Who doesn't love a good romantic tale that will help you escape whatever is going on in your life. Just for a an hour or so, a good romantic movie can distract you from your problems, renew hope within you, and make you believe there are some good people out there. And also, your soul mate that you haven't found yet, might still be out there looking for you.
But while some romance movies are great at changing your mood and sweeping you away into a fantasy realm, most romance movies nowadays follow the same storyline, the same tropes, and this can ruin the magic you were so desperately seeking.
Here are some Romance tropes found in movies nowadays:
1) Christmas Romance movies will ALWAYS feature the actors wearing red and green sweaters. Interchangeable, of course. Sometimes, it is the actress who wears green. Christmas Romance movies also have the least drama of all. It's the holiday season, after all, and the focus is usually family or a community coming together.
2) The two leads usually don't get along with each other in the beginning. In most movies, they are pretty much enemies.
But one incident changes their perspective of each other. Suddenly, they realize they don't hate each other that much after all. There's something nice about them they didn't notice before.
They do say that hate is as strong a feeling as love.
Then what do you call something you actually dislike? Loathe? Abhor? Indifferent?
Regardless, when you don't like someone, there usually are a couple of reasons involved, and they don't suddenly evaporate in one moment.
3) It is the heroine that usually ends up in a sticky situation and needs bailing out. She either gets injured or falls sick. And the hero, despite not liking the heroine, still helps her.
The heroine mistakes a simple act of humanity for love.
4) The hero usually ends up admitting that he had always had feelings for the heroine. And that explains why he was mean to her. Because as kids, when boys pull your hair, it means they like you because they can't actually express their feelings any other way.
Same with adult men in romance stories.
5) "Let's pretend we are a couple."
Most romance movies have this tired old trope where two people come together and pretend to be a couple for either a job or so that their family doesn't think they are losers for not being in a relationship.
It's okay to be single, but no, let's not normalise that.
The two pretend to be a couple only to fall in love in the process.
So if they are pretending to be in love, they are not being their true selves with each other. So which persona do they like about each other?
And does the relationship survive after a couple of months when they actually find the truth about each other in a real relationship environment?
6) Remember we used to read fairytales as kids where no matter what happens, in the end, a prince comes to the rescue?
Some romantic movies like to add the royal drama in stories, too.
It's usually the hero who is so tired of his royal life that he integrates into a public school and meets a down to earth woman he instantly falls in love with.
The heroine is totally shocked when she finds out, but hey, he's a prince, so there is no way she's letting him slip away from her fingers.
She even goes all the way to his fake royal country and manages to impress her stern in-laws. Good for her!
7) She thought he was only a friend...
So, the heroine spends more than half of the movie, trying to attract a guy she thinks is the perfect match for her. She discusses ploys with her guy friend, knowing that he will always be there for her.
When this supposed "way-out-of-her-league" guy finally notices her, the heroine gets cold feet and wants someone more safe now.
And lo and behold... there's that guy she had friend-zoned a long time ago. He's always been there for her and available at all times, so why not choose him!
Luckily, the guy has always been in love with her, so there's that bit of convenience right there.
8) At some point in our lives, we all want a change in our lives. Sometimes, it's a new location. Sometimes, a new career path. Other times, it's just a new hairdo or new clothes.
The makeover in romance movies is another tired trope because it ALWAYS ends the same way.
Th heroine gets rejected by this hot guy. She is advised to change her looks and...poof! There goes the glasses. Does she get contact lenses? Lasik? No idea. But she is able to see without her glasses. She can walk comfortably in heels, and her clothes are now shorter.
Ta-da! Meet heroine 2.0.
The attractive guy instantly falls for her. She finally got what she wanted, and all it took was a couple of hundreds to change herself from head to toe.
But wait! Now she isn't happy the guy likes her new look. He was supposed to love her when she had creases and stains on her clothes. And when her glasses were super thick. And when she would drag her feet and had no proper etiquettes.
Luckily for her, there was some guy in the background who loved her just as she was.
That was a complete waste of two hours. Instead of spending so much time and money, if only she had checked around her to see if some guy liked her just as she was or not.
9) How can we forget the love triangle?
The heroine somehow falls in love with two guys with contrasting personalities.
One is the simple, safe guy. The other is daring and challenges her.
There is a lot of back and forth going on, and at one point, it seems like it's more of a lust vs. love battle. The daring guy is obviously charming and mostly wearing dark colours and loads of hair products.
The heroine usually ends with the safe guy in the end.
It was only in The Vampire Diaries (The TV show, not the novels) that the heroine ends up with the fun, daring guy.
10) Some people attend weddings to find their own partners. It's a wedding. Everyone is dressed in their best clothes and having fun.
There are quite a lot of romance movies based on weddings.
But here's the twist.
These movies have either the hero or heroine already engaged to someone else.
They think they are in love with their partner, but in comes the nice guy or the awkward and clumsy girl, and out goes the year-long relationship through the window. Sometimes, it is a two year relationship even.
But it isn't cold feet that cause then to panic. It is, according to them, the realization that they need to be with someone who accepts them the way they are.
So there goes the wedding and the money spent on it, because of course they need to court this new person in their life before they marry them.
We never get to see if they eventually marry that person or get cold feet again and fall for someone else. Maybe the caterer? Or the wedding planner? Or the valet?
I wish more romance movies would show what happens with the over-the-top declarations of love.
Does happily ever after actually end in happiness?
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