RomCom Realities

Dissecting Prince Charming

Cassandra Martinez

Rotten Tomatoes, the most popular film critic aggregator, awarded my friend’s absolute favorite movie of all time a rating of…twenty seven percent. Less than one third. When probed about the other kinds of movies she enjoys, Jess, best described as a tough chick from Brooklyn, turns on the ‘tude and tells me to respect her adoration for cheesy romantic comedies or else I’d get hit.

Fast forward a few weeks and we’re sitting in front of her flat screen about to watch Julia Stiles pout and purse her lips for an hour and a half.

Now there isn’t anything particularly special about The Prince and Me plot-wise, but we all found ourselves getting more and more emotionally invested in the story centered around a buff playboy prince who falls in love with a strong-willed American girl that just wants to go to John Hopkins for med school.

It’s no surprise the movie was a commercial success, it followed the almost scientific equation to winning the hearts of the female demographic. Turn a spoiled prince into a sweetheart with the power of love and you’ve got box office gold.

According to Rhonda Woodward, author of four historical romance novels, the top three qualities women like to see in their leading men are muscles, handsomeness and intelligence. With this statement in mind, think about your favorite romantic hero, be it Mr. Darcy or Lloyd Dobler. Does he have any of these traits Woodwart mentioned? Most generally well-liked men in romantic fiction embody at least one, if not all, of these qualities.

At any given time, there are a wide array of romantic films to drag your significant other to: your staple romantic comedies, period pieces, or every single movie Hugh Grant has ever starred in.

If you’re more of a curl-under-the-covers-with-a-book type, you should just see the money romance novels are pulling in year after year, no matter how crappy the economy is.

According to Romance Writers of America’s website, even with the challenges facing the publishing world such as fewer bookstores and online piracy, romance novels were still the number one genre in fiction, taking in over a billion dollars in revenue in 2008.

But the big question is, why? In real life it is rare to see a beautiful, smart yet headstrong woman fall for the beefy dude who kidnapped and held her for ransom (or what have you), so why do we fall for this in fiction?

Or what about the common storyline on FictionPress.com, a website where amateur writers can publish their stories of falling in love with your brother’s best friend but, oh no, you’re from completely different social circles.

While we might roll our eyes at plots such as these, there is definitely an audience for this kind of work. There should be, since the most recent count of stories under the romance category on FictionPress comes in at an astounding 67,440.

While these statistics don’t come as a surprise, there’s something to be said about the women, myself included, who love the romantic genre in general.

I’ll admit, reading stories about prince charming gives me an unrealistic expectation when it comes to dating and relationships. Finding my own personal Edward Cullen is just something that I have to accept is never going to happen. But that doesn’t stop me from reading the Twilight series, with its over 2000 pages of lovable nonsense. And I guess that’s really the point, knowing that it’s all just unrealistic fun and taking every movie with Jennifer Aniston or book about love at first sight with a grain of salt.

But you’ll have to excuse me now. I’ve got a ChickLit book on my desk that’s just itching to be read, and I need to find out whether she picks the bad boy or her dependable best friend.