Romantic comedies

You know, I'm not really a manly man. That is, I don't think women are stupid, out to get me, betray me at every turn, you get the idea. Nor am I big into the idea that there's this vast gulf betwixt men and women, and it shall never ever be bridged until the end of time, and probably not even then, yea verily. Having said that, I think there are some differences between them, men and women this is, and an easy way to see this is to go see a romantic comedy with a woman. Guys, settle the hell down. Just go do it. Trust me. Or read this, and save yourself the trouble. Because I'm right, no matter what women tell you.

So what is this difference? Well first of all women, I hate to break it to you, but it's not no blood/explosions/car chases. Women have this idea that men hate romantic comedies because stuff's not getting blown up. To an extent this is true, but I think there's a bigger reason. Maybe men won't admit to it, maybe they don't even know it themselves, but I'm here to tell you what it is anyway.

Mind you, I'm not saying Sleepless in Seattle couldn't have been spiced up with a few machine guns or something, but hey, that's just sensible. I mean, if you heard a machinegun going off outside, wouldn't you start going "holy shit, what's that?" Sure you would! You're interested in explosions and destruction, admit it. Besides, since this stuff all takes place in the same whacky movie universe, surely you could've had part of Die Hard flash past while they were meeting on the Empire State Building or something. That plane Bruce Willis was involved with had to go somewhere, now didn't it? You bet your ass.

But I'm not here to talk about any of that, and really the movie I gave is a bad example. Let's talk about The Wedding Singer instead. Here's the plot. Girl's marrying guy, guy is some boring unspontaneous accountant or something, wedding singer loves girl, professes his love on the plane to their wedding, girl goes off with wedding singer. At this point, let me comment on the "comedy" portion of "romantic comedy". you might think, given the definition of the word and all, that "comedy" means it's going to be funny. You would be almost entirely incorrect. "Comedy", in this context, seems to mean "not drama". I think for movie people, this translates into "the couple in question didn't have to flee Nazi occupied France, fearing for their lives every step of the way, thus putting their deeply passionate love on hold."

In general, comedy, the funny kind, will be almost entirely lacking from these movies. Let's take Ghost. I assume Ghost is a romantic comedy, and if it isn't, it should be. It's horrible enough to be one. Here's what I remember about Ghost. "Molly, I'm communicating with Patrick/Dale/Winston your dead husband." "Fuck you crazy bitch, you isn't!" "Yes, I am! He says to tell you, packing peanuts!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! It is you! (copious weeping) It is you! Wait, no it isn't! That can't be true! Go away you crazy bitch!" "No no Molly, it's true! He says to tell you, laundry prestidigitation!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! (more weeping) No it's not! Crazy bitch! Leave me alone crazy bitch! Calling the police crazy bitch! (weeping)" "No, Molly, listen! He says to tell you, I don't know why, wait, you fuckin' crazy ... OK ... he says to tell you, chewy popcorn!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it really is you! (weeping) No, not possible, crazy bitch! (weeping)" That was, I swear, a good half hour of the movie.

So OK, you won't find any comedy, most of the time. But romance, surely you'll find romance, it's right there in the name, romantic comedy, and they wouldn't lie about all of it, would they? Well, you'll find romance, after a fashion, yes. Recall the plot summary of The Wedding Singer above. Just about every romantic comedy is about that. Girl marries boy who's not spontaneous, or just sort of boring, or a little controlling, or whatever, or she's preparing to marry him. Some new guy comes in, or an old guy, and he has a motorcycle or flowers or a kangaroo obsession or something. Basically, whatever the woman wants that the guy she's married to or preparing to marry doesn't do, this guy does it. Girl runs off with other guy, the one she's not married to/preparing to marry. The end.

OK, now remember I said there's a difference between men and women, and a reason men refuse to see these things? Here it is. For women, this plot seems to translate into something like the following. "Oh how sweet, she found her true love after all!" Here's what it translates to for men. "Huh? What? Wait, hang on a minute, what the fuck? I mean, OK, maybe that guy was kind of an asshole, but things were going fine, she gave no indication of a problem whatsoever, and suddenly, poof!, she's running off with the kangaroo keeper at the zoo! What the hell?" See, women seem to find this freeing or something. But it's basically the equivalent of "well baby, I asked you to practice the yoga, but I met this hot young yoga instructor who can put her legs behind her head, and we have at it all night long. So, umm, yeah, see ya! What? Oh, yeah, I know I never really mentioned I was having a problem, but I thought all the yoga books I left lying around and the comments about how I bet it makes for great sex would tip you off." Except in romantic comedies, the women usually don't even give that much.

