Day Zero - Project Parameters

Over the next 30 days I will watch one Romantic Comedy (henceforth  known as a rom-com) per day.  I will then blog my reaction and interpretation.  I will also post a viewing schedule, should anyone reading wish to join in on the anthropology of the genre.

The 30 films have been carefully curated by crowd sourcing (ie. asking people I know to name their top rom-coms) and then weighted by the number of duplicate mentions, so films with one vote float to the top of the list and are then sorted in strict alphabetic order.  Films with more votes get weighted down and are shown closer to day 30, with the "heaviest" film at the very end.

I love movies and tend to watch movies where someone gets killed within the first 10 minutes.  I love Tarantino, and have long considered "True Romance" or "Natural Born Killers" to be my top "romantic" movies, though I wouldn't append the selector "comedy" to either.  In high school, my favourite book was the grandmother of rom-coms, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".  Spirited Elizabeth Bennett and stuffy Mr. Darcy were my idea of the perfect couple.

Over the last 10 years I flirted briefly with the rom-com genre, twice to be exact and both after break-ups.  Are rom-coms for women like porn for men, a refuge we turn towards when we are single or in disconnect from a romantic partner?  Are rom-coms a salve for wounded souls seeking affirmation that true love exists with a little hope and pluck?

When I turned 30, I went through one of the worst separations of my life and spent my birthday watching a double-header of "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "Logan's Run".  I don't really remember what happened in "Bridget Jones' Diary".  I remember Hugh Grant and his floppy hair.

A few years ago, me and my youngest sister went through some of the "classics" of the rom-com world: "Sleepless in Seattle", "You've Got Mail", and then invariably the flavour of the 90s got the best of me and we shifted to thrillers like "Single White Female".

What do I hope to find this time, immersing myself  for a full 30 days in the formulaic genre-world of the rom-com?  I'll admit, in the tradition of Morgan Spurlock, the effects of over-consumption concern me.  Will the neural pathways of my brain change to see the world in the fantasy light of the rom-com?  Will I be unable to accept the reality of real-life relationships because I have been programmed with the fanciful ideas of Hollywood?  Or will I learn to be a person who better understands (or maybe just kind of gets) the traditional relationship dynamics absent from my formative years?

I look forward to releasing my inner-Carrie-Bradshaw, considering deep thoughts, such as: I can't help but wonder, are rom-com tropes not tropes at all, but a type of modern folk-wisdom created in the absence of a tribal society to mimic a grandmother or mother passing down advice to a daughter?

The List (in viewing order):
[EDIT: removed "Bend It Like Beckham" for Korean rom-com "200 Pounds of Beauty"]

1. 13 Going On 30
2. 40 Year Old Virgin
3. 200 Pounds of Beauty
4. 500 Days of Summer
5.  As Good As It Gets
6. Chasing Amy
7. Friends with Benefits
8. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
9. He's Just Not That Into You
10. Hitch
11. La-La Land
12. Love Actually
13. My Sassy Girl
14. Never Been Kissed
15. Pretty Woman
16. Serendipity
17. Shallow Hal
18. Silver Lining Playbook
19. The Notebook
20. There's Something About Mary
21. The Wedding Singer
22. Under the Tuscan Sun
23. What Happens In Vegas
24. What Women Want
25. 50 First Dates
26.  Crazy Stupid Love
27.  Pretty in Pink
28.  Bridget Jones' Diary
29.  Say Anything
30. 10 Things I Hate About You


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