January 9, 2017
EP. 160 — Romantic Comedies: The Creepiest Movie Genre
Think of every RomCom trope and the one thing that separates it from being in a horror movie instead: the music. It’s all the same mad libs game, and the outcome is always the same.
Colin Firth/Hugh Grant/Matthew McConaughey runs to the airport/apartment building/twee bakery to declare his undying love for the maid/undercover journalist/baker he just met last week. The music swells, they kiss, the girl’s less attractive best friend sighs, “oh I wish architect/surgeon/astronaut Chet Wellington could fall in love with me,” and the credits roll. But what if, instead of the swelling music, it was a single piano note being played backwards, or an old-timey phonograph blowing out a single child singing, “Ring Around the Rosie?” ‘Love Actually’ would turn into an actual horror movie. The little boy chasing the little girl through the airport would take on a new interpretation. ‘Shining 2: This Time It’s British Christmas.”
RomComs are weird like that. They take a thing most people experience (falling in love) and turn it into a warped version of reality that only abides by backwards rules: where chasing someone down is considered romantic and getting the person to like you is the hardest part, not that whole spending the next 5 decades together thing. No, that part is easy (cries self to sleep).
So this week on the podcast, Jack O’Brien is joined by Cracked editor Soren Bowie and comedian and writer Jamie Loftus from ‘The Bechdel Cast’ to talk about how RomComs get almost everything wrong and when you change just one detail, they become creepy stalker thrillers.
Our next live podcast is on Saturday, January 14th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark from ‘My Favorite Murder’ are back for another hour of creepy unsolved murders and even creepier solved ones. Tickets are currently SOLD OUT but more will be released throughout the week here: https://goo.gl/5eew6F . If the show remains sold out, we will have a standby list at the door, so make sure to come early!
Footnotes:
Jamie Loftus on Twitter: https://goo.gl/5Jqr9m
The Bechdel Cast on iTunes: https://goo.gl/9FkEzU
Video: Cracked: The Only Film Genre That Gets You To Root For The Bad Guy: https://goo.gl/M3N8aW
Video: Cracked: The 9 Creepiest Things Movies Portray As Romantic: https://goo.gl/Vwt9hy
Video: Cracked: Why Romantic Comedies Are Secretly Bad For You: https://goo.gl/CeXsli
Video: ‘Love Actually’ Cue Card Scene: https://goo.gl/WVkGGy
Video: ‘Trainwreck’ Dance Scene: https://goo.gl/UtKVtQ
Article: The Oxford Philosopher: The Birth of Tragedy: https://goo.gl/wZbVmF
This episode is brought to you by Casper Mattresses (www.casper.com/cracked) and Blue Apron (www.blueapron.com/cracked).
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