Rom-Coms

Hi

You know what I love?

Rom-coms

I unabashedly love them.

But you know how everyone else looks at it?

Basic, cliché, sappy, cheesy, honestly this list can go on.

But here’s what absolutely sucks.

That most people just miss it. Miss the whole point of it all.

Miss the feeling of hope. Miss that you know for a fact that no matter what happens main character A gets with main character B. They get their happily ever after, however that looks like. That relationships are complicated and messy and it’s more than okay to know in some fictional world, mind-blowing sex exists and happiness is not a myth.

It’s unbelievably arrogant to just denounce and ridicule a whole genre.

Isn’t every the genre the same thing, twisted and spun in different ways?

Doesn’t somebody always get murdered in a murder mystery and someone always solves it? That the killer gets punished or karma takes care of the job.

You don’t see people ridicule that genre do you?

SO why should this be any different?

Do they even comprehend how hard it is to fall in love over and over again. To hold out hope that maybe someday in some far fetched version of your life you will find passion that will last at least for 5 seconds? That somebody has your back and won’t let you go? That they accept you have flaws and acknowledge they have it as well, and you work towards middle ground and promise to not let you down? And actually follow through that promise.

That for most people this genre is a safe haven. It is predictable and secure. It sucks you in deep and you lose sight of your worries. It makes you believe. It makes you chuckle out loud at the stupidity, at the lame puns, at the carefully scripted jokes. It has you straining your eyes just so you can read one more chapter and then you promise you’ll go to sleep, except it’s now 2 am and you are done with the book. And now it has you feeling empty. That sometimes, some books make your feelings go awry and you find it hard to see through the tears threatening to escape but you can’t cry because you will then have to stop reading. And then in the quiet nothingness of the night, with your mind exhausted with the ritualistic devouring, reality creeps in and you’re scared that maybe the real thing will never add up to this feeling you have now?

Do they even understand that not everyone can consume book after book, reading the same story with different versions, different characters, different messes and still not get tired of it all?

And they say it’s easy.

And then judge you. Because how can you be smart and well read and a literary person if you are not enthralled by Shakespeare, Tolstoy or Austen or any one of those classic writers?

Sure there are some crappy ones out there? But what trope/genre doesn’t?

Sometimes I wonder, are they too cynical?

Or are they blissfully unaware and believe they are far too superior to fall for all of this… this life.

Or are we fools?

Fools to hope? Fools to hold onto a piece of fiction and wait for it to seep into our reality?

Or are we content? Content knowing that even if reality can’t stimulate these deep, complex feelings, we will always have these books. That in our fictional world, we control how the story flows. We control the character’s lives. We control the endings. We can pick our battles. We can pick stories that we relate to. We can love, hate, love-hate, a book, any book and still find ourselves smiling, feel our heart filling up, and just want to be in that moment forever. We are free to be whoever we want and fall for whoever and know for a fact that they love you just as much. Freedom. Control. Power.

It always seeps down to this. Power.

Power is politics and every aspect of our life is controlled by it. What is life if not political?

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Thank you for coming to my rant.

Ted Talk over.

TLDR: Stop shaming and judging people for loving the things they do. If it’s not your cup of tea, respectfully shut the eff up.

Adios

Dream

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