In short, the basic plot of romantic comedies is the female equivalent of the male midlife crisis complete with hot young trophy wife. Pretty it up all you like women, that's essentially what it is. These women either have a commitment or make one, if they're not married they're generally fiancees, and completely ignore it to go off with the guy who really pushes their buttons. And oops, too bad for you accountant or lawyer or whatever the fuck boring profession you have, because those posters of dolphins all over the house, you know, the ones you complained about?, those should have tipped you off that deep within her secret soul, she yearned for dolphins. Remember how she asked you about honeymooning at Sea World, and you said, "Sea World? Well honey, gee, I've got these fucking reservations at the most expensive hotel in Paris. Sea world?" You remember that, vaguely assholish lawyer/accountant/whatever? That was your only indication that your ass was going to get left at the altar, or that she'd run off to Mexico for a month without telling you, or whatever happens in your particular movie.

Of course, we're supposed to side with the poor and charming guy who gets the woman, as opposed to the rich asshole who loses her. So there's supposed to be something in it for guys too. But sorry, I for one ain't buyin' it, and this is that reason I talked about earlier, I don't think guys in general are buying it either. These movies basically amount to a big propaganda machine that says "hey girls, don't like your man? Well, just drop him for somebody else like a hot rock. Your life will be totally better, and you didn't really love that other guy anyway, you were just tricking yourself or settling."

Besides, let's be realistic here. Romantic comedies are all the same. Sure, you're saying, wait, the plot details vary slightly and they are different people, and it's all about the characters, don't you see? Yeah, but really, they're the same characters. More or less desperate woman, guy who's wealthy or has a high-paying job like an executive or something, new guy who's poor but all adventurous and stuff.

Whereas action movies, well, you have your villain who wants to take over the world, your villain who wants to take over the universe, your villain who wants lots of money, your villain who wants to destroy you, your villain who wants to destroy your country, your cold calculating villain, your crazed psychopathic villain, your coldly calculating crazed psychopathic villain ... you get the idea. Then you have locations. Location location location! Will it be in space? A parking garage? An airport? A foreign country? Your country? Your house? Your police station? Your military base? Your spa? Oh wait ... that's probably the wrong kind of action movie .. but you get the idea! And then there are the weapons! What will they be? Swords? Guns? Guns from the military that are illegal for you to own? Military ground vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military air vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military explosives that are illegal for you to own and handle? Will it appeal to the geeks and start out as a deeply complex computer-based situation involving invented cracking of systems, before ending up in a hail of military grade weapons fire, from the aforementioned military weapons you're not legally allowed to touch? Will it be lasers or other scary spooky weapons from the future?

But we're not done yet kids, oh noo! Who will our hero be? Will he be a mild-mannered cop? A loose canon? A soldier? A civilian who knows nothing about weapons but learns real fast because it's life or death, by the gods? Will it be a ninja? Will it be a kid? Will it be a kid ninja? Will it be a group of kid ninjas? Will it be a group of teenage kid ninjas who aren't even human, but are in fact based on some sort of amphibian? Naaaaaah, that's stupid, nobody'd do that. Will it be robots? Will it be formerly evil robots who've reformed and now know why we cry and only wish that they could weep for the hardness of the world, but it's Ok because the humans, the same humans the formerly evil robot was formerly attempting to kill, are weeping for him? Will it be a robot cop? Will it be a ninja and a cop? Will it be ... well, you get the idea!

We probably haven't even begun to touch on the myriad possibilities of action movies yet. So you see, when women say that romantic comedies are different and action movies are all the same, the weight of the evidence simply goes against them. Romantic comedies are cardboard cutouts, while action movies are a single, awe-inspiring heroic plot skeleton, fleshed out with all the myriad details that are the triumph of the human imagination. Plus, action movies have fire! Romantic comedies rarely even have hot kissing, probably because the participants are too busy pointlessly agonizing about the moral and ethical problems surrounding betraying their spouse/fiance, it's pointless because they're going to do it anyway so all the protesting doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So to sum up: romantic comedies == propaganda for women to dump guys, action movies == inspiring, heroic, and fire!