# Has there ever been a romance movie that appealed to a primarily male audience? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 30, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536 "2010-07-30T01:38:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/41 "2010-07-30T14:01:39Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Romance movies used to made to appeal to both men and women. Examples include _It Happened One Night_, _The Philadelphia Story_, _The Apartment_ and _From Here to Eternity_, and also all those romantic musicals. Somewhere around the eighties Hollywood romances fell into a formula based on wish fulfillment for women. These newer romances are often designed to flatter the egos of female viewers and tend to treat men like objects, similar to how porn treats women as sex objects.. Good analysis. Older movies tended to try to appeal to as big an audience as possible, so there were many romantic movies for all sexes, and romance was a given in just about any type of film. This changed with **Star Wars**. It got such big numbers partly because teenaged boys would see it multiple times. Hollywood realized that if they got that audience, it was a gold mine, and teenaged boys are not particularly interested in romance. It worked nicely. Then Hollywood realized that they were missing out on teenaged girls. If they could come up with a formula for them, it was golden. So they started with the pure romance (which did exist from earlier times – e.g., _An Affair to Remember_) for women. Thus the romantic comedy became a separate genre and the elements that made the earlier romance appealing to men were not important. A romantic comedy because a film where a woman finds Mr. Right (there are some exceptions, of course – e.g., **My Best Friend’s Wedding** ). Now it’s reached a point that men won’t go to a romantic comedy since there’s nothing in them to appeal to them. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/42 "2010-07-30T14:04:49Z")
Free Enterprise, at least to geeky guys. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/43 "2010-07-30T14:12:15Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Grosse point Blank is the greatest romantic film ever made. That’s the one that sprung into my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/44 "2010-07-30T14:12:53Z")
High Fidelity. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/45 "2010-07-30T14:46:05Z")
Maybe _Vertigo_ except it’s not for a primarily male audience. Do Tarzan movies count? Do adults think the Tarzan-Jane dynamic constitutes romance? I’m pretty sure there were plenty of women who found Antonio at least as attractive as most guys did Salma in [Desperado (1995)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112851/) but that one stands out in my mind! ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/46 "2010-07-30T14:55:30Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Good analysis. Older movies tended to try to appeal to as big an audience as possible, so there were many romantic movies for all sexes, and romance was a given in just about any type of film. One reason for this might have been that movie theaters used to show only one movie at a time. It wasn’t “which movie do I want to see.” It was “do I want to see X or stay home?” People would still see movies that they weren’t particularly interested in because going to the movies was such a regular part of people’s lives, but you can see why Hollywood favored stuff with broad appeal. WRT When Harry met Sally–I don’t know if it appeals more to men and women, but I’ll bet a lot of men like it because they confronted the “you pretty much want to nail them too” aspect head-on. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/47 "2010-07-30T14:58:34Z")
Road Trip. He gets the girl in the end. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/48 "2010-07-30T15:04:16Z")
I think _Forget Paris_ is one of those films. It’s a romcom - but Billy Crystal plays a basketball referree and so there’s tons of NBA cameos. And the way the story is told puts it high on my list of good movies both men and women enjoy, with a nice romance. And _Casablanca_ is a definite. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/49 "2010-07-30T15:14:56Z")
I think that _50 First Dates_ and _The Wedding Singer_ work pretty well in this regard. I mean, love stories with guys like Rob Schneider and Steve Buscemi? Definitely made to appeal to men. Some of Richard Curtis’s movies have appeal for men. I loved _Notting Hill_. And there are two scenes in _Love Actually_ – the one with Rowan Atkinson and the one in Wisconsin – that are 100% male humor. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/50 "2010-07-30T15:18:41Z")
