Why Rom-Coms Died In The 2000s (& Why They’re Coming Back)

Considered to be box-office contenders in the 1990s, romantic comedies died off in the 2000s and now appear to be back again – how did this happen?

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Romantic comedy movies may have died out in the 2000s, but they’re coming back thanks to a current revival. Few movie genres have had as peculiar of a rise and fall like that of the rom-com. Considered to be one of Hollywood’s sure-fire concepts throughout the 1990s, thanks to the likes of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the genre found itself floundering in the early 2000s, before quietly dying off. It wasn’t just the genre, either. Many of the stars who made rom-coms what they were throughout the rom-com heyday, such as Hugh Grant, Ryan and Julia Roberts, are no longer seen as frequently on screen as they once were. At least not in the genre they were once best known for.

It isn’t unusual by any means for a film genre to gain considerable popularity, only to eventually die out. In fact, this has happened repeatedly throughout cinema’s lengthy and varied history. From the silent era, to musicals and westerns, audiences have been drawn to these unique, yet short-lived heydays. Historically, successful Hollywood genres aren’t typically altered until it becomes necessary to do so. In the case of the rom-com, however, the entire genre more or less vanished before it even had the chance to restructure itself. What’s more, given that the genre’s main focus had always been love, its eventual loss of popularity seems especially strange. Hardly a subject that can be considered trendy, stories of love – lost, gained and pursued have captivated audiences well before cinema even existed. As one of the oldest tropes in existence, love has always had and continues to have on screen mileage.

One would assume then, that if anything, the current era of cinema has more than enough room for tales of love working out and couples successfully navigating the tricky waters of dating and relationships. As Lin-Manuel Miranda so famously stated in his 2016 Tony awards acceptance speech, “Love is love is love.” There appears to be more reason than ever for couples of every orientation to celebrate this fact, yet it doesn’t seem as though it’s being as successfully highlighted in film as it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. Then again, maybe it is. A string of rom-coms appear to have been gaining favor with audiences over the past several years, offering hope for fans that a rom-com revival could be on its way. But why now? And just what was it that enabled the feel-good era of the rom-com to die off so abruptly before?

Why Rom-Coms Ruled The ’90s

In order to best address these questions, it’s important to consider the landscape of cinema in the 1990s. Experimentation was rife, with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Lars Von Trier, Paul Thomas Anderson, and the Coen Brothers pushing boundaries and exploring new visual and narrative approaches to storytelling. The huge blockbuster productions that today come in the form of Marvel and D.C. movies were still many years away, leaving room for a variety of genres to flourish. It was in this environment that the romantic comedy gained its foothold. Arguably kicking off with 1989’s When Harry Met Sally, whose success created momentum. Soon similar films sought to prove that however bad things might seem for a character, there was always room for unexpected improvement. Light-hearted laughs and sappy romance became a guilty pleasure for many. By the time the ’90s approached their close, romantic comedies were as good as gold. In both 1998 and 1999, respectively, three of the top twenty highest-grossing films were rom-coms.

How The 2000s Film Landscape Changed

However, as the new millennium arrived and shook off the last vestiges of the previous decade, cracks began to show in the rom-com’s armor. Franchises and the concept of tent pole films grew in popularity with audiences, and the resurgence of 3D films that culminated in Avatar’s release wasn’t a viable concept for the now formulaic storytelling of rom-coms. This isn’t to say that the genre didn’t continue to fight for legitimacy in the face of its dwindling prospects, but audiences became less and less interested with each new release. Eventually, the genre moved into a niche category which grew smaller with each passing year.

As the 2000’s reached the end of its first decade, rom-coms weren’t on studio’s radar as they once were. Audiences weren’t particularly interested in the concept, either. With so much technical innovation within film – particularly once Avatar was released in 2009, it was hard to miss a genre of filmmaking that offered little more than clichéd story structures and unrealistic approaches to love. Even for those who fell in love with the genre in the ’90s, there wasn’t much to be enthused by in the odd release starring veterans like Meg Ryan or Hugh Grant. There were bright spots with the likes of Easy A or Crazy Stupid Love, but these likely succeeded because they had evolved out of the limited framework of rom-com.

