Dear Writer,
I’m not sure I want to admit to you how many times I’ve watched Bridget Jones’s Diary. Like… a lot.
Too many times, I’ll be honest with you. Colin Firth as Mark Darcy was my inspiration for the character of Ian in Ex and the Single Girl. Multiple viewings of BJD pretty much fueled that book.
While I disagree heartily with this bit of snobbery in The Office…
… I get why people knock romantic comedies. The bad ones can be truly bad, but that is also true of absolutely everything. Sturgeon’s Law; 90% of everything is crap. Romantic comedies do not have a lower quality rate than any other genre. They just take the hits, because they’re made with women in mind and we, as a culture, kinda hate women.
But that’s a discussion for another time.
The bottom line is, I have always found romantic comedies to be hugely inspiring to my writing, so I thought I’d bring a little bit of what Jenny Crusie and I did in Popcorn Dialogues to the newsletter; talk about romantic comedies with some damn respect.
So here’s the plan. Every week for the next four weeks, I’m going to watch two romantic comedies that have some kind of connection, and I’m going to discuss them in the Saturday posts, and would love to hear your opinions.
Here are the movies we’ll be watching:
June 25—Remakes
The Shop Around the Corner & You've Got Mail
July 2—Cyranos
Roxanne & The Half of It
July 9—Best Friends
Love & Basketball & To All The Boys I've Loved Before
July 16—Shakespeare Gets Schooled
Clueless & 10 Things I Hate About You
I am so excited about having these discussions, and I hope y’all can join in!
A note: From July 17-August 2 I will be taking off from Dear Writer to do some family things… got family things to attend to. All good stuff, but consuming. But I’ll be back on Wednesday, August 3 with more DW shenanigans. I will pause billing for paid subscribers during this time.
Love it! There is definitely an "Austen Connection" to your July 16 installment - "Clueless"! And also "10 Things" because I always sense that Jane Austen with her courtship plots (and all the arguments therein) must have been influenced by "Taming of the Shrew," which of course is what "10 Things" is retelling. (That is a topic we will tackle at some point.)
Looking forward to all these romcom discussions, we're here for it!
Yay! This sounds like fun! I really enjoyed the Popcorn Dialogues, so I'm looking forward this new series. And for the record--I'm with you regarding Bridget Jone's Diary!