with a round of romantic comedies. Considering the state of the world and the mess of the movie system at this moment, conjuring up feelings of romance has never been harder. And the wealth of zeitgeist-making romantic comedies I grew up with feels lightyears away. I’m not sure when, exactly, the death of the rom-com occurred, if it was a sudden disappearance or a gradual, rigid division between strictly sexy and strictly not-sexy media, but somewhere along the way we lost our desire (or our ability) to tell stories that could make us swoon and laugh. I was lucky enough to experience what I would call the Golden Age of Rom Coms, that were heavy on the com, with just enough rom to make your heart flutter. I was raised on the writings of Amy Heckerling (Clueless, Vamps), Karen McCullah (10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, Ella Enchanted, The House Bunny, She's the Man), Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan (Can’t Hardly Wait and Josie and the Pussycats), and several one-off, untouchably good movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Easy A, What’s Your Number?, Austenland, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, For a Good Time, Call…, Waitress—films that were often intentionally centered upon women and their dreams. These were aspirational, lighthearted, funny, and often the twist was how secretly clever and wise these films were. They molded me into the hopefully-funny, relentlessly-optimistic yet still somehow-cynical person that I am now, they gave me an appetite for films where a love interest isn’t the heroine’s primary focus, but just a lovely cherry on top. A phenomenon I find quite interesting, and a bit funny, but still valid, are romantic comedies for men. I don’t believe this subgenre is often discussed or even recognized, but given the plethora of romantic comedies we used to have at our fingertips, it only makes sense that some of these would be made for men—either intentionally or completely by accident. And while I hate to discuss films within such a stifling gender binary, and I try to not feed into stereotypes and outdated ways of thinking, these unfortunately are the parameters by which human beings have been categorized by the suits who market movies as products for certain demographics. For the purposes of this highly specific theme, I may use the term “romantic comedy” loosely, but I can frame basically any movie into a rom com format if I try hard enough (and sometimes I don't even have to try that hard.) Good Will Hunting, for example, is an aspirational rom com focused upon men, where the macho man and the smart guy archetypes are one. The same could be said for any Oceans iteration or Out of Sight, where you get the crime and you get the gal. Films like Heat, The Departed, and The Outsiders highlight the male plight for acceptance and community, and the complex relationship dynamics that may exist within them. There are mumblecore films where the aloof male weirdo gets to triumph and find love, as displayed in Greenberg, Garden State, and All the Real Girls. There are vaguely romantic films designed for men, that, due to their depth, humor, and sex appeal, are also sneakily for women, such as: Bull Durham, Red Rocket,‍ ‍Wild Things, y tu mama tambien, Slap Shot, Sorority Boys, The Sure Thing, and The Girl Next Door. Then there are vaguely romantic films designed for women that are also sneakily for men, such as: Love & Basketball, When Harry Met Sally, 80 For Brady, Plan B, The Holiday, and Barbie. I believe that there are also romantic films purely made with women in mind, that very few men would probably choose to watch on their own, like: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Moonstruck, The Owl and the Pussycat, and The Watermelon Woman (but sound off in the comments if I’m wrong, dudes!) And of course, there are romances made for nobody at all, like: Valley Girl, Romeo Must Die, In the Cut, The Duff, and Somethings Gotta Give. Of course, all of these films can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of how they identify, but I believe this was not necessarily by the design of their creators. What I’m focused on tonight is a subgenre of the rom com that I call the (b)rom com. These are romantic films that seem to be made for women, but are in actuality made for bros/men, such as: She’s All That, Love Actually, and tonight’s first film.

