When the Credits Roll

How rom-coms have controlled my inner narrative for far too long

Introduction

The perfect afternoon: it’s rainy, and I have the perfect cup of coffee in hand and a sweet treat to go with, usually baked by my more culinarily inclined sister. Then, by the grace of Norah Ephron and all rom-com Gods, a movie has just started on TV. One of the few rom-coms with warm undertones and a cozy soundtrack I have yet to see.

In my darkest days, I always go back to reliable gal pals: Meg Ryan, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Garner, to name a few rom-com darlings.

These heroines share an utterly fabulous life in the city, most often New York. They might work at a magazine, a newspaper, or a more niche field, such as a wedding planner or professional chef. Yes, the world where the overzealous quirky girl, or the strait-laced career woman, can have it all.

As I snuggle in on the couch, I rejoice in the dream life this heroine has. Whether that be Jenna Rink working at the top fashion magazine of America, or Julia Roberts attending her best friend’s wedding. She is also just the right amount of relatable, because despite the gorgeous life she has the heroine is tough on her luck with love.

But fear not, for the coveted meet-cute comes to change our heroine’s whole world. In true heteronormative fashion, the love interest is a Richard Gere, Hugh Grant, Taye Diggs, Matthew McConaughey type.

AKA, a two-dimensional guy with just the right amount of charm and wit to woo our heroine. Despite the orchestrated obstacles that may come in their way from impending engagements, a fractured short-term memory, or an evil mother-in-law, our duo will always see it through to their happily ever after.

As this contemporary fairy tale concludes, the credits will roll, and the screen will fade to black. Effectively leaving me and my reflection. This formally ‘perfect’ afternoon comes to an end as I begin to think about my own life in relation to the rom-com heroines, because how can I not?

For the past hour and forty-two minutes, I was right there with Katherine Heigl crying over the leftover scraps from her mother’s wedding dress that her devil spawn sister destroyed. But suddenly, she gets her beachfront wedding to James Marsden.

Movies have always had far too much of a hold over me, I have always allowed them to lay the groundwork for how to live, and what living could be. I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. It’s simple, really: monkey see monkey do.

And personally, this monkey has always wanted to have that perfect movie romance…

What’s Up with Mary?

I can’t remember how old I was the first time I watched the 1998 comedy There’s Something About Mary, but it was around the time where instead of hanging out with friends at the mall or in movie theatre parking lots – as rascal preteens do – I would spend my weekend afternoons surfing the cable movie channels. Movie Central, now colloquially known as Crave, was a staple in my house.

I’d know if a movie was worth watching when my mom walked into the room and identified a former heartthrob by saying, “he looks so young! What year is this?!”.

So, because my mom clocked a young Matt Dillon, I watched There’s Something About Mary.

My first time around, I really enjoyed it. Ted, played by Ben Stiller, goes after ‘the one that got away’: Mary, played by Cameron Diaz. Even though the last time Ted saw her was a rather embarrassing prom night, and it’s been 13 years, Ted can’t get Mary out of his head.

As the film goes on, the audience continues to see Mary’s allure and watch as the list of those vying for her love and affection keeps on growing.

Every single guy fell in love with her.

And who wouldn’t?

Mary is the ultimate cool girl: she drinks beer! Plays baseball! Watches ESPN leisurely! Hot! Thin! Blonde!

And like Ted says: “Girls like Mary, they don’t stay single.”

Upon my most recent rewatch, it hit me that I had spent much of my adolescence trying to be a Mary. I wanted to be the kind of girl that the guy couldn’t get out of his head. I wanted to have the skinny, pretty privilege of just ‘being myself’ and having any guy wrapped around my finger.

Mary exemplifies the male gaze, and so I tried to do the same. I prided myself on the ‘natural’ makeup I’d wear to high school parties — no Morphe x James Charles palette for me! I would politely laugh at all the jokes, even the grossly offensive ones, repress my sexuality, and perfect my well-known persona as the ‘nice girl’ who could never say no to a Snapchat notification asking for homework answers.

To my surprise, I reached the end of high school with no perfect, geeky, tall, muscular, considerate, and smart man on my arms. Where on earth could I have done wrong?

And here’s what I realized: some of us are not ‘Mary’s’ but rather, Josie Grossie’s.

Just a Jossie Grossie

In 1999, Drew Barrymore’s first film under her production company Flower Films came out: Never Been Kissed. Another movie that has aged poorly and had an unfortunate amount of influence on my impressionable pre-teen brain.

Drew Barrymore plays Josie Geller, a 25-year-old budding journalist at the Chicago Sun-Times. Josie is a simple girl; she wears bland pant suits, spends her nights knitting decorative pillowcases, and yes, has never been kissed.

