(by Karthik Amarnath)
I wonder what’s happened to the Hollywood rom-com. They used to be a big budget star studded staple up until the early noughties. Forward to the social media era, and the genre has whittled down to candy canes catering to a Valentine’s Day sugar rush.
I think of rom-coms as comfort food. There’s no great mystery about them. The template is always a two piece pie that anyone can put together in two scenes. X needs someone. Y needs someone. One’s Yin. The other’s Yang. Throw in some crunchy wit and gooey warmth. Top it off with sugary sweet sprinkles, and you go to bed happy, dream of happily ever after.
Hollywood rom-coms in their heyday were also very well written. Take Jerry Maguire for instance. It had sports, startups, breakups, bromance, all baked into an organic whole. And to top it off we got the saccharine catchphrases that would be crushed today by social media, memes churned out of the mush.
I love the catchphrases. “You Complete Me” is a personal favorite. Its a credit to Jerry Maguire that it earns that line. In fact, the writing in most of the big rom-coms holds up well even today and makes me wonder why hardly any of them have sequels. Sequels to rom-coms are kind of tricky though. How do you justify waking up from a happily ever after dream to a crashing reality and then end up in another happily ever after dream? As successful as Bridget Jones’ Baby was, it did leave me with that warmed over aftertaste.
But there is one movie I’d have really liked a sequel to, and its “As Good As it Gets.” A rom com that also tucks in a bit of existential comedy with writing thats lean as it gets. For those who havent watched the movie, it stars Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall, a successful writer, and Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly, a struggling waitress. Melvin has OCD, and he likes living alone. Carol walks around with puke on her shirt, and she’s lonely. Yin. Yang.
So there’s the tried and tested template. And then there’s Jack Nicholson’s character, Melvin, who is downright intolerable. And intolerant. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, you name it, he’s got a line for it. And the lines aren’t your sugary sweet catchphrases. Melvin’s cracking insults are braised to burn. Can you imagine any actor today, let alone a big star trying to describe a Black man the way Jack Nicholson yaps “(colored) like molasses, with one of those wide noses perfect for smelling trouble and prison food…”.
Even in the late nineties, before we were all woken up, Roger Ebert remarked that if the lines had been mouthed by any actor other than Jack Nicholson, “they would have brought the film to an appalled halt.” Jack Nicholson puts in an Oscar winning performance finding a uniquely Jack Nicholson character thats part loathsome, part lonely, part misanthropic, part misunderstood, or as Scott Edwards, in his book “Quintessential Jack”, puts it, “part Jack, part Nicholson”.
The crux of the movie is how does this intolerable man, who hates everything and everybody, find love? But when revisiting the movie today, the more interesting question turns out to be not the “How does Melvin” but “Who does Melvin” find love with. And the answer isn’t obvious. Yes, Melvin and Carol walk hand in hand into the sunrise right at the end of the movie. But theirs is an uneasy union if anything. Like Ebert wrote in his review “the movie’s happy ending feels like a blackout, seconds before more unhappiness begins.”
There is another love story in this movie which has a better shot at forever and that’s the one between Melvin and his neighbor Simon. Simon, played by Greg Kinnear, is a gay artist who Melvin first calls a “fudge-packer” and later introduces as “the fag”. Their characters fit the two piece template too. Melvin’s crude. Simon’s sensitive. Melvin stereotypes everybody. Simon likes to “stare at people long enough to see their humanity”. Okay, so this movie isn’t entirely vegan. But what follows this cheesy line is a literal punch to the face, which would have been a hoot if it weren’t horrific.
If there were a sequel to this movie, the Melvin-Simon relationship is the one I’d expect to see twenty years out. I can imagine them grow into an old “married” couple who keep bickering but nevertheless need each other. They’re already halfway there in this movie. They share a dog. They have late night chats. One time, Simon says “I love you” to Melvin, the only time we hear that line in the movie. He even half jokingly refers to them as “Mommy” and “Daddy”.
What about Carol then? Helen Hunt’s Oscar winning portrayal of the single mother is arguably the beating heart of the movie. One moment, her character is nurturing a child with a pulmonary disorder. The next moment she is handling Melvin and his personality disorder. In a cracking turn of events, she also reprises a role played by Simon’s mother. So there’s a whole other movie to be told from Carol’s perspective where being consigned to Melvin forever might not be as good as it seems for her.
But the biggest question for a sequel today wouldn’t be about Carol or Simon, but about Melvin. With or without a Jack Nicholson, how would his character survive the wringer of modern wokeness? After all, this is a character who made money and fame writing successful books where women, as he openly admits, are “just like men, but without any logic or accountability.” Would his books be banned today? Would he? Or would he just be forced into one of those diversity training workshops? Boy, that would be a hoot and a half.
Maybe I’m just reading the character and wokeness wrong. If there is any truth to the “opposites attract” foundation of a rom-com, then Melvin is the ideal soul mate for all things PC. And really, it’s that cliched foundation that’s most comforting about the genre. That two people who seem poles apart and have very little in common can end up walking in each other’s arms at the dawn of a new day. And in more ways than one, “As Good As it Gets” gets it as good as any movie can.
Baradwaj Rangan 
ravenus1
July 12, 2021
I’m surprised you left Tom Hanks out of your rom-com staples list. He pretty much defined the genre in the period you’re referring to.
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KayKay
July 13, 2021
A great read Karthik! Although my favorite movies tend to have a surplus of exploding buildings, crashing cars and hand-to-hand combat, I too have a soft spot for rom-coms.
The answers to the title of your article are in your write up:
1) Star Wattage
The Best Rom-Coms are powered by the Supernova Charisma of it’s leads and the red hot chemistry between them and it helps when they’re bona fide movie stars. Jerry Maguire had
Tom Cruise at the absolute pinnacle of his stardom, Serendipity (a personal favorite) had John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale at the point when both were giving critical and commercial hits (and hot as hell!). As Good As It Gets, which I love too, had Jack Nicholson, who had at that point been firmly established as one of the Best Actors of his generation as was happy to coast along on his devil-may-care, snarky curmudgeon persona. Sleepless In Seattle: Hanks and Ryan at their peak. While You Were Sleeping: Sandra Bullock at her
peak girl-next-door cutie pie hotness. My absolute Gold Standard of the genre, When Harry Met Sally, had the gorgeous Meg Ryan’s neuroses playing off a wonderfully sardonic Billy
Crystal
Where are the movie stars today who can effortlessly power a rom-com on their sole charisma and likeability? Tom Hanks is in his mid-60s, Cruise turns the Big 6 next year and Denzel turns 70 in 3 years! Nicholson has retired, Kevin Costner is making mini-series, Mel Gibson is making an excruciatingly slow climb back from public disgrace and Will Smith is extremely hit or miss (a pity, because both Hitch and Focus show the man can play a romantic lead effortlessly) We don’t have movie stars now, we have some popular actors whose fame rests on whatever Blockbuster Franchise they’ve happened to hitch their career wagon to. Note, I haven’t mentioned any female leading ladies as we all know Hollywood (and pretty much any other “Wood” considers them useless as romantic leads after the ager of 30)
2) Wokeness
Like it or hate it, a good rom-com still plays off the eternal Battle Of The Sexes tropes with much of the humor being gender-based (she’s fastidious, he’s a slob, she’s career focused, he’s a layabout, she’s neurotic, he’s chill, she wants a commitment, he doesn’t, he’s in love, she wants to be friends etc etc). In today’s climate, the Rom Com simply won’t survive the harsh glare of Racial (it’s too White) and Sexual (They’re too straight) scrutiny.