This is the sort of cinematic box that can really only be sorted into after you have watched and analyzed a film, so I had to think back to my childhood, when plenty of films marketed themselves as “for anyone who’s ever been in love”, when in reality, they’re for men who may or may not have been in love. The 2005 film Hitch may be the best example of this somewhat convoluted concept I’ve presented, because it is by men, for men, but within the romantic comedy framework (undeniably a “woman’s world”.) Directed by Andy Tennant (who also directed iconic rom coms Sweet Home Alabama and Ever After) and written by Kevin Bisch (who never wrote anything else…) Hitch has all of the conventions and benchmarks of cliché romantic comedy, while also attempting to denounce them. I remember watching this movie as a child and enjoying it. But I also recall thinking to myself, even at 10 years old, that, as a girl, I was not the audience for this film. Hitch follows Alex “Hitch” Hitchens (Will Smith), a professional “date doctor” who prides himself in his ability to give insecure men the confidence they need to gain the women of their dreams. As Hitch describes the “basic principals” of dating women—“60% of all human communication is non-verbal, a beautiful woman doesn’t even know what she wants until she sees it, she may not want the whole truth but she does want the real you, she may not wanna see it all at once but she does wanna see it” (concepts that, dare I say, everyone may relate to?)—we are shown a smattering of NYC’s most pathetic incels, aka Hitch’s clients. They all pine after women in their orbit, but can’t work up the courage to approach them until they have a coaching session from Hitch, who either orchestrates intricate meet-cutes for them, or simply gives them the advice of “don’t look at her mouth, don’t imagine her naked, listen to what she’s saying and then respond.” We then cut to Hitch’s foil and cross-armed love interest, Sara Melas (Eva Mendes) a confident and always-on-the-go gossip columnist who is clad in a Beatles t-shirt and a blazer, and says “god, I hate it when I’m right” as she “consoles” a friend over a recent breakup. Sara is perhaps the most clichéd character in this entire clichéd movie, as she utters “have that on my desk in an hour” and “I don’t have time for a boyfriend” within the first two minutes of knowing her. With a heavy hand Sara is established as critical, cynical, but still pleasant, and it’s only a matter of time before her self-assured realism and Hitch’s self-assured optimism collide. Hitch is a film with female characters in the mix, but it is primarily interested in the male characters, and their messy paths to finding love. It operates in black and white, bests and worsts, with very little room for nuance or grey areas within a topic that is full of grey areas. This film is seemingly operating in defense of the average, awkward, geeky man, but it makes no attempt to humanize them or give them any dignity—a realization I had as I witnessed Hitch’s greatest challenge, Albert Brennaman (Kevin James), dancing obnoxiously and prat-falling every time he’s on screen. To its credit, this movie points out a few salient truths between its male-fantasy-world-building, as when Hitch witnesses a man trying and failing to hit on Sara, to which he then remarks, “It’s hard enough for a guy to approach a woman like you out of the blue, but should that be your problem?” But then it dives back into predictable rom com truisms, when, three seconds later, Hitch tells Sara she’s sending all the right signals to be left alone by men, “No earrings, heels under 2 inches, hair pulled back, reading glasses but no book, and if all of that doesn’t work, there's always the “fuck off” you got stamped on your forehead.” This movie wants desperately to not be like other rom coms, while leaning on classic rom com tropes like grand romantic gestures and misunderstandings that lead to the all-is-lost moment that inevitably leads to the grand romantic gesture that helps the love interests get back together. I don’t blame Hitch for trying to be different, but I don’t know how much effort was actually put into standing out. For all of its well-intentioned attempts to be unique, the generic and rushed end result of this movie can best be summed up by a moment when Sara’s bestie asks why she wishes to go on another date with Hitch after he failed miserably on their first date: Sara just sighs and retorts, “Yeah, but he did it with flair.” (Which is RIDE Heritage, iykyk.) In other words, yes, Hitch is lame and uninspiring and highly, highly predictable, but kudos to these filmmakers, I suppose, for at least trying to do something different. (Even though nothing was actually done differently, at all.)

