What Happened to Rom-Coms? Are They Making a Comeback?

Romantic comedies are stories about two people falling in love and it being funny along the way. The genre is more complex than it appears because it needs to find the perfect balance between romance and comedy. If the movie fails to represent one of those features then it failed as a rom-com. During the 90s, the genre started to boom. Romantic comedies had the ability to compete with other genres. However, romantic comedies started to become predictable and uninspired in the 2000s. The genre could no longer compete with other genres and lost the majority of its audience. During this article, we’re going explore the downfall of romcoms and how they are trying to make a comeback.

Why Rom-coms Boomed in the 90s

Rom-coms boomed in the 90s due to experimentation, lack of competition with blockbuster films, nonadvanced technology, and leading ladies. During this time, writers and directors were experimenting with love. They were pushing the boundaries of what people expected out of a rom-com and giving them the unexpected. The movie When Harry Met Sally started the golden age for rom-coms in 1989.

When Harry Met Sally revolves around the conversations between Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) over the span of 10 years. The film focuses on the conversations they had which led them from a platonic relationship to a romantic one. It explores ideas about friendships between the opposite sex, fear of commitment, infidelity, and fake orgasms. The film keeps the viewer’s attention by breaking their expectations. After Harry and Sally meet they have a conversation about friendship and sex during a car ride. Harry tells Sally that they could never be friends.

“Why not?” Sally asks.

Harry says, “What I’m saying is…and this is not a come-on in any way…is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”

Throughout the film, Harry believes that their friendship is doomed to fail because friendships between the opposite sex don’t work. At the beginning of the film, he has a cynical outlook on love whereas Sally is hopeful that she can make friendships with those of the opposite sex and find love. The film shows how their friendship gets messed up after they become romantic with each other. It shows the risk of dating a friend and how our relationships with others change over time as we get more mature.

Nora Ephron, the writer, and director, of When Harry Met Sally helped drive the genre forward. Her well-written scripts and narratives created the momentum for romantic comedies. She followed up the film with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998) which grew into some of the best romantic comedies of all time.

After When Harry Met Sally, Meg Ryan became America’s sweetheart and became one of the most iconic rom-com actresses of the 90s. However, the 90s had other leading ladies to thank for the rom-com boom. Iconic actresses Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Sandra Bullock, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Andie MacDowell, and others brought the genre to life. Without the strong leading ladies, the scripts wouldn’t stand a chance. Strategic casting brought these stories to life.

The 90s also tried to explore love stories between same-sex relationships. But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) is a hidden gem. The story is a satire rom-com that revolves around a cheerleader played by actress Natasha Lyonne who gets sent to a gay conversion camp where she inevitably falls in love with Clea DuVall. The film successfully balances comedy and romance. However, as rom-coms transitioned into the 2000s they stopped experimenting with romance.

The Shift in the 2000s

The early 2000s kept the momentum from the 90s with films like The Sweetest Thing (2002), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Hitch (2005), and The Proposal (2009). However, the momentum was short-lived as people began to grow tired of rom-coms. They started to feel predictable like poorly rehashed versions of stories already told. People started to lose interest in the genre because it stopped evolving. The new movies were not saying anything new. Rom-coms started to feel stagnant and were not evolving as quickly as other genres.

Rom-coms were not evolving for their audience. The films lacked diversity in race, sexual orientation, and social status. The majority of love stories were made about two straight white people. The genre lacked representation, and they should’ve casted more diverse actors.

In films, that hired BIPOC actors their culture was barely explored or lazily written. Writer Alice Heyeh, explains how films like Maid in Manhattan (2002) starring Jennifer Lopez rely on stereotypes to write BIPOC characters. Jennifer Lopez plays a Latina maid who works for a fancy hotel. She is presented as a single mother who marries a rich white man to get herself out of poverty. Her occupation as a maid is stereotypical and the film failed to present a love interest that was more than just another bland, rich, white male. The love interest felt like an uninspired character that had already been written.

However, technology was also evolving. Superhero movies and blockbuster films took advantage of the expanding technology. They had more realistic graphics and better special effects than ever before. Films like The Matrix (1999) used the growing technology to their advantage by using special effects in ways that people had never seen. People flocked to the theaters because they knew they were going to experience something new. It wasn’t going to be another rehashed story. It wasn’t predictable. Blockbuster and superhero films took over the theaters. People were excited to see the characters they read about in comics come to life. Now we had the technology to create a fantasy world from a comic book or a novel and present it on screen.

Romantic comedies couldn’t take advantage of the new technology. Their stories are based on romance and comedy. Fancy graphics and special effects aren’t needed to tell the story.

However, since rom-coms do not need technology to evolve their stories they should have evolved the type of love stories they told. Rom-coms were predictable and bland because they didn’t take advantage of their clichés or tropes. Rom-coms stopped surprising people, so they became boring.

Are Rom-coms Making a Comeback

Someone could argue that rom-coms are dying: that they’ve been dying since the early 2000s because rom-coms stopped coming up with new ideas and failed to evolve. However, someone could also argue that while it is true that rom-coms have been dying they are also making a comeback. However, they are not coming back the same.