Josie gets the breakout story she’s been waiting for when she is tasked with uncovering the true lives of high school students in America on the cusp of the millennium. But the problem is that our poor little Josie was not very ‘cool’ in high school, and upon a second try, she faces the same destiny.

As the audience, we watch Josie make cringeworthy fashion choices, and – often literally – stumble through social interactions.

Josie begins a disturbing kinship with her English teacher, Mr. Sam Coulson, played by the oh-so charming Michael Vartan.

This is where my young mind got impressed upon.

14-year-old Rhea saw herself in Josie, and so obviously wanted a Sam Coulson to see her.

Ona suspicious Ferris Wheel ride at a school fair, Mr. Coulson tells Josie:

“When you’re my age, guys will be lined up around the block for you”.

The pedophilic nature of that comment aside, I heard that line and I convinced myself that my

one true love was waiting for me outside of high school. This gave me a piece of mind when it felt like no one really ‘got’ me. When it felt like my quirks were deterrents rather than attractive. I kept my head high and avoided as much peer pressure as I could, and always stayed true to myself. Waiting for my peers to catch up. I stayed sane in my eternal singleness by the belief that my one true love will find me when I’m just a little older, educated, accomplished, and overall, more badass in nature.

Although I am much more secure in myself, and I no longer feel like a Jossie Grossie, I still have the fantasy deep down that an age-appropriate Michael Vartan look-alike, with an unusual amount of Shakespearean knowledge, will be showing up at my door with a bouquet of a dozen roses.

But this is not that movie.

Am I a Materialist?

Now, I am out of high school and nearing the end of my undergrad. My luck has not changed, but my teenage self can’t help but fantasize about what the next chapter of life will be, and which movie should be the one for me to emulate. Truthfully, I most often return to Bridget Jones, and I stand by that. But the freshest rom-com on my mind is Celine Song’s Materialists, and it has been circulating my thoughts at an alarming rate.

The movie has some of the classic rom-com factors: New York City, the main character played by Dakota Johnson has a super niche career: matchmaking, which she excels at. Of course, the cherry on top: a new perfect love interest in the form of Pedro Pascal, and the return of her first love, Chris Evans.

Classic.

The movie was written beautifully, the colour grading, the soundtrack, and the acting were all the things a gal like me could ask for from a movie like that.

At one point in the film, Dakota’s character is speaking to her client Patricia, but she is talking to me. And all the other single people like me. And here is what she said:

“People are people are people are people. They come as they are…and you are not a catch. Because you are not a fish.”

And yeah, I am not a fish. I am as I am, and so why do I keep waiting for the perfect love story to begin?

The person best for me, despite all my 12-year-old self’s dreams, probably isn’t Zayn Malik. I am robbing myself of a world of experiences and stories by thinking I know the necessary qualities in my potential life partner. More than that, I need to stop trying to fit into anyone else's standards and expectations. I am as I am, I don’t need to fit into the boxes of the perfect Punjabi girlfriend, or the boxes of the perfect rom-com heroine. Because I am neither. If anything, these rom-coms could benefit from a little more South Asian representation, but alas that is a whole other essay…

As I sat in the very theatre I used to sweep after school, the same theatre that holds all my 16-year-old insecurities, desires, and worries, I couldn’t help but be confronted by all the ways I am exactly the girl I’ve always been.

Conclusion

I still watch rom-coms and insert myself into the narrative, imagining myself as every heroine from Kate Hudson to Queen Latifah.

I can’t help but conjure my very own getting-ready montage before going out with friends, or romanticize even the dullest of things like a smiley face drawn on my Americano at a café.

Truthfully, I hope this never changes about me. I want to keep on believing in the magic, in the possibilities that life has the offer. To my core, that is who I am. Life is so much more fun when you can release and just believe that there are parts of your story destined to be.

I have no idea when my ‘inciting incident” will occur. But I truly take peace in knowing that I am in the ‘before’. And that someday, I will have someone to catch up on what the hell was happening.

At the same time, nothing I do in this ‘before’ is in service of a potential relationship. My career ambitions, life experiences, passions, hobbies, and LIFE are already full. I am carefully crafting the life of my dreams, the best that I can. When my meet-cute does happen, I know that it will act as an addition to the story that I am living, in no way will it redirect the plot.

I will no longer be seeing these movies that I fill my Sunday afternoons with as prophecies. Unless I end up writing a piece for a magazine that entitles me to lose a guy in ten days, I will not be living through these stories.

To wrap it up, maybe I’m not living in When Harry Met Sally, but let’s be real, Sally was just as interesting and successful before she met him!