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MANK
July 13, 2021
More than Hanks, it was Meg Ryan, the quintessential America’s sweetheart, who defined Romcom during the period: When Harry met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, French Kiss, Addicted to Love, You’ve got Mail etc.. some of them starred Hanks as well. i was a big fan of hers; she could make even a Top Gun tolerable. You can observe the growth and decline of the modern romcom by analyzing her career trajectory.
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MANK
July 13, 2021
I’m not a big fan of Jerry Maguire, but i really like As good as it gets, especially for its Nicholsonisms: “i think of a man and i take away reason and accountability” has me ROFLing every time i watch it, while “you make me want to be a better man” is truly heart touching. the eccentric and melancholic Melvin Udall is a Tailor-made role for Nicholson’s talents and image. It harks back to the iconic troubled geniuses he played in at the beginning of his career in films like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
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Aman Basha
July 13, 2021
Dude, they’re all on Netflix. Ali Wong’s Always Be My Maybe (with a great Keanu cameo), the horrible Kissing Booth crap, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (featuring my eternal nemesis Noah Centieno), Never Have I Ever (a genuinely funny, touching teen romcom series around an Indian American narrated by John McEnroe) and some other teen nonsense.
Standards for Romcoms have fallen so low that Crazy Rich Asians, a film that rips off a mediocre romcom like Jumping The Broom and has a plot that’d embarrass K3G Karan Johar has become a blockbuster.
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KayKay
July 13, 2021
Aman, Crazy Rich Asians arrived at that perfect moment in the zeitgeist where diversity and inclusiveness arrived on the Hollywood agenda and where it’s been perched ever since. The Kevin Kwan book it’s based on is more a sly satire on the 1-percenters (or in the case of some characters, the 1-percenters of the 1-percenters) but it’s rom-com elements were understandably accentuated for the film.
I can’t stand Ali Wong, but she was pretty tolerable in Always Be My Maybe, which was given a huge boost with that Keanu cameo and the charming Randall Park. Pre-steroid Kumail Nanjiani actually made a pretty sweet quasi rom-come based on his real life The Big Sick but recently bombed with The Lovebirds.
Keanu Reeves himself made a Before Sunrise-type rom com Destination Wedding with Winona Ryder which hardly anyone saw which is a pity because it’s pretty entertaining.
Palm Springs is the Rom-Com fused with the Time-Loop genre and it’s actually pretty good
So, I agree the genre itself isn’t dead but it’s missing a huge X Factor due to all the reasons I outlined in my comment above.
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Karthik
July 13, 2021
ravenus1 I really wasnt making much of a list. And also, it wasnt just Tom Hanks. Most big stars of that era (and before that) had a big rom or two to their name.
KayKay Thanks. Agree with you on both counts. I’ve wondered who the stars are today too— I dont know, maybe thats a good thing. And one other point is that rom-coms (at least the kind we’re talking about) are made of “fuzzy and funny”— ingredients that give you shelf life. But I dont think commercial movies have shelf life as a consideration any more.
MANK After the Meg Ryans were replaced by the Katherine Heigls, and Judd Apatow entered the scene, the rom-coms took a narrow lane to no-mans land. Occasionally there is an “Enough Said” but even that didnt have many takers.
Aman I couldn’t get past half an hour of Always Be My Maybe— the leads seemed to have almost no chemistry. Crazy Rich Asians, on the other hand, was simple, predictable, and the lavish setting made it easy on the eyes. And Michelle Yeoh was great.
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Naren
July 13, 2021
I think romcom genre was overdid as it turned out to b a cash cow at some point. No one has mentioned here yet but let’s not forget the “Hugh Grant” romcom vehicle. How many can remember him in “Extreme Measures” and how many can remember him in “4 Weddings and a Funeral”, “Nine Months”, “Notting Hill”, “Bridget Jones’s Diary” . . . etc.?! Even before “4 Weddings . . .” he did romcoms like “Impromptu”, “Bitter Moon” etc.
The new century dawned and comic book movies started inundating the market and a new trend was set. How many can remember Hugh Jackman in a romcom called “Kate & Leopold” with Meg Ryan or Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek in a romcom called “Breaking Up”?! Charismatic leads in both of those movies too.
The 2nd decade started and so did a new aspect of filmmaking. Tarantino in a talk with Bill Maher put it aptly . . . “Ideology has become more important than art, Ideology trumps individual effort, Ideology trumps good, Ideology trumps entertaining” Wokeness and identity politics started seeping into movies but more importantly it became childishly competitive as in “Whatever you can do, so can I”. That attitude resulted in gendered crap like “Ghostbusters”, “Ocean’s Eight” etc. Mind you Sandra Bullock was also right in the middle of the romcom storm of the 90s. Even both the remakes of the all-female “Charlie’s Angels” sucked to no end. But a miniscule respite came in the form of the sci-fi/romcom “Palm Springs”. The movie had its problems too but it stayed away from the current culture and trend of filmmaking. It turned out not all bad despite familiar tropes. “Last Christmas” with Emilia Clarke was a super dud.
Maybe there shud b a split in the genre and hence result in romantic movies relevant to the present times and comedy movies that r actually funny and not just to the people involved but others too. Maybe there wud b something like a Casimir Effect then which might give birth to a new age romcom genre.
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Madan
July 13, 2021
Nice writeup.
But I agree with Aman. Romcoms have basically changed into a teenybopper genre, similar to the transformation in pop during the BSB/Britney years. They are made on a much smaller budget and are really silly but presumably get the giggles from teens. The concept of an ‘adult’ rom com is less popular now. If you look at how much rom coms made back then, it was $100-200 mn which was considered good box office returns in the 90s. But in today’s MCU-fied Hollywood, something closer to the $1bn mark is the aspiration. Also, comedies generally are dead. They made too many of them in the 90s until both romcom and slapstick began to deliver dwindling returns. Action, romcom, slapstick, all these genres were saturated in the 90s. Fast & Furious was action’s last salvo before MCU offered a masala-like alternative that blended several genres in one package while also appealing to fan loyalties. Unbeatable combo (albeit it’s not for me).
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Voldemort
July 13, 2021
Top it off with sugary sweet sprinkles, and you go to bed happy, dream of happily ever after.
That is so beautifully put. Great article!
And agree with Aman here that they are all on Netflix. But ugh what passes off as romcoms – Kissing booth, to all the boys and other appallingly crappy films masquerading as romcoms. I get that the target audience is teenage girls but does that mean they have to be the same fanfiction-y type.
