Reese Witherspoon Says Modern Dating Has Been Hurt by the Decline of Rom-Coms: ‘Where We Learned Social Dynamics’

https://people.com/reese-witherspoon-says-modern-dating-has-been-hurt-by-the-decline-of-rom-coms-11842275

39 comments

  1. > Witherspoon added, “And then every once in a while, you get a great friendship. I don’t know what it is, but I do think these 10 to 15 years where the internet started, social media started, and then we stopped… We started going, ‘rom-coms are cringey,’ but it was actually where we learned social dynamics. From Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.”

  2. WTF 80s and 90s rom-coms are full of the cringiest and creepiest shit passed off as romantic

  3. It’s where we all learned to set completely unrealistic expectations for how our life would go and what a partner needs to bring to the table.  It’s as bad as internet porn in that regard.

  4. she is right! Along Came Polly taught me a lot about toilet etiquette during a date

  5. The world is burning because they aren’t making movies that I normally star in 

  6. Sweet Home Alabama was about the social dynamics of being really into the Confederacy.

  7. Considering she’s currently single and twice divorced, I’m not sure she learned the right things from romantic comedies, much less the ones she’s acted in.

  8. I’m pretty sure we learned social dynamics by… being social. Now that we’re all locked into our screens, we don’t socialize.

  10. Oh you mean where we were taught that if boy or man pesters you enough you’ll eventually “give him a chance” that he feels entitled to? Or where we learned that women nag & guys are just innocent goof balls?

  12. 90’s rom coms tought me exactly how not to date, lol.

  13. Naaa modern dating has been hurt by the declining social spaces where you can meet people on an even playing field and actually have a chat. Go to a pub or a club and it will have deafening music and most of them are fairly dark. The goal there isn’t to be a place to enjoy yourself it is a place to not interact and drink. You meet people only really in work nowadays, through friends or through dating apps. The pool shrinks and it becomes really frustrating when looking for someone who is a good fit.

  14. I feel like that just shows how out of touch celebrities can be. She thinks that most people learn their social dynamics from television and movies, most of us learned our social dynamics from the real world.

  15. I think its more of a comment about how before the internet was HUGE HUGE (modern social media), we all generally had a social collective that we drew from – like did you all see that new episode of chappelles show? There was only one way to see it, at a certain time generally. It was easier in a sense for “cohesion”, but now its fragmented just like how the human population is anyways.

  16. The social dynamic rom-coms taught people was: “There are silly lady movies made for ladies, and you fellas sometimes have to score some points with your lady by sitting through one. You won’t like it. You aren’t supposed to.”
    Then there was the opposite side of the coin for macho action movies or gross-out comedies.
    Across genres, modern movies have become more gender-neutral in their target audiences, and that’s a good thing. I’m not nostalgic for the days of going to the theater and having to choose between “Man Movie 2: The Reckoning” and “Lady Movie: An Autumn to Remember”.

  17. I miss good rom coms, but let’s be real, a lot of the rom coms of the 80s and 90s did not put forward healthy portrayals of dating/relationships. Most of the really famous ones like Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail involved really creepy behavior like stalking and straight up lying. Even one of my favorites, Say Anything, revolves around a guy who won’t let go after the girl breaks up with him, and it works! That’s not an acceptable social dynamic.

  18. I’d like to hear from the actors who played the “less attractive but funny friend cheering the lead on” on the topic, actually.

  19. People stare at screens and phones and don’t know how to talk to real people. It’s that simple.

  21. If you are getting dating advice and cues from movies . . .

  23. It’s not the lack of crappy movies, it’s the toxicity of people staring at their socials for three quarters of a day.

  24. St Elmo’s fire may not be a rom com but if you are basing how you handle social dynamics and take dating advice from that movie that is a massive yikes.

  25. I swear to God, she has a career, and didn’t have to give that up in order to have a family. In a declining middle class, women are realizing that they’re giving up much more if they get married, then if they don’t, and remain single and survive.

    She’s out of touch with most people, because she’s living in upper middle class multimillion dollar lifestyle. Everything she could ever want or have isn’t based upon sacrifices of her own autonomy.

    Women are no longer centering men, and men who were told that they would get the American dream, which includes a servant, both physically, and psychologically is no more. That men have to step up, and be a partner.

    Those romcoms were designed to brainwash women into centering men. Today, it’s time to learn how to communicate with each other, in a way that lifts each other up instead of expectations from the 1950s.

  26. Is she nuts? Right … rom-coms, where we learned that men wearing women down by not listening to their “no” and basically stalking them until they said “yes” was romantic. Where we were taught to romanticize complicated men, and taught that bad boys just needed a good girl to reform them. What a joke.

  27. And I learn sex from porn, driving from fast and furious and friendship from american pie.

  28. I’m pretty sure half the point of Don Jon is that those movies are bullshit.

  29. This is why I only date prostitutes like Julia Roberts.

  30. I was describing the plot of Overboard to one of my kids the other day….as I was walking through the main plot…I realized how problematic it was…

  32. How deluded must you be to think behavior portrayed in FICTIONAL entertainment is how people should behave in reality.

  33. Rich people live in a completely separate reality than the rest of us. I think it’s time we move on from celebrity worship.

  34. Good lord no… the dynamics in those rom coms are garbage and teach people that toxic and petty behavior is normal. Yuck Reese, just say you need a job.

  35. Romcoms are an accurate description of dating in the same way die hard is accurate representation of police work.

  36. Oof. Hard disagree with Reese on this one.

    I spent years _unlearning_ the unrealistic assumptions and behavior patterns of the shows and movies I grew up watching so I could have healthy relationships.

    I’m cringing just thinking about how young me used to try and replicate the oversimplified and scripted “romantic” situations in those 😬

  37. Or hear me out: rom coms are no longer popular because they don’t accurately represent social dynamics 

  38. Female led Rom-coms in the mid-90s forward were take this half-baked concept from a Cosmo article make a whole movie about it.  So I guess we are missing out on “Pomegranate Problem” and “Will You Peel This Orange” movies.

  39. Oh my god. Don’t learn how to be a woman or how to test a woman from a romcom. Bless your heart Reese

Comments are closed.