My wife has been on a rom-com binge over the last year or so and something I’ve noticed when I’m vaguely paying attention or walking past is that almost every single rom-com features people who are, at the very least, middle to upper-middle class. These characters all live in gigantic houses/apartments, have beautifully sparkling brand-new cars, take month-long vacations to their beachfront properties… it’s just so unrealistic and out of line with the life that the vast majority of us lead.
I understand some concepts - large rooms are easier to film in, rich people own nice things that set a beautiful scene, it’s not interesting to discuss financial issues all the time etc. but this seems (from my anecdotal perspective) to almost be a rule of the genre.
Some more food for thought:
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a867107/rom-coms-diversity-wealth-income/
I’d say a good-sized part of it is simply the American preference for watching beautiful, weathly people doing beautiful, wealthy people things. Hollywood rom-coms and US TV shows in general clearly skew towards upper middle class settings when compared to the equivalents from, say, the UK.
In other words, I reckon US media prefer their fictional characters to be aspirational whereas other cultures prefer theirs to be relatable.
Even our “relatable” characters never deal with housing insecurity, and their cars may have rust and dents but they’re reliable.
Yeah, the whole observation needed the adjective American.
Long so I noticed US soaps we’re all wealthy people being miserable, while British soaps were all working class people being miserable, but Australian soaps were all working-class people being happy (after resolving some minor difficult situation).
I was complaining about this on [email protected]
About 10% of pop culture stories, maybe more, are about billionaires. Are 10% of people billionaires?
And even in a medieval fantasy settings, it’s about gold-decked kings: the billionaires of the setting.
It’s to perpetuate a class bias.
I mean, if the bias was based on skin-colour or sex, would you feel differently about it?
I think of it as being similar to the fantasy genre - which often has things like oarks, trolls, etc. Billionaires are the oarks of romcoms. 😉
Do you really think a guy that breaks his back all day in a construction site has time or energy to be romantic or chase girls? Is actually very realistic these rich fucks are the only ones who manage to get some romantic company and very creative lives
Idk, the romance in Rocky is believable. Not a romcom, i know, but it’s romance. The creative bankrupt is really the issue with writers these day.
Not really. Good movie but it’s a huge fantasy. Very idealized working class idea, rocky is a brute creep that somehow gets the “ugly” Hollywood girl and somehow almost becomes world champion. For me is as fantastic as 50 shades of grey but thankfully way less cringe
Maybe not real for you, but from my perspective it’s believable. I myself are a blue collar working 6 days a week and with paid of the lower income group, still get the time to date someone for two years few years back. Sure, it doesn’t worked out, but it happened. I can see the same with other blue collar i know.
Also, i feels like the problem here is you focus on how they looks rather than focused on who they are. Rocky is a debt collector that’s friend with Paulie, and Adrian work as a store keeper for a pet shop. Not sure how’s that “idealised” working class.
Rom-coms are aspirational fantasies. They’re modern-day fairy tales of getting swept off your feet by a handsome prince and living happily ever after, never wanting for anything ever again. Material comfort is always a factor in these stories. If it’s not overt, as in Pride and Prejudice where the main character betters their station by ending up with the mega-rich guy who seemed like a dick but turned out to have a heart of gold, then it has to be implied by the setting and the lifestyles of the characters. If the material wealth of the love interest isn’t going to be a factor in the story then it has to be demonstrated that those financial needs are met in some other way.
You’re probably never going to see a rom-com where the main character gets their one true love, but being with them condemns them to a life of struggle and poverty. No matter how you try to spin it so it’s ok because at least they have each other, that would never be a truly satisfying ending in this type of movie. Material needs to be taken care of too. Even in movies like Overboard where the whole point of the movie is Goldie Hawn learning to be a human being by struggling through a working class lifestyle, they still have to end up rich at the end for the story to feel fully resolved.
It’s polite to pretend that money doesn’t matter, and a lot of rom-coms try to down-play it, but it does. It does matter. And it always shows up in one way or another.
One of the cliches in a lot of rom coms involves a woman who’s too busy with a career to have ever fallen in love. To make this work, usually the woman has a high paying but long hours job like lawyer or executive or something like that. It would be the kind of job that people would like to have because of the money and the power. Having the woman be something like a janitor wouldn’t work because a. it doesn’t pay well and b. it isn’t a job most people would dream about having and most certainly wouldn’t sacrifice love for. I think that’s part of the reason why a lot of rom coms depict wealthy people.
Poverty is not romantic.
Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi says otherwise
I think it’s even worse: It’s just shit writing.
i think it is
They’re made by people who are wealthy
Corpo propaganda
That’s what I asked Annette.
It’s a movie trope to make storytelling easier since no one wants to think of their every day problems
Also what no one has said yet, if you put two identical people next to each other, same mindset, same character, same visuals etc etc, but the one is wealthy and the other is poor, for 99% of people the wealthier one is more sexually attractive. Our brains view access to resources as a desirable quality.
And so, why would a rom com that is literally supposed to be about attractive people, make them purposefully less attractive? There’s basically no reason.
Note that (some, not all) rom coms also involve a Cinderella story - a poor or middle class woman falls in love with a wealthy man and she is plucked from obscurity into wealth, where she “belongs”. Money is part of the fantasy.
I don’t watch a lot of romcoms but one that I’ve seen and like is “While You Were Sleeping.” It starts out like how you describe but then there’s a little twist to it and she ends up with the bluecollar guy.
Because it’s easier to be impulsive and generous in a luxurious romantic setting if you’ve got cash.
There are some great romantic tales about people sharing when they don’t have much - or when they’re well off… the middle ground is rarer because the middle class essentially doesn’t exist and it’s not as fantastical or compelling.
What’s the escape in watching two people in the exact situation as you eat at McDonald’s and go for a walk in the park over and over again?
I’d watch that for the novelty at least. Two people working 2 jobs trying to find love on their one and only day off that they somehow always have on the same day. Would be so bittersweet.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is this movie.
2 broke girls?
Nah they are just room. Oh.
