I just finished watching Notting Hill with my house mates and noticed one thing that always stands out to me during these types of films, the affect it has on women. Even my tough, romantically strong-willed house mates were gradually softened by the end of the film and on the brink of tears. I was of course actually in tears, but I cry at John Lewis adverts.
The funny thing is, when you watch rom-coms with men it has virtually no affect on them. While watching Notting Hill with my parents a few years ago I remember my Mum sobbing while all my Dad could say was "they got the bus number wrong, that one doesn't go past The Ritz."
The problem with these films is nothing to do with the cheesy sets, the predictable endings or even the accuracy of the public transport, but rather that they seem to be designed to shatter women's realistic perception of romance. They create impossibly dramatic storylines with beautiful actors and lines that women will quote to eachother while welling up over coffee for years to come.
Call me cynical, but the closest thing I've ever had to a boy meeting me at the top of the Empire State building or writing me 365 letters is one occasion when my boyfriend asked if my hair was wet or just greasy that day (to clarify, it was wet). Needless to say, the average Josh, Joel and Sams of North West London are hardly Leonardo DiCaprio chilling with us on the edge of a boat. To be fair I never really saw that movie, but I feel that was the gist...
However much I love a good Rom-Com, they truly create problems for all of us. First there's the girls. After watching Pretty Woman too many times we all believe that if a hooker from off the street with appalling hair can get rescued, we can too. Unfortunately, however much our hapless friends wait outside their Hampstead Garden Suburb homes perched on their Fiat 500s, it's very unlikely that Richard Gere is going to show up in a limousine. This means that every time a girl ingests one of these rom-coms they are given just a little bit of false hope, and if not that then Rom-Com depression.
This is what is known as a serious case of 'never going to happen for me' in which a girl sprawls herself out on her sofa during the closing credits and whines about how unfair it is that they will never find this perfect fictional love. Then they eat a tub of ice cream and hate themselves. Then invariably they text their ex's and hate themselves even more.
So this really creates a combination of high standards and low tolerance. After watching too many of these movies, a girl doesn't want to be kissed. She wants to be kissed in the rain. She doesn't want you to text her goodbye when you get on a flight, she wants you to chase her to it and beg her not to go. Which in fairness could get a little awkward when you're just going to Marbella for a few days.
Now for the boys. The boys are well and truly screwed. Not only are they not Richard Gere, Hugh Grant and Ryan Gosling, they also can't be bothered to be. Why would they? Aside from the fact that they're not in a movie, girls are a thousand times easier to bed than they were back when The Runaway Bride was written. All they really have to do is show up to a club and affirm themselves as a 7/10 at the very least, 6/10 for some girls; before they know it they'll be blown behind a 24hr burger shack.
However for the some that want a little more than fellatio with a side of ketchup, it gets a little more complicated. Much like we girls don't want to compete with the pornstars they ogle late at night, they don't want to be compared to our movie stars. After all, unless they have a team of writers helping them decide how to say the perfect thing at the end of a date, they're likely to just come out with 'I'll add you on Facebook then.' That being at the best of times.
At the end of the day, it would be nice to get a little silver screen romance in our day-to-day lives. But if the men in our lives started treating us like that it would be exactly like in the movies - acting. If I had a man that told me he couldn't live without me while I was making him a sandwich, I would hate it. Mostly because I'd be making food for someone else, but also because it's pathetic. I think we need to stop getting so attached to what we see on our screens and start accepting what is infront of us.
After all, even if you do tell someone that you are just a girl, standing infront of a boy asking him to love her...he will probably think you're a serial killer.
That's enough ranting for now
Good night all
Olivia Jane
xx
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