It’s that time of the year where romance is in the air (or maybe it isn’t) and the perfect opportunity to watch a classic rom-com presents itself. Please excuse me as I indulge myself; romantic comedies happen to be my favourite film genre, so interesting to me that I wrote my undergraduate dissertation about 1990’s rom-coms. Did I do it as an excuse to rewatch some (not-so-guilty) guilty pleasures? Yes. But did I also want to examine the representations of women, sexuality and feminist discourse in these surprisingly complex films? Absolutely.
We all know the well-versed story of girl meets boy, they fall in love, face adversity, overcome said adversity, and live happily ever after. The end. The romantic comedy is “a genre that has continually been vilified for its poor artistic quality”, and the fact that, even today, it is regarded with contempt signals the low cultural value society places upon women’s interests. So the various mechanisms and ideologies that are in place within the rom-com, influencing perceptions of womanhood and romance, are not always highlighted within mainstream discourse of these films. On the face of it, most of them depict women falling hopelessly in love, sacrificing themselves or their dreams in the pursuit of a husband, which doesn’t seem very 'feminist'.
At a time where pop culture was promoting Girl Power, romantic comedies were proposing a more nostalgic, traditional and hegemonic version of womanhood. Film scholars Steve Neale and Tamar Jeffers McDonald, building on Neale’s work, have coined this period of rom-coms as ‘new romances’ or ‘neo-traditional romances’, noting conventions of conservatism in the films of this time. I also suggest that there is a distinction to be made between the ‘rom-com’ and the ‘chick-flick’; the latter is associated with “a return to femininity, the primacy of romantic attachments, girlpower, a focus on female pleasure and […] the value of consumer culture and girlie goods[…]”, while the new romance is focused entirely on securing the most traditional and modest ending for its characters.
Notably, the rise of ‘postfeminism’ emerged around this time. Purporting to offer women choice over the way they lead their lives and citing the redundancy of feminism now that gender equality has supposedly been achieved, postfeminism often promotes conservative life choices for women, reinforcing gender expectations rather than dismantling them. In these new romances women are encouraged to hold a complex and contradictory position; pursuing success in both their professional and personal lives, which inevitably results in unequal roles in relationships and failure in not meeting society’s expectations. It is important to note that the romantic comedies of this time, and postfeminism more generally, favour white, heterosexual, middle-class women, therefore failing to recognise diversity and disparity within womens’ experiences which means that this version of womanhood is not accessible to all. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not exactly the biggest believer in postfeminism’s promise that women can have it all.
The neo-traditional rom-coms embody the postfeminist inclination for conservatism and conventional femininity; women are encouraged to seek out romance, yet be virtuous, to view marriage as the pinnacle of life, but not appear desperate, and above all strive for a life of domestic bliss. Women enjoy these films and identify with their characters, yet the female representations are not necessarily empowering nor aligned with contemporary feminist thought. But I, and millions of others, still love classic rom-coms like Sleepless In Seattle or Notting Hill, and they don’t necessarily empower women and their life choices. There must be something at work within these films for them to have experienced such prolonged popularity, but is it at the expense of feminist principles?
Sex (or a lack of) in neo-traditional rom-coms
The de-emphasis of sex is central in the romantic comedies from this period, presenting women who are less interested in having sexual, physically-fulfilling relationships than they are in forming an emotional connection with ‘the one’. The ‘neo-traditional’ woman possesses a certain innocence and conservatism as she desires romance, a husband and family just as much as, if not more than, individual success in life. In You’ve Got Mail, when asked about having ‘cyber-sex’ with her chatroom friend ‘NYC152’, Kathleen (Meg Ryan) primly responds, “it’s not like that”, insinuating that the concept is shocking, or simply too sexy to be something she engages with. Apart from Pretty Woman’s Vivian (a sex worker), the new romance woman is a desexualised being. The neo-traditional woman’s sexuality (her heterosexuality) is inherently foregrounded by the genre, which showcases the perceived stability and romantic supremacy of heterosexual relationships, but her body is never a site of sex appeal. Women are therefore rewarded with a relationship and success in return for enacting post-feminism’s conservative version of femininity. Casual dating is not relevant to these women, instead abstinence is framed as the responsible, ‘right’ decision before meeting ‘the one’. This sets an expectation for women to be selective in their choice of romantic or sexual partner if they want to be completely romantically fulfilled. Postfeminist ideals of ‘having it all’ are pertinent to every aspect of women’s lives, and these rom-coms aid in creating that precedent.