Romantic comedies are targeting a different audience. In the 90s, rom-coms were centered mainly toward adults and also aimed toward teenagers. However, rom-coms have shifted towards targeting a younger audience, teenagers. Since 2018, they are creating less rom-coms for adults. The majority of their audience is being shifted toward the younger generation.

Streaming platforms like Netflix are taking advantage of the expanding technology. They understand that more young adults and teenagers are watching videos on their phones. So streaming platforms like Netflix are targeting a younger audience that will stream their movies whether through the tv at home or their phone. By choosing a younger audience, they get a new audience that has a fresh perspective on romance and comedy. So they base their films on what the younger generation thinks about love and relationships.

Films like The Kissing Booth (2018), Tall Girl (2019), Love Simon (2018), and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) focus on teenage romance. Since they are targeting teenagers the films show the struggles of modern-day school, social media, and new perspectives on love and relationships.

When rom-coms made a comeback in 2018, they also came back more diverse. Recent rom-coms are trying to evolve by creating more diverse love stories. They are creating more diverse love stories by representing different races, sexual orientations, and classes.

In the movie, Crazy Rich Asians (2018) the film’s cast was nearly all Asian or of Asian heritage. The film successfully showed how crazy family can be while embracing Asian heritage. Kevin Kwan, the writer of the book, Crazy Rich Asians, mentioned that a producer told him he’d be interested if he changed the protagonist into a white character. Kwan was disappointed but thought the producer’s reaction showed how Hollywood viewed Asians. They felt that if the characters were Asian it wouldn’t work. However, Kwan stuck with his original story which proved to be a success as the film was received well and continues to break box office records: with a global total of $236 million. It is still the highest-grossing rom-com in the last decade.

The movie Bros (2022) tried to represent a same-sex relationship. The cast was nearly all LGBTQ members and it tried pushing the boundaries. However, unlike Crazy Rich Asians (2018) the film flopped. Bros (2022) wanted to create a rom-com that showed a different kind of love. The writer Billy Eichner hoped the LGBTQ members and straight people would appreciate the movie, but no one showed up. People did not show up to the movie to support. Unfortunately, the movie could’ve been more successful with better marketing. However, the poor marketing mislead people to believe the movie was about making history. The trailer marketed the film as a social agenda versus marketing it as a romantic comedy.

Ultimately, romantic comedies are trying to make a comeback with a younger audience and more diversity. Rom-coms are trying to change for their audience, and show new ideas about love. For the most part, love does not change. However, our ideas about love, friendship, and relationships do change. Each generation and each person has their own idea about what love is. Romantic comedies are supposed to bring those interpretations of love to life. It is not difficult to write about love, but it is difficult to tell a good story about it. If romantic comedies want to make a comeback they have to figure out how to tell a love story that is unique. By becoming more diverse and experimenting with new ideas, rom-coms will make a comeback.

2020s What Do People Think of Rom-coms? What Do They Want to Change?

Lisa Garcia, a student at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN), states that rom-coms are cute, but she wishes they portrayed real relationship struggles.

In rom-coms, it is easy to find ideal relationships or relationship goals because the characters aren’t struggling. It can create unrealistic expectations for what a relationship is supposed to be like. On the flip side, Pamela Merfield, a 23-year-old girl from Iowa states that relationships also end abruptly in rom-coms.

“In rom-coms it’s normal for a couple to break up and get back together multiple times. They struggle for a little then they find their way back to each other. That’s just not realistic. Breakups suck and the characters just don’t seem that impacted by them,” Merfield said.

Merfield would also prefer more realistic relationships. However, she’s aware that it could come at a cost.

“I know some people would complain that they don’t want rom-coms to be realistic because it ruins the fantasy of them. It’s supposed to be an escape of some sort,” Merfield said.

Rom-coms are used as a fantasy. Sometimes it’s nice to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and to not struggle. However, realism doesn’t mean the characters have to constantly struggle. More realistic relationships would also mean more diversity.

Regidor states that adding more diversity into rom-coms is good because it shows people’s different perspectives and experiences with romance and relationships.

“Though I do think recently some films try to push it too much when it doesn’t fit a character or follow the storyline,” Garcia said.

Merfield adds that she thinks more diverse couples would bring more conflict to films in a good way.

“Having more diverse couples means we can talk about different cultures and see how other people deal with them. The younger generation can learn from them and understand that differences are okay. Even if you and your partner have different beliefs.” Merfield said.

Garcia and Merfield admit that they haven’t been watching movies recently. Regidor says her favorite rom-coms came out in the ’90s and early 2000s.

“It seems like they are dying because I haven’t really been aware of rom-coms recently,” Garcia said.

Merfield states that recent rom-coms haven’t interested her.

“I think they’re dying because they’ve become so predictable. We know what to expect so it’s not new anymore. What’s the point of watching something when you already know how it will end?” Merfield states.

The state of rom-coms doesn’t look good. However, if they continue to evolve by adding more diversity and experimenting with new ideas they might be able to make a comeback. For all those rom-com lovers out there, don’t lose hope. Romantic comedies will make a comeback. They just won’t come back the same.