I was watching "You've Got Mail," a rom-com from 1998, and all of a sudden I got super depressed. As I watched Tom Hanks (whom I love dearly) and Meg Ryan fall in love in the sappiest movie I have ever watched, for the first time ever I felt lonely. I felt like my life was not what it should be. Then I realized I was being manipulated -- that this movie was putting ideas in my head. Never have I felt the need for a male "companion," but after watching Tom Hanks tell Meg Ryan how much he loved her, I thought I needed Tom to tell me he loved me too.
Watching "You've Got Mail" was a breakthrough moment – it made me realize that rom coms have an insidious way of making women feel that they need men in their life. A whole genre of entertainment is dedicated to this concept, stemming all of the way back to when we got our entertainment solely from reading books like "Pride and Prejudice." But that was the 19th Century when a woman's only jobs were to get married and have children. This is the 21st century, right? Women have other choices. We can go into whichever career we want... or not! And that's ok! The fact that a whole genre of movies is dedicated to telling that they need to be in a relationship is wrong. And the last time I checked there weren’t movies for men about men needing to be in committed relationships with women. If there were a movie about men committing to women, it would be about his friends trying to get him out of his relationship.
Back to “You’ve Got Mail.” The movie itself has such an unrealistic and quaintly anachronistic plot. I don't know what chat rooms were like in the late 90s, but today they are very creepy and have a huge stigma attached to them. People do meet online, but not in chat rooms. Also, if a man had shut down my business, there is about a zero percent chance I would ever go out with him or become friends with him or talk to him. Maybe I'm petty.
Although Tom Hanks is very talented actor (and I still love him dearly), this movie promotes antiquated social standards for women in a highly romanticized unrealistic way. And we still watch them. And there’s a very, very short list of movies about women supporting women having successful careers. It should be a longer list. And I think Tom thinks so too.... in theory. <3
