Caught In A Bad Romace

How rom-coms helped me reconnect with my inner romantic

Prajakta Kavthekar

As a child, I used to be a romantic, even if a solitary one. Always twirling around in voluminous skirts, wearing my aunt’s heels and my grandmother’s blouses as a scarf. All my interests aligned completely with traditional pastimes for girls: dressing up, cooking (or pretending to), and playing with dolls. As I grew up, these interests translated into watching rom-coms and secretly reading Mills and Boon novels.

However, the acceptance of these interests as worthwhile diminished as I grew older. My apparent predilection for floral clothes which even I hadn’t identified wasn’t cool enough and neither was my rosy worldview. Perhaps badgered down by my peers, I started to feel embarrassed about my girly preferences. I still read the same books and watched the same films but with a pinch of cynicism.

This worsened in college. Surprisingly, even in the environment of an all girls college it was difficult to have fashion taken as a respectable interest. The problem was that we had never had a celebrated public figure or character who was intelligent and who cared about her appearance. Amal Clooney is only a recent boon. Vanity was implicitly associated with unintelligence.

While I was introduced to wonderful ideas of feminism, an inadvertent effect was that I mistook my sensitivity and romanticism for a weakness. I confused being tough with being strong. I dressed down and had stopped watching rom-coms altogether. Only recently did I realise how long it had been since I watched one.

Prior to the Buzzfeed led era of openly acceptable K3G obsession, it was embarrassing to even admit that one enjoyed Bollywood. In fact it still is, to the point that people have assumed I’m being ironic when I have claimed to enjoy the genre. Moreover, it is rare to find someone to gush with about the books I read and movies I watch.

The turning point for me was watching shows like The Mindy Project and New Girl. They helped me get in touch with who I inherently am and to be able to associate that idealism with strength. Jess was idiosyncratic and Mindy could be frivolous but that didn’t stop them from excelling at their jobs, being fun, or being good friends. It also helped that both these characters had professions that weren’t rom-com staples and that both of them were driven individuals.

They too binged on rom-coms and wore floral dresses but this didn’t detract from their ambition or competence. It was reassuring to see that even as they grappled with turmoil in their personal life, they handled situations at work head on. I cheered them on as they advanced in their careers - starting their own businesses, and getting the positions they wanted.

A small part of the reason why rom-coms are a guilty pleasure is that they’re problematic. Very few films and shows really hit the nail on the head. We’re used to enjoying sexist stereotypes and stale plots where we only focus on the woman’s love-life. However, these shows really made progress in that direction. Moving beyond their romantic life and work, viewers also got a chance to see the characters’ relationships with their family (Mindy paying for her brother’s tuition) and friends (Jess helping Nick through his father’s demise).

These shows provided me with the feel-good factor and fun of a rom-com with the full-fleshed depiction of a woman’s life. Mindy was giddy and self-involved but she also ignored a patient’s immigrant status to treat her. Her portrayal of an OB-GYN wearing prints on prints in bright colours showed that you could be ditzy and intelligent.

Prajakta Kavthekar

Similarly, it was the fact that Jess cared so much about her students, her friends, and the environment that made her loveable. Her being awkward and clumsy, and yet driven and politically opinionated challenged traditional stereotypes. Her physical agility wasn’t relevant to the strength of her will. This made her seem much more familiar and made me feel much more comfortable with embracing emotional and physical vulnerability.

Prajakta Kavthekar

Any person you ask will second this, while most people enjoy rom-coms, nobody feels comfortable enough to mention it as an interest for fear of being mocked. While men get to live out their fantasies through films like Transformers and The Fast and Furious series, women mostly keep their interest in rom-coms to themselves.

Essentially, both genres do the same thing for both the genders. They allow a person to imagine a hypothetical world where they get everything they wanted be it a job at a fashion magazine or Megan Fox. Although the former is far more believable, it is the interest that is mocked, as if wanting to be loved and understood is weird.

Both these shows allowed their female leads to be imperfect. Neither in a way that is romanticised nor in a way that is the punchline of a joke. These shows showed me that being feminine isn’t a weakness. It is no wonder since the writers of both these shows were women.

It was heartwarming to see characters who had a sunny disposition and who tried to see the best in others. Now only if we could do the same.