In January of 2019, I decided to watch ten of the most classic and influential romcoms (in my biased opinion) and write about how they represented a woman’s job. It all started from a joke: why do women in romcoms seem to do the same five things? It turned into so much more than a joke. As I spent months reading and watching and researching these romcoms, I began to notice that these patterns weren’t just silly tropes, but they had actual effect on the story of the film. They also had an increasing effect on me. As cultural products, they allow or don’t allow women to imagine themselves in certain roles, having certain kinds of relationships with their jobs. What does it say about how society views female journalists that the journalists in Sleepless in Seattle and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days are both WILDLY unethical? What does it say about how society and culture view small-business owners that the heroine in You’ve Got Mail loses her business in order to develop a romance?

 

So, kids, what did we learn after all this? The most common jobs in the movies I watched were journalists (3/10), and if you extend that to writing and books in general, we’ve got publishers and an assistant at a fashion magazine and owning a bookstore, which means 6/10 are in the literary world. In my not-at-all-exhaustive study, that’s 60 percent of women in these romcoms working in this profession. As someone who wants to go into publishing, I wonder if part of the reason I can imagine myself in that profession is because I had so many examples of women doing that job in the romcoms I loved. I wonder if this narrow list confines women to imagining themselves in a limited way — in New York, in a power suit, having no friends at work or alternatively only friends at work.

 

The way these women relate to their jobs is played out over and over and over. Some notable standouts are Crazy Rich Asians, in which she’s an econ professor, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, where she’s a stockbroker. I think what stands out to me is that these women are succeeding in fields that could historically be considered as male dominated — academia and finance.

 

In a lot of these movies, the woman had trouble at work. Which, I’ll admit, is pretty true to life in that not everyone has a perfect relationship with their employer, their coworkers, or the field itself. But, I would like to hope that I’ll never have a boss as harsh as Miranda Priestly or be asked to compromise my morals as much as Andie in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I can see the argument that romcoms use these tropes to create tension, but I wish we could move from the idea that easiest way to create tension in a romcom is to mess with the woman’s job. Don’t get me wrong — I approached these romcoms with only the slightest ounce of cynicism, expecting to love them and maybe love to hate them. I want to imagine them better, but I know that I enjoy them as they are. If that feels unsatisfying, that’s OK. I think I’m satisfied by knowing that I can look at romcoms through a critical lens and still like what I find.

 

Romcoms have historically been about white, able-bodied, straight, cis, beautiful people, and while I’m sure movies will continue to be able those people, I find encouragement in seeing how romcoms are opening up to a wider audience who deserves to see versions of themselves fall in love on screen. Billy Eichner is writing a romcom about two gay men falling in love. Mindy Kaling and Priyanka Chopra are teaming up for a wedding comedy movie set in both the US and India. And the romcom is getting critical and adoring attention all across TV and streaming. As a lover of romcoms, I’ll be watching all of them.

 

Are the relationships between the woman and her job and that effect on the romance getting better? Maybe, but when viewed through the lens of cynicism (Isn’t it Romantic), it doesn’t quite work. Romcoms can embrace reckless optimism and escapism without projecting a view of women that doesn’t allow them to be fully realized people. Women can hate their jobs, they can love their jobs, they can find fulfillment in a career and not a relationship, or they can sit at work pining for sweep-you-off-your feet romcom love. Differing experiences can be represented without losing what makes romcoms special, but tropes can still be used to tell the audience something about a character.

If it sounds like I haven’t arrived at a conclusion of what makes a good representation of a working woman in a romcom, it’s because I haven’t. What I think I have done is proved that romcoms stand up to a critical reading, and looking at them through the lens of labor provides insight about how culture lets women imagine themselves in their jobs.

 

That’s something to tell people if they give you sh*t for liking romcoms — they offer insight into depictions of women and notions about the kind of romantic lives women get to have that other cultural forms just can’t. Plus they’re fun, which is why I spent countless hours watching them and talking about them for this project. It’s a project I’d like to invite you, dear reader, to participate in. What romcoms do you think I missed? How could you watch a romcom differently? What lens has personal stake for you to apply?

 

Go forth and watch beautiful people fall in love.