another chance to make every woman I know hate me

I have a bone to pick, not with a person, but with an entire category of film. If you know me at all, you can probably guess that I'm talking about the genre of films known as Romantic Comedy.

Let's forget for a moment that the word "comedy" usually connotes humor of some sort. While Romantic Comedies sometimes cause those in the audience to chuckle or smile and say, "that's cute," the rarely illicit real actual laughter. In fact, a good portion of the movie is usually so focused on the romance part of the equation that the film-makers don't even attempt to be funny. But in the classic Greek sense, comedy merely means a story with a happy ending, so we'll let the genre slide on that one.

Then there's the fact that men are so often forced to watch these so-called comedies when they could be watching movies that would actually serve as entertainment. We've all forced women to watch cheesey action movies and fart joke comedies though, so we'll ignore that one too.

Where does that leave us, you ask? It leaves us with the irreparable damage that Romantic Comedies do and have done to women's psyche. I know that sounds really overdramtic, and it is, but hear me out. First, there's the fact that they propogate the idea of "the one." I think I've made the reasons that I'm against "the one" concept fairly clear, so I won't get into them again here. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that it's a bad thing. From the time they're born, women's heads are filled with fairytales. They're told that they're princesses in disguise and their prince will come along on a white horse someday and rescue them from their real lives. Then, once they're old enough to watch adult movies, they get fed the same exact garbage. The hooker with the heart of gold is saved from her life of crime by the charming, wealthy businessman. Or the self-confident, overly cold and secretly lonely businesswoman is saved from a life of successful business relationships but short and meaningless personal relationships by the charming scoundrel with the heart of gold. It's the same motif over and over again. And when they end up together, it's not because they took the time to cultivate a strong friendship, which led to a deep lasting relationship based on trust and mutual respect. No, it's because fate put them together and they were powerless to stop it. (For a textbook example of this, see Serendipity, which I actually sort of enjoy. John Cusack, Jeremy Piven and superhot Kate Beckinsale...what's not to like?)

That leads directly to our next point. The characters in Romantic Comedies are usually completely wrong for each other. You know how the plot works. It's that whole "opposites attract" thing. The male and female leads can't stand each other at the beginning of the movie and they fight constantly. But for some reason, despite the fact that they're completely different in every way and have no common interests or opinions, there's some sort of animal magnetism there. They try to stay away, but they just can't do it. By the third act, they've given up and decided that all the fighting was merely a cover-up for their true feelings. After watching this play out on the screen for years, some women can't help but think that life really works that way. Instead of dating a guy who has similar interests and a compatible personality, some girls intentionally go for guys who are their complete opposite. It's one of the reasons so many women like "bad boys," the boys that usually end up breaking their hearts, if not their bones. And even if they don't end up with a jerk, it's hard to build a relationship when you have nothing in common.

My final issue is a big one, at least to me. It's that Romantic Comedies give women (and a lot of men too actually) the wrong idea about what romance is. They discount small gestures and long-term commitment and focus on superficial gifts and surprises. They make women expect fountains and doves and endless mounds of rose petals. And those things are fine in moderation. It's cool if that's what you're into. But that's not romance. That's not real love.

Romance is being there every day. It's calling because you want to hear her voice, not because you have to. It's struggling to find words to tell her how much she means to you. It's buying her dinner with your last twenty dollars. Romance is letting her cry on your shoulder when her dog dies, telling her she looks beautiful on a day when she doesn't feel beautiful. Romance isn't about making a show. It's about being real and honest and letting her see how much she means to you. I understand that those things don't make good cinema, but they're a million times more important than flowers or candy or last second airport proposals.

Again, it's not that I'm against buying flowers or kissing in the rain or picnics in the park. Those things can be fun. And when they're from the heart, they can be special. It's when they're expected that I have a problem, when a guy has to preen and pose and go out of his way to impress a girl just to get her to appreciate him. If you're basing your relationship on some fake bull crap, on how good of a show a guy can put on, then you're going to run into problems somewhere down the line. Guys, by all means, buy her nice things sometimes, take her out to fancy dinners and plan fun little outings. But do it when and how you want to, because you want to. And girls, it's okay to enjoy those things, but don't forget that there are so many other ways a guy can show you that he cares.

There you have it. Three big reasons why Romantic Comedies should be outlawed. Contact your local movie studio at once.

Now, ladies, feel free to take issue with my ideas. If you're passionate about Sleepless in Seattle and think it's a spectacular piece of movie magic that's good for the soul, then don't be shy about telling me why. Just, please, don't take this post to mean that I think all women are idiots. Far from it. I know that many of you don't fall into the mindsets I talked about and I don't think the ones that do are stupid becuase of it. Any time you're constantly pummelled by the same concepts over and over again, they're going to affect you in some way. You think that the aforementioned cheesey action movies and dumb comedies haven't led to an increase in men that think violence is the best solution to all their problems and that it's funny to ask someone to pull their finger? Think again. We're all victims here. I'm just calling it like I see it and waiting for the backlash.