Celine Song isn’t holding back when it comes to the marginalization of romantic comedies. During a recent conversation with Southampton Playhouse Artistic Director Eric Kohn, the Oscar-nominated director was asked why rom-coms have all but disappeared from the current film landscape.
While her sophomore feature, “Materialists,” doesn’t fall squarely into that genre, Song used the opportunity to highlight how deeply embedded biases have pushed the rom-com into cultural exile. She’s laying the blame on patriarchal undermining:
There has been this diminishing of the genre by calling them “chick flicks.” The genre has been historically dismissed as “chick flicks.” A few reasons, one of which is misogyny […] OK, fine, it’s a chick flick. That’s often said as if it’s not a serious movie. I always think, well, that’s sad in a couple of ways. You’re saying chicks are not serious people […] And so it’s a genre that is dismissed.
Here’s where Song’s well-meaning argument starts to falter. While there’s truth to the fact that certain “chick flick” label has historically carried dismissive baggage, blaming the decline of rom-coms solely on “misogyny” oversimplifies the issue.
The romantic comedy boom of the ’80s and ’90s wasn’t driven by critics or gatekeepers, but by audiences who bought tickets in droves. Films like “Pretty Woman,” “Notting Hill,” and “When Harry Met Sally,” weren’t treated as disposable—they were mainstream, adored, and commercially bulletproof.
What changed wasn’t just critical perception; it was audience taste. The formula grew stale, scripts got lazier, studios chased cliches instead of character, and the genre died out. Viewers didn’t walk away because of internalized misogyny, they just stopped showing up for movies that no longer offered surprise.
And then there’s the streaming effect. Rom-coms didn’t vanish—they migrated. There’s a reason why Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” was a streaming success; they’ve been rebooted for younger, digital-first audiences who consume their romance differently: more fragmented, less theatrical, and with far less patience for the genre’s traditional beats.
Song’s passion for love on-screen is admirable, but insisting the industry is “scared” of romance ignores the real reasons these films have struggled in the multiplex era: it’s economics, not just patriarchy. True love may be ancient, but in today’s Hollywood, it also has to sell.