Cyrano de Bergerac ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/51 "2010-07-30T15:37:04Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Judd Apatow seems to have found a way to make romantic comedies that appeal largely to men. Good call. What is _The 40-Year-Old Virgin_ if not a “boy-gets-girl” story from a (very) male point of view? > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > **L.A. Story** or **Roxanne** might be in the ballpark; Steve Martin’s quirky humor from that period does seem to be more of a guy thing. Another good call. > [@JpnDude](#): > > My male friends and I still sometimes make reference to the 1989 Cameron Crowe film [Say Anything…](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_Anything...). Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack’s character) was/is a sort of hero for us. 😃 Can we just say, practically any John Cusack movie? We could add _The Sure Thing_ to the list. > [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > Groundhog Day. > > I think it is a romantic movie, but most women I know don’t like it. Another good one. > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Casablanca. One of the first I thought of. > [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Romance movies used to made to appeal to both men and women. Examples include _It Happened One Night_, _The Philadelphia Story_, _The Apartment_ and _From Here to Eternity_, and also all those romantic musicals. Somewhere around the eighties Hollywood romances fell into a formula based on wish fulfillment for women. These newer romances are often designed to flatter the egos of female viewers and tend to treat men like objects, similar to how porn treats women as sex objects. > > Not all newer romantic movies are like that, but a large proportion are. Some of the ones that get away from this formula are disguised as something else - a lot of Judd Apatow movies (such as _Knocked Up_ and _The 40-Year-Old Virgin_) are romances at the core while masquerading as idiot comedies. Good analysis. Look, I don’t see anything at all anomalous in a romantic movie aimed at men. There are plenty of men who are romantics at heart, who dream of falling in love with, wooing, and winning a wonderful woman. The classic formula of “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” is, after all, described from the point of view of the “boy.” ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/52 "2010-07-30T15:46:24Z")
> [@dukette71](#): > > The Princess Bride Yep. And Shaun of the Dead. It’s a romantic comedy. With zombies! (a zom rom com) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_the\_Turtle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_the_turtle/32/2926_2.png) [@Fear\_the\_Turtle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_the_Turtle)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/53 "2010-07-30T15:48:21Z")
How about “Something About Mary”? I think that’s the first comedy movie I saw where afterwards I thought to myself: “Hey that was a RomCom, but aimed at dudes!” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/54 "2010-07-30T15:55:02Z")
> [@Fear\_the\_Turtle](#): > > How about “Something About Mary”? > > I think that’s the first comedy movie I saw where afterwards I thought to myself: “Hey that was a RomCom, but aimed at dudes!” Absolutely. I suppose one could also claim _Shallow Hal_. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/55 "2010-07-30T15:58:09Z")
Shawshank Redemption, and the guy even gets the guy at the end. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/56 "2010-07-30T17:25:06Z")
> [@Fear\_the\_Turtle](#): > > How about “Something About Mary”? > > I think that’s the first comedy movie I saw where afterwards I thought to myself: “Hey that was a RomCom, but aimed at dudes!” Yep, that the one that immediately came to mind on reading the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/57 "2010-07-30T18:08:53Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > Groundhog Day. > > I think it is a romantic movie, but most women I know don’t like it. I never really though about it before now, but maybe most women just don’t like Bill Murray as a romantic lead? I say this as a woman who _loves_ Bill Murray movies (_Meatballs_, _Caddyshack_, _Stripes_, _Ghostbusters_, _Scrooged_, _Groundhog Day_, etc.) but is ambivalent about him as a romantic lead. Even in the movies where he is a decent leading man – _Scrooged_ and \*Groundhog Day \*-- I think I like the other storylines/characters more than the romantic storyline. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/58 "2010-07-30T18:13:29Z")
> [@JpnDude](#): > > My male friends and I still sometimes make reference to the 1989 Cameron Crowe film [Say Anything…](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_Anything...). Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack’s character) was/is a sort of hero for us. 😃 Agreed. . ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/59 "2010-07-30T18:17:37Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Do Tarzan movies count? Do adults think the Tarzan-Jane dynamic constitutes romance? I’m one guy who thoroughly enjoyed seeing Tarzan And His Mate. And here’s an obvious entry from the same era: KING KONG. The greatest trans-species love story of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536/60 "2010-07-30T18:33:58Z")
I love _Groundhog Day_. I think _Stripes_ is funny until they get to the part where they’re all driving around in the tricked-out RV. It’s like two different movies, and they ran out of material for the first one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-romance-movie-that-appealed-to-a-primarily-male-audience/548536.md?page=4)