What is the chief obstacle that must be overcome in most modern-day big-screen romcoms? Lack of attraction? Misaligning schedules? Or, perhaps, heteromonogamy? If that wasn’t the dominating norm of human relationships, many movie plots would be much swifter to resolve. What if Elizabeth Olsen didn’t have to choose between Callum Turner and Miles Teller in Eternity? Or Twilight allowed Bella to be in a throuple with Edward and Jacob? Even though both films have fantasy narratives, their predestined outcome is as real as it gets – a man and a woman (re)marry and live happily ever after.
For a long time, alternative relationship structures were relegated to fan fiction, undeserving of mainstream fictional representations where conflict and resolution are both inscribed in coupledom. Even the films that challenged mononormativity, such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, sustain the cautionary tale: opening up your relationship will eventually break it. As a practising non-monogamist, I yearn to see my values represented on screen as something more than a cautionary tale.
Well, OK, but it does seem pretty boring to de demanding fare that merely confirms what you already do….
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” or various quotes to that effect.
Guess it just goes to show what a Guardian film journo knows about art.
It’s a cautionary tale for a reason. I expect pretty much all such multiple relationships are unstable and all parties would have to work very hard to keep down the jealousies.
I am familiar with a couple of polycules. Ones that actually function.
They run on rather strict rules and agreements, and are …more work… than a “normie” relationship.
The principles of trust, respect and care that are the basis for any healthy long-term relationship gets expanded to more people, with each their own Things. = exponentially more Work to make things work.
It’s romance. It’s a fiction genre. It has its own narrativium. It isn’t real life. Real life begins after that walk down the aisle, just when romantic fiction ends.
If the journo “longs to see….” all they have to do is make a movie and get it shown. And this time next year, Rodney, …
I’m waiting for the Persuasion deleted scene.
Bath. Anne and Capt Wentworth are walking arm in arm along Union Street
Anne : Oh Frederick, shall we be happy at last ?
Went : Yes my love, happier than you know, for I have purchased a plantation in the Barbadoes.
Anne : Shall we have many slaves ?
Went : Indeed dozens, whom we may beat at our leisure.
Anne : Oh how wonderful.
Went : You may find that when we are there that you will be more comfortable wearing breeches and a light shirt… And do not be surprised if I sometimes call you Tom, for you remind me of my last cabin boy…
Surely “Roger” the Cabin boy?
Slutting around is a ‘value ’, now?
Valued at $20?
FFS if you’re talking about big-screen romcoms with a huge marketing budget and major movie stars, they’re going to be conventional, because that costs a lot of money.
What big screen films are like Requiem for a Dream or Oldboy? There’s a market for that sort of film, but it’s not the average normie woman in Ohio. There was that film about the creator of Wonder Woman, Jules et Jim, The Dreamers.
In The Dreamers Eva Green gets her kit off,. Right off. Just a warning for the sensitive.
There’s a shorter list of films where Eva Green hasn’t got her kit off.
Not as off as that, unless it’s French cinema, of which I have little knowledge. The english language films are less explicit. Anyhow, I approve of Eva, at least when young. Nice eyes.
Never heard of Eva Green. But then I regard Hollywood as one of the worst signs of decadence in the West…
Casino Royale. She was the ‘money’ in that.
Best Bond film, imv.
This is true, though.
We are paying her to ‘research’ animal representations in film, film-philosophy, and the ‘ethics of representation’ at what was once a serious university.
As for her love life, she has a face like a spud, so I suppose she takes her knobbings where she can find them.
In my day we called that “sleeping around”.
Hollywood is going broke making such movies.
Movie making is a business. Make movies for Normal People, or go broke.
The chief obstacle that must be overcome in most modern-day big-screen romcoms is Not Making A Loss. To do that they have to create characters and storylines sufficiently attractive to enough of those who enjoy big-screen romcoms to make a profit. Given the expense of making big-screen romcoms that means they’re going to be middle-of-the-road, where ‘alternative relationship structures’ generally aren’t.
Funny how Guardian columnists always fail to see this.
The audience is female. They want to see the heroine, with whom they identify, get the man with the money, position and looks. Just as they are instinctively required to do. They must not end with two girls getting that guy, or the girl getting two or more guys. Or cats.
<i>They must not end with two girls getting that guy, or the girl getting two or more guys. Or cats.
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Completely different genre of films, usually available on the Internet.
Hallmark – as in Hallmark cards – has a Christmas romcom channel. My lady friend laps up their made-for-TV films. They’re harmless. Crashingly predictable, gloopy, sentimental, unwatchable (from my PoV), but with reasonable production values, good-looking people and light-touch coziness.
I’d bet £50 that there is a substantially bigger market for that kind of thing than there is for women putting themselves about and worriedly visiting the VD clinic.
Ah, last time I was at the VD clinic it was 80% benders.
(I was there because I had a little waterworks problem, the GP was hiding behind the sofa, I noticed the local clinic next to Aldi, had a brainwave and went in. Was seen the following day, had an appointment lasting nearly an hour, was thoroughly tested, received most results within the hour and the rest within a couple of days. It was like going private. The two lads at Reception were Freddy Mercury clones and the bloke who called me to make the booking sounded exactly like Kenneth Williams. Can’t have people losing bumming time, can we?)
The local Clap Clinic is on the same corridor as my Podiatrists..
“Turn left” I always tell myself at the top of the stairs.
There are some really pretty girls working there, mind.
No, for a long time – and still today – the people with alternative relationship structures are a tiny percentage of the population and the rest of us aren’t interested so the profitability of those potential fictional representations was basically negative. And thus no one would front the money to make them.
Take the recentish ‘Bro’s’ for example.
Who in their right mind would think that straight people would be interested in a ‘sex comedy’ where all the sexy bits is gay? Didn’t help that there was no comedy in it either.
Could have worked if it had been super-low budget. Niche films can turn a profit that way (Kevin Smith kickstarted his career with a super-popular movie that was basically one-step above a student film) but when you give it ‘mainstream appeal’ money its just going to be a guaranteed flop.
You’d think it obvious. Yet Disney – yes, that Disney – has ruined their brands with kid sex grooming, homo characters, and sexless girl boss junk.
Major movie franchises are in the toilet.
Bella meets Edward and Jacob. Suggests a threesome. All agree. Film over. Not exactly a blockbuster. The only genre where you can get away with that is porn.
But does he fix the cable?
The popularity of the “50 Shades…” series of books ( not so much the films), allegedly, had women panting with every page turned, fantasizing about being treated in a way which would have them screaming bloody murder to the Police if treated that way in real life, shows that, sometimes, even women don’t know what they want. Perhaps it’s different if they are being spanked by a billionaire? I wouldn’t know, I’m skint!
From my somewhat limited experience, women have tended to like the man who treats them courteously, but finds them boring, in favour of the dangerous ‘jack the lad’ who treats them in a way they find exciting. Fortunately for me, I met a lady who liked being treated courteously, being married for 42 years before she succumbed to heart failure.
I sometimes long for more films which end with the door closing after he had carried her into the bedroom. Sometimes, imagination beats visualisation, though perhaps that’s only me?
No. It shows that those women can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
And if I am watching a a film, I want to be entertained by someone else’s imagination, so I want to see everything. Otherwise why bother with a film when I can use my own imagination for all of it?