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.
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) but that one stands out in my mind!
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.
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.
Good call. What is The 40-Year-Old Virgin if not a “boy-gets-girl” story from a (very) male point of view?
Another good call.
Can we just say, practically any John Cusack movie? We could add The Sure Thing to the list.
Another good one.
One of the first I thought of.
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.”
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.
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.