Movie Rom-Coms Failed To Reflect More Progressive Thinking

It was perhaps that framework that ultimately created the biggest threat toward the once successful romantic comedy model. Looking back now on the genre’s heyday, it could certainly be argued that the most painfully obvious shortcomings involved a huge lack of diversity similar to accusations leveled at the Oscars. This lack of diversity was spread across class, race, and sexual orientation, ultimately leading to characters that wider audiences couldn’t relate to. In its contentment with being a highly popular genre, rom-coms made few alterations to the ideas surrounding who could fall in love, what their life was like or who they loved. Adding to this skewed viewpoint, when LGTBQ characters were included in storylines, they were almost always gay men, stereotyped as the snarky friend of the lead character, good only for small doses of relationship and fashion advice. Clearly, this sort of approach was not sustainable over the passing of time.

As previously noted, the rom-com that had been such a fan favorite in the ’90s and into the early 2000’s never quite had the opportunity to reboot itself. A tidal wave of sleeker, more technically immersive films soon stormed box offices. Spurned on by the likes of Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller, comedies found raunchier, yet somehow more realistic approaches to dealing with love, which in turn were often wildly successful. This made a return to the traditional uniformity of the rom-com all but impossible. It was as if the genre failed to recognize its own flawed approach and was therefore replaced by something slightly similar but far better suited for a new generation of audiences. The eternally optimistic romanticism of the rom-com was a thing of the past, and even if it did have life in it, there seemed little chance that it could compete with the bawdier comedies that had become the norm.

This new breed of romantic films may have found a dedicated audience, but they still didn’t offer the same take on love that rom-coms once did. For fans of the world in which rom-com characters lived (regardless of how fantastical), the genre provided an escape into something comforting and easily digestible. And as the latter half of the 2010’s arrived, something strange began to take place: the rom-com appeared to be returning.

How The Rom-Com Returned (And How It’s Different)

It’s difficult to pin down exactly where this began, but a strong argument can be made for the arrival of The Kissing Booth in 2018. The teen rom-com was among the most popular films of 2018, even prompting Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos to acknowledge it at the time as one of the most popular movies in the world. Within the next two years that followed, films such as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Crazy Rich Asians and Always Be My Maybe arrived to tremendous popularity. By 2019, the Rebel Wilson led Isn’t It Romantic made direct reference to the rom-coms of the past by mocking the formula in a sort of meta update. The film wasn’t a hit, but bringing back classic rom-com staples – even just to poke fun at – was an attempt at rectifying past clichés within the genre.

It is tempting to say that the reason rom-coms now appear to be making a comeback is simply due to the cyclical nature of cinema. But this seems too convenient of an answer. While the theory does hold some plausibility, without the varied content and risk-taking of a streaming giant like Netflix, it’s unlikely that the possibilities of the niche rom-com genre would have even been given the chance to restructure itself for a new generation of romantics. Much like it was in the ’90s, room to experiment produced interesting results. In addition to this, the new era of rom-coms is learning from the concept’s past mistakes: diversity is increasingly playing a part in these films. While still not ideal in their onscreen representation of characters and dilemmas faced by these characters, recent rom-coms are at least making an effort to change. This will likely continue as more time passes, but the past two years alone have done more to alter this than the entire decade of 1990’s rom-coms did. That’s encouraging for both the genre and its fans.

The argument could also be made that new rom-coms are targeting a teen demographic and are therefore finding success thanks to reaching viewers who aren’t familiar with the rom-coms of the past. While this could hold some truth, the positive reaction to these films does extend beyond audiences in their teens. The world in 2020 is a much different place than it was throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Stories that end happily with love offer a stark contrast to much of what is seen on a daily basis via social media or within the realities of day to day life. Now more than ever, perhaps, viewers can look past the fantastical elements of rom-coms and just allow themselves the guilty pleasure of forgetting about the real world.

Whether or not these reasons are the exact cause for the apparent return of rom-coms, the genre is likely to grow if it continues to diversify. Completely altering the core elements of rom-coms from what they once were can be a tricky proposition, however. The clichés of the past do need to be weeded out, but for some fans, a little bit of cliché now and then is what makes the genre so fun to watch. Just what the future holds for the romantic comedy is still taking shape, but for now at least, what was once thought to be a dead concept is proving it’s still got some life in it yet.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/romantic-comedies-died-2000s-revival-how/