Like it or hate it, a good rom-com still plays off the eternal Battle Of The Sexes tropes with much of the humor being gender-based (she’s fastidious, he’s a slob, she’s career focused, he’s a layabout, she’s neurotic, he’s chill, she wants a commitment, he doesn’t, he’s in love, she wants to be friends etc etc).
True. The battle of the sexes trope, though done to death, can always be interesting if done well, IMO. TV series do a much better job of portraying these twisted opposites attract kinda relationships nowadays IMO, than the Netflix romcoms. Like Amy and Jake in B99, Leonard and Penny in BBT, Lucifer and Chloe in Lucifer.
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Madan
July 14, 2021
Naren: Yup, Hugh Grant. If a movie had Grant and he was dressed in a jacket and not period attire (Sense and Sensibility), you already knew what the film would be like. Then, Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan all reliable romcom vehicles. Just as the presence of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold, Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seafaring guaranteed either action or action comedy. Maybe reflecting today on the 90s, it’s easy to think the decade was about Shawshank Redemption, LA Confidential, Big Lebowski and Fight Club but typecasting was taken to ridiculous levels by the Hollywood assembly line. There were so many films and so many of them in turn being quite predictable in terms of what to expect. I left out the comedy specialists – Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams. Yes, a Mrs Doubt fire was able to be poignant while also inducing laughs but films like the remake of Dolittle or Nutty Professor didn’t fare so well.
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madhusudhan194
July 14, 2021
I wonder why Nancy Meyers’ name never pops up in a conversation about rom-coms. She made some terrific films in the genre like What Women Want (Mel Gibson was a riot in the film sharing sparkling chemistry with Helen Hunt), It’s Complicated (a rare instance of Alec Baldwin stealing the show from Meryl Streep) and Something’s Gotta Give (Jack Nicholson again with a cameo by Keanu Reeves). The Intern (although it was a dramedy and not a rom-com) was a pretty decent film too. None of these films ticked off the “woke” criteria boxes but they were top notch on the entertainment quality.
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vijay
July 14, 2021
The 90s also had some relatively low profile romedies like my favorite The Groundhog Day. Sometime back in life, much like the character in the movie, my routine everyday was pretty much same for a while, which included watching this movie around the same time everyday. As a bonus I also stumbled upon the gorgeous Ray Charles song featured in the movie and later became addicted to it. That was another one of the nice side-benefits of watching these movies, you could discover a great song or two from time to time.
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Naren
July 14, 2021
Madan: While there r always exceptions, most of the action movies don’t have space for nuances. Action/Thrillers or Sci-Fi/Action/Thrillers r different but straight up action movies r pretty much about the violence and that’s it. It’s almost impossible to taint that. Of course movies like “Demolition Man”, “Judge Dredd” r not helping my point.
It’s not like there hasn’t been female oriented movies before but they didn’t stray into the everyday social lives of people. Think about Meryl Streep in the true crime thriller “Silkwood”. It was about a female whistleblower and her struggles to get the truth out. But it was confined to the entertainment space and nothing more. That movie even has a Confederate flag hanging in her boyfriend’s room. Maybe that was the case in real life too. Either way that didn’t have a social impact and therefore people going around foaming at their mouths talking about racial segregation and its constant reminder etc. Now imagine doing something like that in a movie today . . . all hell wud break loose and the societal impact wud b persecutory in nature.
Women in movies these days [Tina Fey, Amy Poehler] keep claiming every single day that this is their glorious time where men can finally take a back seat and the woman can carry the movie. Mery Streep again . . . in “The River Wild” where David Strathairn who plays her husband takes the back seat while she fights two male villains [Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly], Linda Hamilton was right up there with Schwarzenegger in T2, Helen Hunt in Twister and of course my all time favourite Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise where she became the first ever actress to b nominated for an Oscar for a sci-fi film [Aliens] and there r so many other examples. Forget the above . . . Linda Hunt, a lesbian in real life, played a man, not a trans man but a man in the movie “The Year of Living Dangerously” and she won an Oscar for that. Where were the LGBTQ+ community back then and why won’t they still acknowledge and incorporate this achievement in any of their arguments?! People like Elizabeth Banks keep producing one crappy movie after another and when they don’t do well at the box office then the male viewers r being ruthlessly blamed as being sexists. I don’t know what it wud take for them to accept the fact that they’re simply not funny or r incapable of making any other kind of good movies. It’s not me being opinionated here but the audience worldwide have spoken time and time again.
Take George Clooney for example . . . the mid 90s was particularly lively for him because he did the inexplicably crappy Batman movies but he also did “One Fine Day”, a romcom with Michelle Pfeiffer and “The Peacemaker”, an action movie with Nicole Kidman. Three different genres did co-exist in a short period of time with a common denominator. But now it seems like everything has converged to only one genre . . . “Woke”. The funny thing is that the term “Woke” and its implication has existed since the days of Abraham Lincoln as he freed the slaves.
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Anuja Chandramouli
July 14, 2021
Nice one Karthik! I prefer drama, horror or action to romance but every once in a while, a romcom comes along that makes the heart hum… I adored As Good As It Gets. Hard to resist a messed up romance with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt in it. It had so many lovely moments and like you, I loved the prickly relationship between Melvin and Simon (and let us not forget that cutie pie of a dog!)
Jerry McGuire worked because Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger were just at their electrifying best but somehow I never really bought their romance. Couldn’t shake the feeling that she was more invested in their relationship than he was and that is usually a recipe for disaster.
Think my fave romcom would have to be 50 First Dates. While it has one joke too many about walrus schlongs, I will admit to having watched it a gazillion times. Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler have incredible chemistry and it is brilliant that the film did not take the easy way out and have her miraculously regain her memory or something. And I will say it… Sandler is one of the most underrated actors out there. He has displayed serious histrionic chops in films like The Myerowitz Diaries or The Uncut Gems. Hell, I even loved him in The Longest Yard.
And we have to discuss Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock’s contribution to the romcom oeuvre. Both cut their teeth in this frothy as a vanilla milkshake space before graduating to ‘Serious Actor’ roles. The former had a gift for lending potentially unlikeable characters her ‘American Sweetheart’ charm, particularly evident in Pretty Woman, My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Runaway Bride. As for Sandy, nobody does clumsy, clunky and cute quite like her…
Sigh! Be still my heart!! Missing good old fashioned romance these days. And you guys are right. It seems unlikely these films will make a comeback any time soon.
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Aman Basha
July 14, 2021
@Naren: Aman says Amen to every word the Lord makes you type.
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Karthik
July 14, 2021
Thanks, Madan and Voldemort.
I dont think I’m exactly lamenting the “death” of rom-coms. I agree that the genre still has a pulse on the OTT space, but as most people have said, its more niche there (thats probably true of most OTT productions). The fact is that the genre has had a wide audience for a long long time— a His Girl Friday was made in the 40s, and is still a good watch. It just seems to me that studios today are unable to look past the social media coloring of audience expectations.
