Deleted User said 9 years, 7 months ago:

The male lead is always rich, successful, good looking, charming and always falls for some extremely undesirable female lead – literally a whore, useless ditz who sloots around and a homely looking nobody.

And of course she always has this huge internal dilemma that she makes up why she can’t be with him and he basically begs her to be with her. That’s like the plot line to 100% of hollywood romantic movies. I am an easy going viewer, I tend overlook a lot of plot holes and nonsensical character traits so I can enjoy the movie but these movies bug the hell out of me. Especially because chicks who watch these movies think this will happen to them someday.

rinseandrep said 9 years, 7 months ago:

Good evening, I’m Troy McLure. In today’s news, local area cis white male doesn’t get female oriented movies, feels entitled to be treated better by the movie business, who in his opinion, doesn’t cater enough to his taste. Strongly moved by the risk of females feeling like one day they can have a strong, emotional relationship with hot rich man. Our thoughts are with him in this time of peril.

In other news, second local area man disappointed by lack of hot, thin girls ready to have sex whose whole life revolves around him, despite his flaws, feels like reality isn’t as movies suggested.

OpenTalk said 9 years, 7 months ago:

Alright, I’m gonna step up to the plate and address this whole “whore useless ditz sloot” vs “cis white male entitlement” commentary.

1. Whore, ditz, slut (or any variant) are really disrespectful, pejorative terms that are pretty oppressive. I mean, there are plenty of dudes out there who can be thoughtless and sexually promiscuous but they often don’t get called out as being “ditz” or “sluts.” So how about we don’t call anyone those terms? After all, they certainly aren’t nice or respectful.

2. RomComs have an audience. If that’s not you, that’s fine. I certainly have no love for Twilight, but I’m not going to be hard on the people who are all about it.

3. Maybe some women do think that they’ll meet a rich guy someday that will make all of their dreams come true. I’m pretty sure, however, that the ones watching know that it’s a piece of fiction.

4. @rinseandrep your response is problematic for a number of reasons. Just because someone is man doesn’t mean they’re ignorant. Just because someone is white doesn’t mean they’re ignorant. Just because someone is cis gendered doesn’t mean they’re ignorant.

Stop generalizing people based the the labels you choose to assign to them.

Jon’s response may not be the most enlightened thing in the world, but you shouldn’t right write people off based on your own assumptions. You could have used this as an opportunity to inform and educate him.

Hearmenow said 9 years, 7 months ago:

A RomCom or a “Chickflick” as it’s often being referred to, is just that, written towards the female demographic because they are the ones who would enjoy that kind of movie, not saying that guy’s don’t like romance, just merely that it’s usually only when with others they view this specific type of genre.

And as far as plot holes goes and strange story lines, there are movies in all kinds of genres. I myself don’t particularly see the pleasure in a movie that’s mostly about guns and fast cars, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others who would enjoy that kind of thing and I don’t judge them for that.

I’m going to tell you a secret, a major spoiler alert, movies aren’t real. It’s a creation of imagination, it’s not a documentary of someone’s life, and even in those instances they always change a few things and add a bit of drama. Because what would a movie be without some drama in it? As for the happy ending, it’s a Hollywood thing, it’s not very often that a movie ends miserably, that’s just not the way they go. Which is also another thing that adds to the “fake” thing, life never goes that way. Never.

But most movies aren’t about portraying realism, but rather the fantasy. People use movies as a way to escape from the boredom and pain of everyday life, to step in to someone else’s and have some fun.

And really, what’s the harm in wanting to be with a nice, attractive guy who doesn’t treat you like trash and would do whatever it took ( pretty much) to be with you? You can’t blame a girl for dreaming. But also keep in mind that we are realistic as well. I know that the guy they portray isn’t real, because guys aren’t like that in real life. And as long as you don’t expect all girls to be super attractive and flexible and is at your every wish and command, keep it real for the normal girl who has flaws and imperfections and yet would put up with you, we can keep it real to and don’t expect every guy to look like Ryan Gosling.

rinseandrep said 9 years, 7 months ago:

@opentalk as a white cis male, I agree? But I’m talking to this specific one, and imho it seemed educating, on point of views and selective criticism.

Dragonfire86 said 9 years, 6 months ago:

As a (now) single white female I feel your pain. These types of movies annoy the hell out of me because they are so unrealistic and provide a model that we are apparently supposed to aspire to. All women need rescuing, women can only heal the men’s emotional pain, it takes an emotional or physical altercation before the man realises how much he loves said woman and decides to marry her.

For a bit of originality I’d adore seeing a woman saying “I’m not going to put up with your indecision, see you later” and make it on her own.

Brods said 9 years, 6 months ago:

Um, I guess it’s like straight porn. The female is always hot while the male is either a body-building skinhead, old, or fat.

It’s targeted to FEMALES, ergo the term “chick-flicks”

Porn is mostly targeted to men.

The whole slutty gold digger part annoys me though. I’m mainly talking about “Dear John”. Fuck that movie.

JustMe said 9 years, 6 months ago:

I don’t like chick flicks. IDK some of them are okay. But 50sog makes me want to barf out my kidneys. Never saw Dear John but I love The Notebook like no joke.

The point is the woman has these imperfect traits to help the (female) audience identify with her. After all, they’re not young Julia Roberts, they’re just Plain Jane from down the street. They see “just-like-me” lady protagonist get swept off her feet by this rich good looking guy who solves all her problems and it’s like, yeah, that would be nice.

It’s a fantasy. We all know it’s not really going to happen. My DH is about as romantic as a pile of cow turds. But we love each other and it’s real. Movies aren’t real. It’s like….romance porn.

Humanist Hope said 9 years, 4 months ago:

The problem with RomComs is not the audience; everyone has their likes and dislikes. The problem is with the moviemakers themselves who keep greenlighting these projects.

Nicholas Sparks himself is a homophobic tool, and his books, though heavily sappy and romantic and therefore attractive to his target audience, has a very thin layer of attempted depth. His stories are formulaic and shallow. The man is practically incapable of using cancer as his tragic backdrop. In every one of his stories, one of the characters was related to someone who died of or is dying of cancer.

50 Shades of Grey is a terrible set of books. As a person who has lived the BDSM lifestyle, that is a completely unhealthy relationship. Forget the Mary-Sue-tastic-ness of the protagonist, the way their relationship unfolds paints an awful picture of BDSM and the mentality of people who enjoy it. Almost all of the red flags for (sincere) abuse went up in that story and I’m inclined to think that the author herself has (or had at the time of writing the books) no direct experience in the Lifestyle.

So to conclude, my objection to chick-flicks is the unrealistic expectation of romance those movies project, and the mentality of the moviemakers who keep paving the way for such garbage to make it to the big screen.

I have political reasons for the same, but I will spare all of you THAT novella.

Deleted User said 9 years, 4 months ago:

It’s just a Cinderella story told over and over and over, it’s just an old archetype, just like guy flicks are basically tough dude kills lots of people, gets woman in the end – it’s all from ancient tales of knights and damsels.

Our whole literature is one first prehistoric grunt retold multiple times if you look at it like that.

It’s like asking why do people always get drunk when they drink alcohol – why don’t they drink different compounds to have a different effect each and every time?

It’s because we have some understanding of our nature, we know which levers to pull, and the movie industry simply decides to stick with the known levers when it comes to exploiting certain demographics.