One rom com that actually succeeded at doing something different is tonight’s next film, a film that doesn’t really fit my theme of rom-com-accidentally-made-for-men, but perhaps fits the theme of rom-com-for-nobody—at least when it was first released and met with harsh criticism—this is David Wain’s 2014 satirical rom com They Came Together. I feel the need to underscore just how abysmally this film performed at the box office, and how hateful critics but especially audiences were toward this film (it has an audience score of 40%), because I feel that this movie would have a much different impact today. They Came Together operates with the same kind of absurd humor of a Naked Gun or Airplane movie, and merely seeks to showcase and slightly exaggerate the stereotypes and gimmicks of a romantic comedy. It is so ridiculous, so over-the-top silly, so bewilderingly funny, that detailing too much of the plot for you would go against the entire point of this film, but I will tell you the basic premise. They Came Together introduces us to a couple, Joel and Molly (Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler), who are on a double date with some friends, Kyle and Karen (Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper), who request to hear the story of how Joel and Molly met and fell in love. Thus begins the wild, weird tale of these two lovers, complete with every single staple of rom coms you could imagine. Enemies-to-lovers, will-they-won’t-they, the corporate job drama, the knowing glances, the clumsy-but-lovable lead (see above), the sarcastic smartasses that rival the hopeful protagonists, the cheesy sitcom dialogue, the violent make out sessions that break every prop in the vicinity, the breaking up and getting back together, the monologues and montages and ridiculous costumes and having to stop the wedding and having to stop them before they get on that flight—every moment is a gag and every line is a joke, you hardly have a moment to catch your breath between bits… but I live for this shit. Multiple times throughout the movie it is explained how New York City is practically another character in this classically-cheesy-rom-com story, multiple times we witness characters delivering the classically clunky line of, “Hey so-and-so? …thanks.” There is truly no rom-com-stone left unturned, and no iconic comedic actor left uncast in this. They Came Together stars *deep breath* Christopher Meloni, Max Greenfield, Cobie Smulders, Jason Mantzoukas, Melanie Lynskey, Ed Helms, Michael Ian Black, Michaela Watkins, Randall Park, Teyonah Paris, Jack McBrayer, Kenan Thompson, Ken Marino, Erinn Hayes, Michael Shannon, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Noureen DeWulf, Adam Scott, John Stamos, AND Judge Judy. After watching They Came Together, I’m still quite perplexed as to why this movie didn’t work for so many people. I mean, yes, much like one’s taste in a romantic partner, one’s sense of humor is completely subjective and amorphous and ever-evolving. Some people don’t like dumb jokes, ludicrous premises, or anything satirical. I am not one of these people, because after a long day of being far-too-aware of our oft-terrifying reality, I sometimes like to lose myself in something totally unbelievable, something so stupidly funny that you can’t help forgetting your worries. Straight-up, non-meditative, non-allegorical rom-coms are hard to come by these days, and They Came Together was created in a time when we were surrounded by sincere romantic comedies, so maybe people became too jaded by the genre to even be able to make fun of it? I don’t know. Though I found very little—positive or negative—written about this film, I’d like to quote a blogpost I found in defense of this film, which I think pretty accurately sums up the issue:

“The culprit seems to be that most critics don’t try and understand comedies like they do dramas. It doesn’t occur to them that maybe the reason they’re not laughing isn’t because the jokes aren’t funny, but because they don’t get them. These hypocrites don’t see their own sense of humor as a brain muscle in need of toning, whereas they’ll spend their whole lives consciously strengthening their understanding of ‘mise en scéne’ or ‘auteurship’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘dialectics’ or ‘semiotics’ or whatever.”

I have to agree with this, and add that people who are insecure about their intelligence and/or taste level often refuse to interact with anything perceived as dumb or low brow, at the risk of not being taken seriously, themselves. That’s my kind way of saying that dumb people avoid dumb humor, because they think laughing at The Big Bang Theory makes them smart. I’m not saying I’m smart because I had a blast watching They Came Together, but I am saying that I have a more evolved sense of humor than people who roll their eyes at a fart joke. Plus, Paul Rudd’s hair maybe looks the best it ever has in this movie, which is really saying something. Regardless of your gender or your comedic sensibilities, I think both of these movies would be hilarious to experience back-to-back—to watch a film that thinks it’s self-aware, then watch a film that is actually self-aware. Not that you should necessarily take my word for it; I consider The Fly‍ ‍to be a rom com, but I digress. Thanks for hearing me out for another complex, niche, hyper-specific, and potentially-chaotic double feature premise, my dear, sweet, romantic readers. I’m just a girl, standing in front of a reader, hoping you come back next week. Toodles!