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Aman Basha
July 14, 2021
Come on people, if Bennifer can make a comeback, so can our old stars.
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Madan
July 14, 2021
“The fact is that the genre has had a wide audience for a long long time— a His Girl Friday was made in the 40s, and is still a good watch.” – Yes. But – and I had once discussed this in a friends’ whatsapp group – the thing is pre-2000s, it was OK for movies to be earnest. Even if romcom is comedy, there is an element of sincerity that drives it too. Even in a movie like French Kiss, the chemistry between Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline is what makes it work. What happened post 2000s is mainstream cinema began to borrow the irony and irreverence of Lebowski or Fight Club…without realizing that what drove those movies in turn wasn’t just the irreverence alone but also their very unusual construction and subject matter. Suddenly, it became difficult to just talk about love with sincerity in movie language. The same thing has happened to some extent in Hindi cinema and hence why romantic duets died. Somehow the idea of expressing love in a very poetic manner came to be regarded as laughable and without that, the romcom dies (I vaguely remember somebody snorting in the comments when BR once mentioned his fondness for romcoms and that shows you how radically the very perception of cinema has changed, considering that romance was the epitome, the bedrock of cinema). This is also why I don’t think it’s just about studios watching too much social media because these trends had begun to take root in the noughties before the emergence of facebook, let alone twitter or insta.
The irony (sic!) is this epidemic of irony resulted in an opposite reaction where the serious stuff became dead serious, like dead serious biopics/historicals. Or when they did make a nice romance like Fault In Our Stars, they had to also make it tragic. Somewhere, the obsession with being ‘hip’ and ‘smart’ made movies lose their lightheartedness and that’s why it all feels heavy. Even the really good movies now are very deliberate and studied and just don’t feel like a breezy watch anymore. Spontaneity is gone and I don’t know when it will come back…if ever. Wokeness is just one reflection of what the movies have become (and the need to sound serious goes well with the need to show how woke you are). I had written about the French series Call My Agent briefly in my write up on Mare of Easttown. Call My Agent has the verve that Hollywood once had (it is, of course, a very sophisticated product in a way that perhaps these breezy films may not always have been). So there are probably regional film cultures that are not yet affected by this trend. But I observe it in both Hollywood and Hindi cinema.
If I had to sum up everything I wrote above in one sentence, I would say that movie making has become too affected.
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Karthik
July 14, 2021
Thanks, Anuja.
I like Adam Sandler too. He was great in Punch Drunk Love and Meyerowitz Stories, and Uncut Gems is a hidden gem. And yes, 50 first dates has lovely writing, great chemistry between the leads, and even the humor is not the typical Sandler gross-out kind.
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Karthik
July 14, 2021
Very interesting comment, Madan.
It reminds me of something Vetrimaaran said in that director’s round table a couple of years ago. I think it was Lakshmy Ramakrishnan who questioned him on why his movies, or movies in general, have turned increasingly violent. He said something like increasing economic disparity creates a lot of pent up frustration and that draws people to watch more violence on screen.
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Naren
July 14, 2021
Talking about Adam Sandler’s capability to perform and yet no reference to “Reign Over Me”?! He gave a knock-out performance as a bereaved husband and father of 2 girls whom he lost in 9/11. He actually surprised the hell out of me at that time. Like I commented in another post . . . comedians being excellent drama actors . . . that phenomenon has always amazed me.
Speaking of the romance genre, I miss movies like some of the Merchant-Ivory ones namely “Howards’s End”, “Maurice”, “The Remains of the Day” etc. Star Movies back in the 90s used to dedicate a whole segment named “Merchant-Ivory Specials”.
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KayKay
July 15, 2021
” Somewhere, the obsession with being ‘hip’ and ‘smart’ made movies lose their lightheartedness and that’s why it all feels heavy”
Spot on, Madan!I call it Hipster Snark. The need to coat everything with a jokey, condescending sarcasm. The Marvel movies exemplify this best. Used to be a time when a character was down, and a rousing, inspirational speech would give them the required push (think Bill Pullman’s President’s speech in Independence Day). In the recent Black Widow, Natasha’s sister rolls her eyes and says “Oh God, you’re gonna give one of those inspirational speeches aren’t you?” Used to be cool(even when you knew it was kinda silly) that an action hero (or superhero) struck a bad-ass pose. This is used as a joke in Black Widow where she’s called out as a “poser”. And when I read a review that interpreted this as a pushback against the “sexualization” of the character in previous installments, I facepalmed. Hard! This has carried over into romance in movies as well. You’re not allowed to play it earnest and sincere, only cynical and snarky.
Naren, I second, third and fourth every thing in your second last paragraph. Have ranted about the same thing elsewhere in this blog. I’m not against strong women in movies, merely the re-writing of history to claim that such a thing never existed before the current crop of activists masquerading as writers took over Hollywood screenplays.
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Alex John
July 15, 2021
I thought 2018’s ‘Set it up’ was a nice, warm addition to the modern rom-com list. Although it checks a few diversity boxes, it is not really in-your-face with it.
And I think Zoey Deutch can turn into the next rom-com superstar, provided she gets ample opportunities in the future.
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Naren
July 15, 2021
KayKay: Thanx. It’s not just about re-writing history but also relentlessly omitting crucial details that wudn’t fit their current rhetoric. This is Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in their Golden Globe presentation . . . “Amal Clooney did this human rights work, that humanitarian work and represented some important and crucial cases in courts over the years but let’s give the lifetime achievement award to her husband George”. It’s the Golden Globes for crying out loud and it’s not like she hasn’t won accolades or recognition for her work either. Either they’re really that dumb to think that’s funny or they must think that the audience r that dumb to not recognise their rhetoric being passed off as a joke. But no no no we’re the ones who r lacking a sense of humour. Again, Kathryn Bigelow was one of the nominees and these two just cudn’t help themselves there too . . . “Anyone who was married to James Cameron for 3 years does truly deserve an award”. They got personal in their attacks but no no no it’s all funny and if u don’t laugh then u r the one with the problem. But when Ricky Gervais ripped thru hollywood and joked about being paid for that a combined amount that both Tina and Amy got then somehow it’s disgusting and oppressive. None of his attacks was personal or one that wasn’t publicised. Not just Hollywood but he didn’t spare even Tim Cook, Apple and the rest of Silicon Valley either.
As far as Black Widow goes it’s just another example of this narrative of which they’re completely convinced that if a woman spouts off scientific facts and jargons then somehow that makes them seem really smart. Adding to that, they forcibly made David Harbour’s character so dumb and “macho” in contrast to these women so that when Florence Pugh’s character uses clinical terms to refer to the female anatomy she somehow comes off as a brainiac. I sharply felt that this was intentionally done with an agenda because that’s simply not how David Harbour’s character seemed when both these women were young girls. It was simply unberable sitting thru this movie. “Enola Holmes” was another movie where they had to make it a point to bring in all the scientific education and training to make her seem smart. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes was ever shown in this light. He was just brilliant and that was made obvious thru his applications. I might be wrong about this but that’s how I saw it.
