Let's Iron Out the True Definition of Romantic Comedy
- Sheehan Planas-Arteaga
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The romantic comedy needs a truer definition, along with a sister film category.
Call it petty. Call it innocuous. Call it as you will. But I, Sheehan Planas-Arteaga, being of no formal training in the field of film and television analysis, have a problem with the term “romantic comedy.” I believe it is used far too liberally to describe movies that you and I both know should not be covered by this oversized umbrella. I propose the creation of a sister umbrella, if you will, which will more accurately describe a type of film I feel has been grossly misrepresented.
Here is what a romantic comedy truly is, and what a romantic comedy truly is not.
Comedy at its Core
In 2022, The Ringer, which generally pumps out great sports and pop culture content, published their list of the top 50 romantic comedies since 1970. Atop the list were the names you’d assume: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Pretty Woman, You’ve Got Mail, Notting Hill, etc. The inner-circle “rom-com” classics. No Woody Allen movies made the list, which I feel almost invalidates it, but perhaps some people can’t separate the art from the artist. To each their own.
Right as we got out of the top-five and into the top-ten and top-20 of this list, though, is when a familiar gnawing feeling returned. An insatiable need to correct the terms upon which the list was made. Number ten on the list was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This is a fine film. Outright hilarious at times. But is it a romantic comedy? Yes it is! Now we’ve arrived at the source of my agita.
The definition of romantic comedy should be a comedy with romantic elements in it, much like Forgetting Sarah Marshall is. The films we most associate with being “romantic comedies,” however, are not actually that. They are romances with comedic elements in them, much like Pretty Woman and the rest of the aforementioned first ballot Hall of Famers. A romantic comedy is a comedy. Comedy is the noun. Romantic is the adjective.
What we actually want to say when we say romantic comedy is…drum rollllllll… comedic romance.
Where Does it End?
There are few comedies that don’t have some romance in them. If Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic comedy, then so too is Anchorman. Is Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone’s budding romance not a key plot point of that movie? Dumb & Dumber is a romantic comedy too. One of the main reasons Lloyd and Harry travel across the country is to return a briefcase to the love of Lloyd’s life. Wedding Crashers has a ton of romance too. You can’t consider movies like There’s Something About Mary, Groundhog Day, and 40-Year-Old Virgin rom-coms (all of which made The Ringer’s Top 50 list), while also lumping The Holiday in with them. These are not the same types of movies. One or the other must carry the romantic comedy title.
My vote is the Knocked Up group is the rom-com group, while the Love Actually group is the com-rom group.
“I know it when I see it”
If romance is the main course and comedy is the side dish, it’s a comedic romance. Other way around? Romantic comedy. Determining which way a movie leans comes down to the viewer, but for me, I will defer to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s solution to not being able to legally define hard-core pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I know it when I see it.”
I don’t want to live in a world where Happy Gilmore gets compared to Crazy, Stupid, Love. These films deserve to exist in their own silos. Let’s be better.
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