“I feel almost embarrassed revealing this, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity. But that has not stopped me from enjoying them. I like watching people fall in love onscreen so much that I can suspend my disbelief in the contrived situations that occur only in the heightened world of romantic comedies. I have come to enjoy the moment when the male lead, say, slips and falls right on top of the expensive wedding cake. I actually feel robbed when the female lead’s dress doesn’t get torn open at a baseball game while the JumboTron camera is on her. I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.”
—Mindy Kaling of “The Office” confesses in the new issue of The New Yorker that she is a closet romantic comedy junkie and dreams of writing one some day. She goes on to break down the archetypes of the rom-com: the Klutz, the Ethereal Weirdo, the Woman Who Is Obsessed with Her Career and Is No Fun at All. Thanks to Mindy for defending this genre. Because when you’re feeling down on a Sunday night, nothing can cheer you up faster than cooking a good meal and watching a terrible rom-com. [New Yorker]