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Madan
July 15, 2021
” “Enola Holmes” was another movie where they had to make it a point to bring in all the scientific education and training to make her seem smart. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes was ever shown in this light.” – Neither was the character of Clarice (Jodie Foster) in Silence of the Lambs. They just showed her as she was, no trying to explain how she could possibly be qualified to be working as an investigator in the FBI. Nor again with her character in Contact. Yeah, yeah, I get it, Enola Holmes was set in the same period as Sherlock. But Marie Curie lived through the Sherlock period too, so why are we expected to need the backstory to find it plausible that a fictional female detective could have existed in the late 19th century? Why not just trust the audience to buy into something without TMI?
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Naren
July 15, 2021
Madan: That’s right and my point exactly. Clarice Starling and Eleanor Arroway r excellent examples. It cud b one of the following
a)The creators think that the audience [Gen Z] won’t be convinced otherwise
b)They’re incompetent to get that kind of portrayal out of the actors
c)Crappy adaptation of the book.
Whatever the reason was, I know that the movie made some of my far left radical feminist friends ecstatic. Do u think a movie like “The Last Seduction” wud really work during these times?! Linda Fiorentino’s character was intriguing as she was unyielding and dogmatic throughout the movie. But she used her sex appeal to get what she wanted and that’s a big no-no these days. The point is that she was more convincing than what’s being portrayed as smart women these days.
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Madan
July 16, 2021
Naren: I have even heard that JK Rowling so abbreviated her name (instead of Joanne Rowling) because hiding her gender would make it easier to sell books. As an avid reader of Agatha Christie’s works, I was flabbergasted to hear this kind of logic in the 21st century. Seems to me that some of those who think they’re battling gender inequality are in fact taking things backward.
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Madan
July 16, 2021
To be clear, I am not saying I know for a fact that JK abbreviated her name for that reason. She may or may not have, I had never tried to find out back in the day. But this is the logic some 20 something fans offered. Might be the same ones who thought she was the one who popularized the concept of women writing novels!
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KayKay
July 16, 2021
My biggest gripe with ENOLA HOLMES is in it’s treatment of Mycroft Holmes. In the books, he was Sherlock’s far more chilled brother, possessed of even greater deductive reasoning but far too lazy to do the actual leg-work to verify his assumptions. A genial personality who spent most of his time in the Diogenes Club.
In the movie he’s an asshole because….the tyranny of the Patriarchy needs to be highlighted in what is basically an Action Adventure film targeted at a teen demographic? Poor Sam Claflin. From heartthrob status in THE HUNGER GAMES and ME BEFORE YOU to back to back films where he’s the object of female derision.
And I practically gagged when the film had a scene where a woman berates Holmes for his lifestyle i.e unmarried, free of attachments. Now, swap the genders and have a man castigating a woman for her choices to remain unmarried and childless, then run for cover before a shit storm of “Toxic Masculinity” and “Mansplaining” hit you.
A pity, because without any of the above agenda being shoved squarely in your face, ENOLA HOLMES is a pretty decent rainy day weekend watch.
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Madan
July 16, 2021
It goes both ways. I didn’t think the Ocean’s Twelve movie was remotely as bad as those bashing it ONLY because all the thieves were women seemed to suggest. It wasn’t amazing but none of the Ocean movies were. They were just competent and entertaining mainstream thriller products of the sort you’d expect from Soderbergh. Sometimes an element of sexism does creep into criticism of these female reboots but I do cringe when they insert social justice talking points (sort of like the ‘thathvam’/message speeches in Tamil films). Build in a social justice angle if you want but try to do it artfully, don’t just have a character mouth lines in a monologue. Like the newfound black doctor in the Orient Express reboot.
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Madan
July 16, 2021
Meant Ocean’s Eight in my comment but you probably got that.
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Naren
July 16, 2021
The J.K. Rowling thing seems murky. It was apparently the publishers who suggested that she use the initials as her pseudonym in order to appeal to male readers too. She apparently didn’t seem to have a problem with any name but she did go along with the publishers.
Gender equality is one of the biggest myths to ever exist. We just r very very different and so different that no one can even comprehend the true depths of it. So not just some but most of them battling gender inequality r in fact taking things so far backwards. This is a rampant phenomenon these days. “Gender Inequality”, “Social Injustice”, “Cancel Culture” . . . The name is “Legion” for they are many!!!
“Magic Mike” didn’t seem to have received any such bashing. I guess male objectification is just normal and very much ok with the current crowd.
Madan, did u mean Ocean’s Eight? Because that’s the one with all female thieves. Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 were mostly men [Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones]. Yes they were entertaining but forget about being competent, Ocean’s 11 is a remake in the first place.
Anyway, with people behind the camera wallowing in such a misandrous attitude there is simply not a chance in hell for them to get a proper male-female chemistry going in a romcom movie.
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Madan
July 16, 2021
“Gender equality is one of the biggest myths to ever exist.” – It’s not a myth. I would push back against that idea. I interviewed somebody for a junior role and because she is a woman, the HR head advised that oh, one day she will get married and leave the org. There are plenty such examples of the ways in which there is gender discrimination in many walks of life.
HOWEVER, I don’t think that is something that can be addressed very effectively in movies save for, well, actually making movies about normal women rather than seeking to appropriate popular fictional characters. Goes back to what we discussed about the Jodie Foster roles. That was the correct approach to instilling the idea that women can do all these things very well, just as well as men. Fetishising a talented woman in the way Enola Holmes does on the other hand reinforces the idea that it’s unusual for women to be that intelligent. I couldn’t imagine anything that would more soothe the ears of male chauvinists than that.
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Karthik
July 16, 2021
Naren: I disagree with your “gender” comment in many different ways, but I’ll keep my opinion within the rom-com context.
As KayKay wrote, a good old rom-com always played on the “battle of the sexes”, drawing off the stereotype of a man-woman dynamic. Nevertheless its still a stereotype. And perpetuating stereotypes is problematic. Sure, a man and woman are different. So, are a man and another man. Or a woman and another woman. One of my favorite romantic movies from recent times is “Call me by your name” which is about two men (well, a man and a 17-year old boy) who couldn’t be more different. And for something more comic, “Will and Grace” mined plenty of humor from the friction between two gay men. In “As Good as it Gets”, the entire road trip stretch with the three protagonists is a masterclass on writing that brings out characters deeper than their genders.
As I said in an earlier comment, I dont think rom-coms are dead. It’s just going to take a lot more faith in the “fuzzy and funny” formula, a lot more conviction in the writing, and a lot less of the foolhardiness that fights stereotypes with superficiality.
