Why Is Everyone Running In Rom-Coms?
I am not generally a fan of rom-coms so I didn’t think I was going to post Evan Puschak’s newest video, but he’s so good at them. Puschak argues that rom-coms are compelling because they reflect the modern challenge of finding meaning as individuals.
In the modern day, we live in a world without a cosmic moral order, a framework of meaning to which everyone automatically subscribes. We had one for a while. But round about the year 1700, give or take a century, that framework started cracking, fragmenting, losing its authority, and the burden of finding meaning shifted onto individuals. We all became desperate seekers in a confusing and disjointed world.
It’s no coincidence that this shift roughly coincides with the emergence of the novel as a form of storytelling. In a profoundly new way, the novel concerned itself with individuals, ordinary individuals — their internal motivations, their inner lives, their ability to overcome obstacles to achieve a goal. Novels both reflected and shaped the way modern people saw their identities as narratives; as stories with a beginning, middle, and end; as quests for meaning.
And if that’s not interesting to you, turn down the sound and enjoy the kinetic pleasure of watching people — Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Dustin Hoffman, Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant — sprinting in a great 4-minute supercut.
Comments 1
I love an explainer but wow do I get irritated when people (*cough* *cough* Evan) say things like: "We had one for a while..." who is this we they are talking about? We as in westerners? We as in the western bourgeois? It's such a sweeping statement that erases like...3/4 of the world.
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