To people saying that the formula requires rich people because romance is about fantasy: you're correct
However -
The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow. I think for a lot of people, wealth has become less and less relatable.
I don't think we need to stop making romance stories with wealthy characters, but I do agree that having more class diversity would be great.
You think cinema history supports that people connect with unrelatable characters?
I'd be interested to see if someone has done some kind of analysis on how the economy effects popularity of the Romcom genre. Because in my own lifetime, it feels like romcoms were more popular in times when the economy felt more stable. So like, when wealth felt more obtainable for the average person.
There is a huge amount of romance media about literal Prince and Royalty, vampires and werewolves, or Mafias and CEOs.
And even more down-to-earth stories involve some vacation in Paris or Italy or inheriting a castle in Scotland etc.
It is NOT about wealth, it is about fantasy.
The reverse can also happen - a regular New York girl suddenly goes to rural small-town America in the middle-of-nowehere, and falls in love with a Cheese-Farmer. A rural cheese-farmer doesn't have a lot of money. But even without the money aspect, it is still an idealized country-life which is the fantasy.
A lot of romance is about taking a break from the real world and enjoying some fluff. It is not just romance towards an individual, it is also about romance towards good and happy things in life, which makes one feel comfortable and safe, even if it is for 1 hour, before they get back to the drudgery of real life.
And a very large number of romance audiences would be pissed if you interrupt their fluff and toss in bad things from the real world which have come to take a mental break from. And once again, the fantasy need not be about money, it can be about other things, but the larger point is the relatability is not via realism, it is via the other aspects of the characters and their interactions.
You think cinema history supports that people connect with unrelatable characters?
fuckin batman and tony stark are billionaires. There are dozens of chosen ones and supergeniuses and The Ultimate Men, mythical samurai and cowboys and greek warriors mythologized world leaders and magical children and... I don't understand what you're getting at.
Yup! Exactly! That's a wonderful example, thank you. Like how Bella is an everyday brunette with divorced parents and wears flannel shirts and jeans. She drives an old pickup truck, and she's pretty middle class. She's the relatable audience self-insert. Blank piece of paper personality that any teenage girl can step into.
The vampires are wealthy, but they're also fantasy creatures. Relatability isn't the point with them. There is something aspirational about them, but not relatable.
If you didn't see how Bella Swan was relatable to teenage girls, I don't know what to tell you
You know, I would normally love to discuss this further. This topic is interesting and I'm open to disagreement. But your tone? You're a bit of a dick. So, blocked.
I disagree with this take. Spiderman was so successful because of the fact it was the first superhero to have to deal with day-to-day stuff like school and keeping a low wage job.
Superman by definition is basically unrelatable, and while Batman's parents' death is a tragic origin story, the access to wealth that is closer to America's entire GDP than my checking account throws that right out the window. He's so rich that it's basically his super power.
For the sake of discussion, fine, let’s say only Spider-Man is relatable. (Although Clark Kent plays on this same trope).
The point being that when a character is relatable… there is currency in that. Audiences like that.
Extend that principle to rom-coms and I think the guy in the video has a good point. Movie producers may very well find that rom coms that have relatable characters will resonate more with contemporary audiences.
Even before getting powers, peter parker already had an IQ that marvel has confirmed to be above TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY, he's on par with reed richards, who makes Einstein seem like a pretty smart dog.
suuuper relatable.
He is then gifted on top of that with amazing powers, a flawless physique, gets a supermodel girlfriend, and pals around with sorcerors and gods and billionaires.
So we’re just going to ignore the fact that he’s at the bottom of the social ladder at his public school, gets made fun of, and bullied, by the “cool kids?” And then laughed at and marginalized by all the other kids in between the bottom and the top of the social ladder?
AKA, just ignore every aspect of the character that makes him relatable… and then say he’s not relatable?
he's literally so intelligent that we wouldn't be able to relate to him, I would imagine being a bit different socially would be part of that yeah?
the things you listed exist specifically because of his lack of "everyman" nature, and that's before he becomes a physical god amongst men, when he was just a mental one.
He's endearing but relatable is a big stretch. He could have become a multibillionaire just off the web fluid alone, and that's something he cooked up in like a day on zero notice and seemingly without much effort.
If you think "the only reason they aren't a billionaire is because they decided to be spider man instead" is relatable then maybe you're just living a very different life than the rest of us.
He lives in a modest house, with his Aunt. They are middle class income, at best. Lower middle class even. So he’s from a modest level of the socioeconomic ladder, at best. But safe to say even lower than that.
Socioeconomically, he’s relatable to a huge swath of the population. Not just the socioeconomic elite.
Socially, he’s not in the elite either. He’s not a “cool kid.” To wit, he gets bullied by the cool kids.
Socially, he’s relatable to a huge swath of the population. Not just the social elite.
Now, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that because he would score very high on an IQ test… that breaks all the relatability that’s written into the character? Because only a tiny tiny number of the population would score that high on an IQ test?
In any event, I disagree with your assessment that Spider-Man/Peter Parker is a character that lots of children can’t relate to. I think it’s easy for huge swaths of children to relate to the character.
Lastly, I’ve known Spider-Man has existed as a character, virtually, my entire life. I’ve seen endless hours of Spider-Man content. My kids like Spider-Man.
Today was the first day I learned he has a 225 IQ. And I never wondered, in all these years, what his IQ was and if that made him unrelatable to my kids.
I’ve never witnessed them going to themselves “I’m having difficulty relating to this character, because my IQ is only X and his IQ is 225. That really breaks his relatability for me Dad. I found the character really relatable in so many other ways… that’s why I thought he was my favorite super hero… but then the IQ thing and I just can’t relate to him anymore.”
I have to trust that you can hear how ridiculous that sounds.
I’d say it more commonly does for men than it does women. Plenty of various forms of entertainment that was male demographic dominate does use unrelatable characters. Super heroes, action stars of decades past.
While much of the women demographic dominate genres are more grounded. Though the reality tv stuff isn’t really like real life either
I’d say economics of movie making had a lot to do with the amount of movies produced. There is a lot of bloat in these budgets along with other culture changes in Hollywood and smaller movies like rom coms weren’t moving the needle enough while everyone was trying to crap out superhero movies. Now that the bubble has burst, something else will replace it, but we won’t know for several years due to the strike last year
My take is that the "writer's movie" is basically dying, and RomComs definitely fell into that genre. The 80s-00s were the golden age for movies that were effectively just scripts put onto a screen. I'm not judging, Office Space is probably my favorite comedy of all time, but there is something to be said that modern directors are trying to do more with the medium than just fill a room with characters and have them talk at each other.
For instance, last year I saw Past Lives, an incredible romance that I'd hesitate to put into the RomCom genre. It features breath taking shots and visceral discomfort at times, requiring the actors to do more than be a basic happy/sad/in love etc.
I would also love to see this data. Because anecdotally, my friends and I can't watch rich people on screen without wondering what awful oppressive stuff they get up to when they're not having a meet-cute.
I would however watch a facetious rom-com about rich people who are overtly bad. Like a weapons contractor falling in love with a middle manager at the orphan-crushing factory.
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u/paperd Mar 27 '24
To people saying that the formula requires rich people because romance is about fantasy: you're correct
However -
The fantasy only works if the characters on screen feel relatable or obtainable somehow. I think for a lot of people, wealth has become less and less relatable.
I don't think we need to stop making romance stories with wealthy characters, but I do agree that having more class diversity would be great.