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Naren
July 16, 2021
Madan, u r talking about gender discrimination and that’s very much a depressing reality. Also, there’s another side to that coin . . . women get to travel for free on buses and metro trains in Delhi, now in TN women get to travel in metro trains anytime during the day but men only during non rush hours . . . whatever that means. Women r being used as marketing tools by the politicians and I don’t c any “equality” warrior lining up to complain about such things. There r also several cases of women providing sexual favours for their superiors so that they can have power over others. There r many cases of women filing false allegations of sexual misconduct to hinder organisational progress of men who threaten their positions in the company. Such allegations r filed with the very same HR department who more often than not tend to side with the wailing damsel in distress. Many many such cases very much here in India that it’s no longer an isolated phenomenon in the western part of the world.
I think of gender equality as a whole another ball game wherein lies two mutually exclusive subsets namely “Equality of Opportunity” and “Equality of Outcome”. Each of them have their own bottomless mess of complexities and as far as I’ve seen most people r not even aware of the two branches, much less c the difference between them. Women in western movies r relentlessly complaining about the equality of outcome [box office performance] because of their relentless fight for equality of opportunity. They complain that they’re being oppressed in both areas. I’m not denying that there r gender discriminations there but there r also good judgements where they might’ve been rejected because people cud c that they won’t b a hit with the audience. So rather than accepting their incompetence they merged everything into one single rhetoric . . . OPPRESSION. This rhetoric hits the morality sweet spot and piques the emotions and sentimentalities of people. Now that they’re getting the feedback directly from the audience rather than from intermediaries they might b winning on the “Equality of Opportunity” front but on the “Equality of Outcome” front . . . it’s abysmal. So what’s their reaction? . . . Denial and exploitation of the gender discrimination culture to their advantage by blaming it on the audience. So what’s their response? . . . cancel culture!!!
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Madan
July 17, 2021
” now in TN women get to travel in metro trains anytime during the day but men only during non rush hours ” – There are reasons for that or ladies special trains in Mumbai, which would be a long debate and I am not going to open up that one. As Karthik did, I will stick to the subject of movies.
“Women in western movies r relentlessly complaining about the equality of outcome [box office performance] because of their relentless fight for equality of opportunity. ” – I agree with this to the extent that, yes, if you release a film, you can’t complain against the audience if it doesn’t do well. But again, on the flipside, if an all woman team did come up with a very good project based around women’s lives, it may not get the studio greenlight. Nor likely would a good project about black lives. Even in my limited travels in the US, I met black people in a majority black city (DC) struggling to make ends meet and I saw a white homeless family outside a suburban Walmart. You don’t see about THIS America in the movies because it won’t get past the studio heads. But they are comfortable with, instead, a black superhero fantasy or changing the gender of superhero characters. The politics of a racial aesthetic as Clarence Thomas put it – where token representation of minorities at the top soothes liberal sensitivities and whether deeper systemic issues are addressed doesn’t matter.
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Anu Warrier
July 17, 2021
Naren, there’s so much wrong with your comment or indeed, your understanding of the discrimination that women face, or the inequalities between the genders that I don’t even know where to start and how to unpack it. You have compared apples to oranges, jumped from one thing (gender discrimination) to another (cancel culture) and managed to blame women for both (at least by implication).
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Naren
July 17, 2021
Karthik: U r right. We r all different irrespective of the gender. That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. Individuality is the only thing that makes sense and not a group identity. I’ve to refer to Tarantino again . . . “Ideology trumps INDIVIDUAL effort”. Identity politics is what is cultivating this collective attitude that is divisive in nature. The road trip sequence in “As Good As it Gets” is a blend of sexuality and gender differences backed up by a pseudo incestuous backstory. It’s also about the inevitable generational differences where Simon’s father and Melvin have similar reservations. Similarly Melvin and Carol have their own generational differences as there’s a good 25-26 year age difference. U can c similar themes of a blend of sexuality, gender and generational differences in the romcom “Frankie and Johnny” as well. It’s Pacino and Pfeiffer again and her character has a gay roommate played by Nathan Lane. I haven’t seen “Call Me By Your Name” but if it is what u say then don’t u think it’s more likely that it’s the age difference between the two that’s bringing about the clashes?! Brokeback Mountain didn’t have such differences between the two. Generational differences r inevitable and I don’t think it has anything to do with gender equality/inequality.
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Naren
July 17, 2021
Anu: I didn’t compare the two. I said that gender discrimination is being weaponised as part of their knee-jerk reaction even when it’s not applicable. Cancel Culture later becomes their response [as in retailiation] to the inequality of outcome. If I gave the impression that only women r responsible for all of this then I apologise. Any kind of discrimination goes both ways without a doubt. I meant that women of Hollywood keep promulgating themselves as perennial victims of discrimination, underpayment, oppression etc while at the same time pocketing huge sums of money. Scarlett Johansson is one of the highest paid actors in the world and yet she keeps floating victimhood even during the promotion of Black Widow. When they say that they’re being underpaid it doesn’t always mean that they’re not paid what they’re worth and somehow it always seems to mean that they’re not paid as much as men. When it comes to men and men alone, there r many cases where they’re not paid what they’re worth too and many men r not paid as much as other men as well. Alec Baldwin, among others, keeps complaining that Tom Cruise is being way overpaid and that the major economic imbalance impacts other actors, crew members etc. There r numerous other such problems among men alone.
Since we’re talking about romcoms here let me give one example in particular . . . Four Weddings and a Funeral
Budget: $8m [original] . . . $6m [cutdown and final]
Andie MacDowell waived her fee for the movie and opted for percentage points instead.
Boxoffice: $260m+ [worldwide]
It was the highest grossing movie in Britain for a long period of time but her character Carrie was voted the most annoying, in a poll. She pocketed $2m when Hugh Grant was paid a measly $100,000 in comparison. Andie MacDowell wasn’t even the first choice to play that part as she replaced Jeanne Tripplehorn. How many people do u think even knows these details let alone complain of being underpaid or whatever. It wasn’t like she was forced by the producers to make this choice. She gambled and it paid off. How many other such stories do u think people know?!
When Morgan Freeman crushes the narrative that there’s an endemic of racial discrimination and oppression it does behove one to take a fresh look at things, don’t u think?! He said that he and the interviewer [also black] r two of the many examples of success stories and that the narrative is false at its very core. Think about Chris Gardner . . . the guy who was portrayed by Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness”.
If I say that the BLM movement is deeply flawed at it’s very core then people wud throw spears and daggers at me. There r several black people who r dead against BLM and find it even more dangerous than status quo. BLM keeps pushing their “defund police” agenda while at the same time a black police officer, among others was killed during one of their riots. I don’t remember if it was in L.A. or N.Y. but one of their riots was widely deemed anti-semitic because they completely demolished businesses and homes of Jewish majority areas. The biggest hypocrisy is that BLM is funded by major companies like Coca Cola, the very companies that the BLM founders accuse of being oppressive.
Racial/Gender or any other kind of discrimination r very much real and while they r problems, they r not THE problems. Tailoring convenient and expedient narratives to suit their agenda is THE problem. In other words . . . PROPAGANDA. Weaponising these issues to b used in situations where they’re not applicable is THE problem. Let me iterate . . . Women r not the only ones responsible for this condition. Men r responsible just as much . . . men who share such ideologies, men who blindly support other men and women with such ideologies just so that they r not the odd ones . . . all r responsible.
