Why Do Different Generations Love Different Rom-Coms?
Does our age say something about our attitudes towards love and romance? Or do we just love the romantic comedies we grew up with unconditionally?
Photo: Columbia Pictures
Romantic comedies often get a bad rap for being less than true to life. It’s a genre that’s sentimental by nature — at their worst, these movies tell stories that feel more like fantasy than real life, making us wait 90 minutes or more for two characters who are clearly perfect for each other to finally get together. Anyone who has been alive long enough to experience how frustrating, confusing, and disappointing romance can be will recognize that these movies don’t have anything to teach us about love, even if they are entertaining.
But the best romantic comedies go out of their way to break through all the saccharine clichés and speak to the way love really is (while still offering us a happy ending, of course). Movies like Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally…, and 500 Days of Summer made waves when they were released for satirizing and deconstructing the ideas about courtship that were popular in their day. Every great romantic comedy says something about the era in which it was released — which would explain why every generation has a different favorite rom-com, according to Ranker’s list of The Best Romantic Comedies of All Time.
The results from this list, which features over 160,000 votes from over 11,000 voters, say that millennials love 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Gen-Xers prefer Groundhog Day (1993), and Baby Boomers like When Harry Met Sally… (1989). You’ll notice that the older a generation is, the longer it’s been since the movie they love was released. But given that all three movies debuted within a 10-year span, there’s reason to suspect that there’s more than just nostalgia motivating people’s preferences here. We believe that each of these movies reveals something about the generation that prefers it, exemplifying their attitudes about love, sex, marriage, and everything in between.
Baby Boomers: When Harry Met Sally…
Photo: Columbia Pictures
When Harry Met Sally is a fantastic movie, and as a romantic comedy, it’s groundbreaking in many ways. It’s got a fairly cynical viewpoint that delves into all the ways that tropes from other rom-coms just aren’t true. But it’s also got a quiet conservatism to it: it famously asks the question “can men and women just be friends,” and seems to answer “no.” Its main character is a stubborn, selfish, “human affront to all women,” and he also just so happens to be right about pretty much everything. It’s a movie that tears down our puffed-up ideas about how men and women should treat one another and tells us the way we do treat each other, the way we always have.
We’re not arguing that this movie, nor the older audiences who tend to prefer it, are somehow misogynist — it was written by the great Nora Ephron, for God’s sake! But we should also remember that the Baby Boomers who love it come of age during the “free love” movement, which sought to separate romantic love from sexual gratification and liberate people from repressive romantic norms. This movie was released in the middle of a backlash against the idealism of that movement, and in many ways, it exemplifies that backlash. Billy Crystal’s character believes men and women can’t be friends because sex and love can’t be separated, our actions have consequences, and people have fundamental differences that even the purest form of “true love” can’t reconcile. It’s no mystery why a generation old enough to have outgrown most of its delusions about romance would favor that message over a more optimistic one.
Gen-Xers: Groundhog Day
Photo: Columbia Pictures
Generation X is best known for being disaffected, cynical, and for detesting sappy platitudes — a reputation that remains intact even today. That makes them a tough audience for romantic comedies, so it makes sense that they’ve chosen a movie that arguably doesn’t even qualify as a rom-com. What makes even more sense is that Gen-Xers would love this movie about a man whose daily routine becomes an inescapable hell.
Like When Harry Met Sally…, Groundhog Day features a cynical jerk protagonist. But Phil Conner’s cynicism is so overwhelming that it literally dominates his life. The conflict of the movie is not between men and women or between reality and romance, but between Phil and his own sense of dissatisfaction. The movie’s philosophical bent allows Gen-Xers to enjoy it without having to put up with too much crap about true love and its power to conquer all. If there’s any rom-com that Generation X would love, it’s one that features several dozen slapsticky attempts at suicide (though we are a little disappointed that Reality Bites wasn’t also on their list).
Millennials: 10 Things I Hate About You
Photo: Disney