Of course, an exception to this trope is rom-com icon Bridget Jones (Reneé Zellweger). She engages first in a lustful, thrilling love affair with her boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) and later a passionate, albeit tumultuous, relationship with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). She enjoys her independence as a modern woman, free to enjoy sex and casual dating, but also acknowledges that she still lives under the patriarchy. In order to feel feminine and attractive she attempts to quit smoking and lose weight; she painfully waxes, shaves and plucks her body hair and dreads the prospect of becoming a spinster, despite being just thirty. While Bridget does represent a new kind of womanhood for the new millennium, she also represents the postfeminist hangover from the 1990s, believing that the conventions of traditional femininity will bring her lifelong happiness in the form of a man who loves her. Since the film’s release almost 25 years ago, it has been debated online and in academia alike whether Bridget Jones’s Diary is a piece of feminist work. I don’t think this film seeks to radically empower women and I don’t see Bridget as the ultimate feminist icon. But what she represents, a simultaneous awareness of the patriarchy yet conformity to its gender expectations, is something most women can relate to. For that reason, Bridget represents a very real and sympathetic version of womanhood and femininity which I believe makes her at the very least a female icon. She isn’t perfect, but neither is the woman watching her at home.
New romance women in the workplace
While women in new romances are depicted as professionally successful, as Diane Negra notes, these films “offset the threat of the urban ‘career woman’ by establishing her use of workplace resources as a means in the pursuit of romance”, constructing a retrograde image of modern working women. In Sleepless In Seattle Annie (Meg Ryan) uses her journalist resources to locate Sam (Tom Hanks) after hearing him on the radio, while Vivian accidentally finds love working as Edward’s prostitute in Pretty Woman. Bridget Jones has a flirty (pretty inappropriate) workplace relationship with her boss, which would certainly bring up some red flags and an email to HR in our current society. Kathleen’s first face-to-face meeting with Joe (Tom Hanks) in You’ve Got Mail is in her independent bookstore, ‘The Shop Around the Corner’. Throughout the film they shift from acquaintances, to rivals in the book-selling business, and eventually become lovers, connecting Kathleen’s career to the romantic plot. So while the women in neo-traditional rom-coms do not necessarily enter their professions seeking romance, the continuous use of this narrative reinforces the representation of women not taking their work seriously, encouraging their regression out of the workplace and into domestic roles.
This rejection of the workplace in the pursuit of love directly challenges the matter of ‘having it all’ that I mentioned earlier. Under postfeminist thought, women are expected to balance a high-flying career, a fulfilling romantic relationship and maintenance of rigorous beauty standards. These romantic comedies profess to depict women embodying the harmonious achievement of all three of these categories by the end of the film with their happy endings. But what they actually portray is the struggle to attain this equilibrium; in many of these films the female protagonist is required to sacrifice an element of herself in order to reach the conservative postfeminist pinnacle of a heterosexual relationship.
In Sleepless In Seattle, Annie is opposed to the idea of destiny at the beginning of the film, however once she hears Sam’s voice on the radio one night she suddenly believes that she belongs with this man she has never met. She embodies a simultaneous dichotomy of passive follower of fate and active believer in her own choices as the film sees Annie forgo her principles (dismissing destiny) and search to find the mysterious man to whom she is inexplicably drawn. This demonstrates how, under the guise of postfeminist ‘choice’, destiny presents women with “well-regulated liberty” rather than complete free will. In the neo-traditional rom-com, postfeminism is ideologically linked with the concept of destiny; what is framed as a magical alignment of soul mates in actuality justifies the reinstatement of women in a position of domesticity. Similarly, in You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen renounces her career, personal judgement and independence after Joe (her love interest) puts her out of business and conceals the truth about knowing her true identity on an over-thirties’ chatroom. Bridget Jones also feels compelled to leave her desirable publishing job because of her love interest. Although it is her decision to leave the publishing firm, the uncomfortable position Daniel puts her in (by having begun a relationship with someone he is in charge of’ and subsequently cheating on her) speaks to the choices modern women have to navigate, prioritising a relationship over a career, which confirms the difficulty of truly being able to have it all. She ultimately quits because of a man who makes her feel desperate and embarrassed.