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KayKay
July 17, 2021
Karthik, “Call Be By Your Name” also highlights a hypocritical stance adopted by Hollywood: Swap out the gender of the 17 year old to a girl, and see how that very same critical darling and awards contender would have turned into the year’s most maligned film. BTW, it is my very personal opinion that I find ALL romantic/sexual relations between an adult and an adolescent (that includes the above 18s) problematic. My issue is that the sexual orientation of the 2 characters made it ok because ultimately the need to push a Liberal/progressive agenda trumped all considerations.
Gender Inequality is a very real problem. But how Hollywood chooses to go about addressing it is boneheaded to say, the least
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Rahul
July 17, 2021
Naren , very well articulated post. When you say
“Racial/Gender or any other kind of discrimination r very much real and while they r problems, they r not THE problems.”
I suppose you mean Racial discrimination may be THE problem for black people, but it is not for Naren.
Gender discrimination may be THE problem for women , but it is not for Naren.
This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Thank you.
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Karthik
July 17, 2021
KayKay I find that my own reaction to movies have a similar contradiction. So I loved “Call me by your name”, and “Carol” — another example that would have served my purpose in the comment, and it does have some of the underage issues even if its less sticky than “Call me by your name”. At the same time, I was creeped out by “An Education” from the get go, I havent found the nerve to watch Haraamkhor, and dont plan on watching (or reading) Lolita, ever. Part of it I think is that somewhere theres a patriarchal patch stitched into my mental fabric that keeps tugging every now and then. But then, there’s also the fact non binary sexuality is discriminated against IRL, and that awareness made the scenarios in those other movies feel less exploitative. Of course, with Call me by your Name, the “older man” was Arnie Hammer who, at least IMO, cant seem to shake off his college boy vibe from Social network (I practically laughed when I saw him as Maxim in the new Rebecca).
Naren Somehow your comment began as individuals are different regardless of gender, which I agree with, but ended up with a hypothesis that people of the same age and gender arent all that different, which I completely disagree with.
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Anu Warrier
July 17, 2021
I meant that women of Hollywood keep promulgating themselves as perennial victims of discrimination, underpayment, oppression etc while at the same time pocketing huge sums of money.
Let me put it this way – in a tech company, a woman VP makes 300K while a male VP makes around 400K. She’s earning a ‘huge sum of money’ so she should shut up? Doesn’t matter that a male in her position is earning around 20-25 % more than her? For the same job description?
I agree that in films, economics skew towards rewarding men more than women. But if women in power and as you put it ‘pocketing huge sums of money’ don’t use their platform to amplify the pay disparity, then who will? The woman making 80 cents to a dollar in a daily wages job?
When Morgan Freeman crushes the narrative that there’s an endemic of racial discrimination and oppression it does behove one to take a fresh look at things, don’t u think?! He said that he and the interviewer [also black] r two of the many examples of success stories and that the narrative is false at its very core.
I know the interview you’re talking about – it was to Don Lemon. And I had a face palm moment the time I heard it. Oh, yes, he’s a success. And so is Don Lemon. So are a handful of others. That doesn’t make racial discrimination a false narrative. Pointing to the richest Dalits in society doesn’t remove the inherent oppression that a majority of Dalits continue to face.
Having Ben Carson be the ‘Blacks for Trump’ supporter doesn’t mean that Trump is not a racist.
So yes, Freeman succeeded. How many others failed? Because of a system of endemic oppression based on the colour of their skin? It has been detailed enough by far better qualified sociologists than I am, and if you are really interested, you would investigate how systemic discrimination has hurt the minorities in this country.
Also, “Defund the police”. You have once again caught the wrong end of the stick.
Defund does not mean abolishing police. It means reallocating funds to funding social services that will work at education, prevention of crime, and reducing police work overload. It means reforming and retraining police so that their first line of attack doesn’t have to be to pull out their guns.
Finally, black lives do matter. At least as much as white lives. So that a white guy pulled over and a black guy pulled over are treated the same way. Not that the former is let off with a rap on the knuckles but the latter is shot 8 times in the back.
My son – a brown male who can pass off for Desi/Mexican/Arab/lighter-skinned Black – pulled over on a routine traffic stop, is more at risk for being hauled up (at best) or shot outright (at worst) and/or anything in between. So forgive me if I say that you have NO idea what you’re talking about!
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Anu Warrier
July 17, 2021
KayKay, I agree with you that all romantic liaisons between adults and adolescents is problematic, but do you seriously think that a romantic relationship between a 17-year-old girl and 24-year-old man (boy?) would raise eyebrows?
I know I wouldn’t. (But I have a personal experience here as well, so perhaps that clouds my judgement. 🙂 )
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Anuja Chandramouli
July 18, 2021
‘I find ALL romantic/sexual relations between an adult and an adolescent (that includes the above 18s) problematic.’
I agree that it is problematic KayKay. But I also think this is a very complicated issue and perhaps the biggest problem is that we keep ignoring the burgeoning sexuality of adolescents who are keen to explore and experiment. In India especially, the tendency to stick one’s head up one’s butt and pretend that adolescence is a period of unsullied ‘innocence’ has created a very unsafe environment for youngsters who wind up sneaking around, lying, watching internet content that is supposedly for adults alone and making themselves vulnerable to prowling predators. It is a powder keg situation and a tragedy waiting to happen.
Which is why sex education is key. Youngsters definitely need a safe, judgement free zone to talk about sex and sexuality. And I don’t think teaching them about anatomy, masturbation, pornography, and using contraceptives will make them promiscuous, anti national, disdainful of our culcher etc. It will just help them make informed and responsible choices.
As for relationships between minors and majors, it does make me uncomfortable but the truth is when it comes to relationships, most rules and rationale, especially socially endorsed ones don’t count for beans. And the allure of the forbidden and taboo is too powerful to be discounted. The question is if two people are inexplicably drawn to each other, and one of them is a minor and the law calls it statutory rape but the minor may feel that his/her consent counts too, then what? The law says 18 is the legally sanctioned age where consent applies but isn’t there a world of difference between a 7 yr old and a 17 yr old who is a couple of month shy of reaching adulthood? Guess, what I am saying is that legislation is important and it has been framed for valid reasons but it can only go so far when it comes to messy matters of the heart and the dicey business of sex and relationships.
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KayKay
July 18, 2021
Warrior, so dating Cradle Snatchers are we? 🙂
Yeah, this is one of those weird personal biases I have that has no scientific nor sociological basis. There are plenty of happy relationships where there’s a significant age gap between partners. The current French President seems to have both reversed the trend and proven it a success:-)
It’s just that when it comes to one of them being a teenager, there’s this icky feeling that the adult in the partnership is just banking on the emotional immaturity and lack of experience of their teenage conquest to give them an edge. That’s a gross generalization I know. Have never really been attracted to younger women (the fact that my date wasn’t born when the 1st TERMINATOR was released already puts the relationship on pretty shaky footing) , have had pretty successful relationships with older women (Not Mrs. Macron older, but about 1~3 years ahead) and there’s a paltry 2 years gap between my wife and I so my personal experiences are clouding my judgement too 🙂
With regards to “Call Me By Your Name”, given 17 is below the age of consent in many countries (and quite a few US states), swapping genders and the sexual orientation of it’s lovers would definitely bring forth a shit storm of protests, I think.
