It seems to me that every movie marketed toward women features a romantic interest who is wildly successful, and leads a lavish lifestyle: stylish cars, penthouse apartments, beach houses, fancy restaurants, that sort of thing.
I understand why. It’s the basic Prince Charming fantasy. If we were to compile a list of “chick flicks” that feature wealthy men, it would be a very long list.
But I am interested in what I think is a much shorter list. What movies geared toward women feature poor, or blue collar leading men? Are there any? (And it doesn’t count if the good-hearted blue-collar guy magically comes into a fortune at the end of the movie.)
So, what have you got? Any blue collar guys who get the girl in chick flicks? I can think of a handful, but let’s see what y’all come up with.
I also welcome a more general discussion of the Prince Charming trope, and why it exists.
(Of course there are unrealistic male fantasies in movies, too. The older man with the much younger woman, the hot woman who falls for the goofy-looking guy. But those are for another thread. Let’s stay focused here on Prince Charming and his poor relations.)
Well, there’s Frankie and Johnny with Al Pacino playing a just out of prison short-order cook that pursues cafe waitress Mechelle Pfeiffer. The unrealistic element here being the replacement of stage role originator Kathy Bates with Michelle Pfeiffer. Despite valiant attempts by the maker-up department to give her tired eyes and hair, it is hard to see Pfeiffer as anything but a eminently pursuable beauty.
One example that immediately came to my mind was the 1983 movie Valley Girl. There’s a TV Tropes category that includes other examples. Look at the ones under Films - Live-Action, some of which fit what you want:
Certainly the biggest and most well known. She’s rich, he’s poor. It’s hardly a romantic comedy since he dies in the end, but it is a chick flick for the most part.
As has been mentioned in this thread, it’s a pretty common trope for the woman to be engaged to a rich man at the start of the movie and off with the poor man by the end. I wonder if any movie has done an inversion of the trope? A woman starts off dating a poor guy and a rich guys comes along and sweeps her off her feet.
edit: I suppose Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a good example of the reverse trope.
Overboard may be a good example of what’s being asked for, as a rich society woman winds up marrying a blue-collar guy. But it’s problematical in a lot of respects. When they first meet, she not only isn’t attracted to him, she stiffs him on a job she’s hired him to do. So when she is pushed off her yacht by her rotten fiance and gets amnesia as a result, blue collar guy gets revenge by convincing her that she is his wife, and making him take care of his brood of unruly kids, sort of a family-friendly comedy version of “Gaslight.” The whole story is a black comedy about class conflict, disguised as a sugary romantic comedy. So … I dunno.
Don’t know if it counts as a chick flick, but Chef.
Down and out divorced chef for big time restaurant quits after fight with his boss and winds up buying and restoring a crappy old food truck. Begins a journey across the country while reconnecting with his young son and serving up grub from the food truck with the help of his son and his former sous-chef. He finally hits the big time, reconciles with former wife Sofia Vergara, and opens his own fancy restaurant. The title character is played by Jon Favreau, director of the first two Ironman movies.
Crossing Delancey, with Peter Riegert as the pickle salesman who woos Amy Irving away from handsome, Eurotrash author Jeroen Krabbé.
Moonstruck. Nicholas Cage’s a baker (well, he owns the bakery) who’s depicted as less wealthy than Cher and her family (she is… I think… an accountant? And her father’s a plumber whose wife calls him “rich as Roosevelt” – and they own one helluva house in Brooklyn).
Might be a stretch, but Tangled (not really a chick flick) has a princess falling for a thief. Ditto Frozen, since we’re talking another princess and an ice farmer.
(Which reminds me that if any of the various Robin Hood films were to count as chick flicks… and I can make a case for Errol Flynn’s version being fairly romantic… then the Maid Marion/Robin Hood pairing is definitely rich girl/poor guy.)
Do all the versions of Little Women count? I think so, classic or not. Only one March sister ends up with a rich guy, and of course, the endgame for our heroine, Professor Bhaer, has nothing “but a full heart and these empty hands” to offer his beloved. Sigh!
Moulin Rouge, maybe? I don’t remember the ending (i.e. if Ewan McGregor’s poet character gets successful–I know what happens to Nicole Kidman!) but the poet sure as heck doesn’t need to be rich to earn Satine’s love, because… he’s Ewan freakin’ McGregor.
