Growing up, my brother used to race go-karts. It was a passion and hobby not only for him, but for my dad, as well. The pair of them would go off many weekends for races, sometimes staying nights in hotels and participating in tournaments. My brother would come home all the time with these impressive golden trophies on heavy marble bases. Not to mention that he and my father's got to spend time of time together on these trips.
Meanwhile, back at home in Leesburg, my mother and I spent our weekends doing things together, as well. But my mother, having multiple sclerosis and an extreme sensitivity to heat, didn't really want to spend all that much time outside on the hot summer Virginia days. And, being a child of the great indoors who also hated the muggy Virginia summers, that was perfectly fine with me. Sometimes we sat together and read for hours on end, discussing our books and snacking. Other times we watched the movies that my dad didn't like. We'd watch romantic comedies.
It eventually became our thing. If I had to stay home sick from school we would snuggle in bed and watch RomComs. When I had dentist appointments where I had teeth pulled (4 at a time for my baby teeth, and not one of those bad boys fell out on their own), we would recover by drinking McDonald's milkshakes and watching RomComs. When my dad and brother went away for a race, we would spend the weekend watching RomComs.
For the entirety of our childhood, my parents refused to get cable television. Instead, we had those bunny ears that sat on top of your TV and reliably picked up about five channels. We didn't get cable until Verizon FiOS came around when I was in high school. I never watched the Teletubbies or Dexter's Laboratory or The Powderpuff Girls. Sometimes I watched the Simpsons, or WWE Smackdown (oh yeah I still have a secret love for pro wrestling, don't @ me), or Buffy ... but I never developed the commitment for a weekly tv schedule.
What we did have at home was an absolutely staggering collection of VHS tapes. My dad favored Westerns and Star Wars. With him I watched El Dorado, Silverado, Rio Lobo, McClintock, and more. I got to know John Wayne, John Ford, and Howard Hawks. I still love Westerns deeply, but the genre is all but dead. You can't really make those movies anymore. You can't really tell those stories. The sad truth is that they're culturally insensitive at best and outright racist at worst. They didn't mean to be. They are products of their time.
The RomCom, on the other hand, will never die. Falling in love will never be something humanity loses interest in or grows out of. My mom and I watched every movie Doris Day ever made. People in my class talked about crushing on Justin Timberlake and watching MTV, while my favorite leading man in movies was Rock Hudson. (My mom did quickly explain Hudson's homosexuality and the situation in Hollywood surrounding sexuality at the time. I think Rock Hudson actually was the first gay person I'd ever known about.) I found Tony Randall hilarious, and Tom Hanks charming, and I wanted to be Meg Ryan when I grew up. Those were the movies of my childhood. Watching them brings back the memories of lounging on my parents' water bed and laughing with my mom. And yes, often the old RomComs have antiquated gender roles and expectations for how men and women act… but I never really find them offensive. Especially since these roles and expectations are often the subject of ridicule. In Doris Day's movies, she's often the most competent person on screen. On purpose.
I write romantic comedies for my mom. When I think about how a scene should go, I think about what would make my mom laugh. What witty dialogue might make her smile. I don't write RomComs because I believe they'll win me an Oscar or make people think of me as someone who engages in Serious Business. No one who writes comedy, in general, should ever take themselves too seriously. Do you think the people who write popcorn Netflix or Hallmark RomComs ever give a single consideration of their work as Serious Business? No. Because too much of life is already far too heavy, and quite frankly, we all need a break.
To be frank, I've never been particularly impressed with people who make exclusively Serious Business movies. These often come across to me as decidedly and often deeply ingenuine. It's like someone decided at some point that the value of art and cinema comes from how it challenges us, not how it entertains us. I believe the true value if film lies somewhere in the middle of these two elements.
We often devalue the films that give us easy entertainment, and I think that's bull shit. Just because a movie's theme could be considered cheesy doesn't reduce the value of its story. A gritty film that challenges you to witness the horrors of war and mortality has no more inherent value than the film that cradles you and takes you on the journey as a couple falls in love and overcomes their differences. The human experience is what it is and we all are going to experience different aspects of life, good and bad, painful and pleasurable. Film represents that.
It's common for us, in western culture, to devalue the positive things. One negative comment on a social media post often outshines a dozen positive posts, for instance. We need to overcome this. It's okay to take a break. It's okay to focus on the positive things in life. Sometimes I feel the need to take on serious subjects, but if I were to focus on the depressing parts of life too much, I don't think I'd ever get out of bed.
I write romantic comedies because if I can make one person smile or laugh or feel, I've succeeded. And if that person is my mom? Well that's a better reward than any stranger or any competition or festival could ever give me.
My family <3