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Naren
July 18, 2021
Karthik: I meant people of same age or gender might find more in common with each other and hence lesser clashes in comparison. That doesn’t mean they become one and the same. U say it as though I meant it as “two bodies – one mind”.
Rahul: I never said that propaganda is a universal constant. I said that as much as discrimination exists so does propaganda. One shud b discerning enuf to separate the two. So when I said that those r not THE problems I meant those r not the biggest problems. They r among many others and portraying it as the only one or the biggest one in existence is biased.
Anu: I’m very well aware of what “defund the police” is supposed to mean idealistically and that’s what the black people opposing BLM r fighting for too. But BLM is ferociously pushing their agenda to make policing defunct altogether. I don’t know what is their alternative but this is on their current agenda. U seem to b hungover on the same thing too . . . I didn’t say racial discrimination is a false narrative. I did take whatever he said with a pinch of salt but the fresh look that I meant was that maybe it’s not the only problem or THE biggest problem. Let me say it again . . . racial discrimination exists and so does false narratives and propaganda . . . among numerous other problems. One doesn’t have to b brown only in a foreign country to be discriminated against. Remember the incident in Hyderabad where a nurse [IIRC] was raped and burned?! The case wasn’t taken to court and subjected to jurisprudence but instead the police gathered some local intelligence, made a judgment call and rounded up 3 individuals and fatally shot them alleging that the suspects initiated the attack.
“Let me put it this way – in a tech company, a woman VP makes 300K while a male VP makes around 400K. She’s earning a ‘huge sum of money’ so she should shut up? Doesn’t matter that a male in her position is earning around 20-25 % more than her? For the same job description?”
While there is a possibility of gender discrimination here I simply wud never accept that it is the only criterion for the pay disparity here, unless proven to b the case. Corporate designations and remunerations r not products of univariate analysis. But yes gender does play a role in these. But whether it’s an unfair discrimination is another question. Marissa Mayer when she took over Yahoo cut down all the privileges of people working from home or remotely. Many of them were later laid off too. This had more impact on women than men because the women failed to check in periodically and being available once a month was surprising. This is because the women had to take care of their children or atleast that was the reason given during the backlash. This is also because the companies in silicon valley had no such thing as paid paternity leave. Just FYI . . . as per current rules in India L.I.C. offers upto 15 months of paid maternity leave for a woman. Also, there r a number of other factors that cud contribute to disparities in pay. This goes the other way too. There r a number of professions where the women r paid a lot more than men too.
Therefore, scrutinising differences based on unfair gender discrimination alone is just lazy and weak. Maybe u’ve seen this before but if not then please take a look at this debate . . .
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Nimmi Rangaswamy
July 18, 2021
Blue is the warmest colour, that controversial Golden palm winner, is gender-reversed and makes a great job referring to power relations among the women – the shit load of protest were for the sex scenes and not for the politics! Its director was upset that a total of 9 minutes of sex in the entire movie sidelined what is a beautifully realized film about intimacy and its in-built power relation
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Nimmi Rangaswamy
July 18, 2021
I didn’t mean a heterosexual reversal… but because of the women protagonists the sexual overrode the political
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Anu Warrier
July 18, 2021
Double Kay, er, the cradle did the snatching? 😀
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Anu Warrier
July 18, 2021
Naren,
this Jordan Peterson?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest
Now I know where you’re coming from. I suspected it when I saw your talking points, but didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Thank you for confirming it.
I think we can ‘agree to disagree’.
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Anu Warrier
July 18, 2021
Anuja, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Relationships – heck, even attractions – are complicated. I don’t mind depictions of messy relationships, even if they make me uncomfortable. I can always choose not to watch.
My line is drawn when some of these relationships are glorified as ‘true love’.
@Double K, the age of consent in most of Europe is 16-17. Parts of the US have 16 as the age of consent, lower still if the parents agree to the marriage. (Arranged marriage of minors is one of the US’s best-kept secrets.)
In Italy (where the film you reference is set), it is 14. Doesn’t make your discomfort any less valid. Just sayin’. 🙂
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KayKay
July 18, 2021
“legislation is important and it has been framed for valid reasons but it can only go so far when it comes to messy matters of the heart and the dicey business of sex and relationships.”
Anuja C: Oh, yeah absolutely, matters of the heart defy any form of scientific or rational scrutiny. Or as some of my (terribly biased) aunts would say when a certain coupling fails to live up to their pre-set expectations: There’s no accounting for taste 🙂
The specific issue of Major-Minor couplings (as defined by law) also navigates a murky area where what defines a MINOR has changed so considerably across the ages.
Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel walked into this minefield when she said “You know, I was perfectly capable of setting up a home when I was 14, and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought, ‘Now is the time to have a couple of children, and when I am 30 I will go back and I’ll get my PhD.’ But society isn’t yet ordered with that kind of flexibility, and is incredibly hypocritical about teenage sex, teenage mothers and so on.”
The full article:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/01/women-careers-motherhood-teenage-pregnancy
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Anuja Chandramouli
July 19, 2021
Nice one KayKay! Hilary Mantel rocks my world. How well she articulates stuff!!
Anu Warrior: Double Kay, er, the cradle did the snatching? 😀
Someday, I hope you tell us all about the cradle that did the snatching 😁
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Anu Warrier
July 20, 2021
@Anuja 😀 It’s the stuff of family lore. (Or as Gabbar would have said, “Jab bachhe zidd karte hai, to maa-ein bol det hai, “Chup raho, varna Anu ki jaisi ban jaaogi.” :D)
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Karthik
May 15, 2022
Never Have I Ever (a genuinely funny, touching teen romcom series around an Indian American narrated by John McEnroe)
Finally got around to watching this, Aman. What an utterly delightful show that gets its sitcom tone pitch perfect! And the idea of John McEnroe doing a narrative commentary— pure genius!
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Madan
May 15, 2022
Karthik: Yes. I heard season 2 was bad and I couldn’t find out for myself because in the meantime, RBI rules for credit cards has made it impossible at least for me to maintain a Netflix sub. Parts of it were silly, which goes with the territory, but this for a change felt like real Indian-Americans, not, um, Raj from BBT.
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Karthik
May 16, 2022
Madan: I actually enjoyed the second season too. It leaned slightly more on the “serious” side and some of the new characters introduced didn’t have much of a presence but still the main actors have such good comic timing and just the right degree of “eccentricities” that even the bigger moments were moving without really weighing down.
I was actually amazed that BBT ran for ten or so seasons. I did enjoy a lot of the early seasons especially because of the nerdy pop cultural banter that was the show’s staple, but after a point the situations and jokes started feeling repetitive.
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