Crucially, in many of the romantic relationships portrayed in the neo-traditional rom-coms their foundations are built upon duplicity and power imbalance between man and woman. Joe knows Kathleen’s online identity, closes her bookstore, and still romantically pursues her, while Edward in Pretty Woman is aware of his growing feelings for Vivian and continues to engage in their relationship, despite its transactional nature. Vivian and Kathleen are not equal to Edward and Joe in terms of knowledge, power or economic standing during the foundational moments of their relationships, thus setting a precedent for the behaviours and power dynamic that women should expect from aspirational on-screen relationships. This simply reiterates postfeminism’s roots in conservative heterosexual identity. These films are able to construct romance from male agency and female passivity by depicting such relationships with ‘happily ever afters’ and the promise of a stable future in the form of blissful domesticity.
Interestingly, Anna (Julia Roberts) in Notting Hill subverts this trend. She does not forfeit any part of herself or lifestyle, instead ending up with a more desirable way of life than she has at the beginning of the film. Through gaining a relationship with William (Hugh Grant), Anna is able to maintain an acting career, husband, children and fame, but only because he is the one to devote his life to her, rather than her to him. But it is clear that Anna is only able to achieve this position as the epitome of the postfeminist woman because of her social standing as a wealthy white woman. So while she represents something idealistic for the postfeminist rom-com, she is not necessarily an example of modern intersectional feminism.
Feminists vs rom-coms?
The neo-traditional romantic comedies can be held partially responsible for maintaining the perception of romance and women’s popular entertainment as trashy or outdated; by guiding their female characters into positions of passivity these films represent typical conservative postfeminism. Therefore the relevance of their representations of womanhood is considered limited to contemporary women.
Despite this, real women do relate to the neo-traditional romantic comedies. Their depictions of postfeminist struggle (balancing feminism, traditional femininity, and individuality) are familiar to all women, demonstrating that these rom-coms are not totally incorrect in their representations. Enjoying neo-traditional rom-coms does not necessitate an absolute agreement with the types of romance, relationships and female representations that these films propose. Perhaps, the ‘feminist’ thing to do is to celebrate these films on the basis that their cultural value is overlooked and sneered at; the reclamation of women’s popular entertainment (made by and for women) can be empowering in its own right. In boxing things into binary, opposed categories of ‘feminist’ and ‘not feminist’ we are at risk of losing the nuance and contradictions of being not only women, but simply human. Just as these romantic comedies are not perfect or consistent in their ‘feminist’ stance, people are flawed and complicated. It would be wrong to say that the rom-coms of this era are models of perfectly enacted feminism (whatever that may be); but why must everything a woman enjoys be dissected and proved ‘worthy’? Why can’t I be a feminist while also enjoying something romantic, nostalgic and entertaining? The people who watch these films form their own interpretations of the representations of women, romance and society depicted on-screen from their own experiences. To quote Michele Schreiber, it is wrong “to pigeonhole these films and [...] ignore the many complex issues with which they engage, and to assume that women spectators cannot find a variety of pleasures in the same texts that they simultaneously understand to be limited in their representations of women’s choices.”
This is where I stand with my enjoyment of rom-coms. Like Schreiber says, I trust my judgement and media literacy to recognise that the era in which some of my favourite films were made differs from the world I live in today. If anything, it is fascinating to study how certain attitudes and conversations around topics like body image, patriarchy and femininity have evolved over thirty years. I simply enjoy these films for the comfort and entertainment value that they offer, and many women love them for this reason. With iconic moments, brilliant acting partnerships (hello, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts), and heartwarming stories, anyone can find something to enjoy about romantic comedies. So the verdict is: yes, you can love rom-coms and still be a feminist. But maybe I’m biased…
Sources
Ferriss, Suzanne and Mallory Young, Introduction: chick flicks and chick culture’ in Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies, ed. by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young (New York, Routledge, 2007), pp. 1-25
Guilluy, Alice, “Guilty Pleasures”- European Audiences and Contemporary Hollywood Romantic Comedy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers, Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre (London: Wallflower Press, 2007)
McRobbie, Angela, ‘Postfeminism and and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and The New Gender Regime’, in Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007), pp. 27-39
Neale, Steve, ‘The Big Romance or Something Wild?: Romantic Comedy Today’, Screen, vol. 33.3 (1992), 284-299
Negra, Diane, What A Girl Wants?: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008)
Schreiber, Michele, American Postfeminist Cinema: Women, Romance and Contemporary Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014)
Filmography
Bridget Jones’s Diary, dir. by Sharon Maguire (Universal Pictures, 2001)
Notting Hill, dir. by Roger Michell (Universal Pictures, 1999)
Pretty Woman, dir. by Garry Marshall (Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, 1990)
Sleepless In Seattle, dir. by Nora Ephron (TriStar Pictures, 1993)
You’ve Got Mail, dir. by Nora Ephron (Warner Bros., 1998)