Women, Romantic Comedies, and the Grand Romantic Gesture

Last week on Glee, Blaine and the Warblers performed their rendition of “When I Get You Alone” to serenade an employee at the GAP.

I loved this scene for two reasons.

One, despite Glee’s many, many problems, I will be eternally grateful to the show for putting Darren Criss on my TV screen and giving him a song with the lyrics, “Keep your toys in the drawer tonight.”  Hot damn.

Two, this scene is brilliant because Blaine’s behavior is as brave as it was stupid.  It was stupid because serenading someone at hir workplace is almost always a bad idea, especially with a song that has highly suggestive lyrics.  (Kurt’s expression throughout the fiasco was perfect – he was heartbroken that he wasn’t the object of Blaine’s affection, but also embarrassed as hell for Blaine).  It was brave because he’s a young gay man in a homophobic society who’s declaring his affection in public.  This was the first time I really loved Blaine in his own right, and not just because he made Kurt happy and Darren Criss is supermegafoxyawesomehot. 

This also got me thinking about the grand romantic gesture and its use in the romantic comedy genre.  How many times have we watched men chase the women they love to the airport, Lloyd Dobler hold the boom box over his head to woo back Diane Court, and Harry run to tell Sally he loves her on New Year’s Eve?:

Sometimes romantic comedies like these get criticized for giving its (female) audience unrealistic expectations about love and romance.  The men in these movies can never live up to the men in real life, after all.

I agree to a certain extent.  These movies do create unrealistic expectations about romance.  But when I fantasize about the grand romantic gesture, I’m often the one making it.

As a teenager, I often dreamed of my (hopeless) crushes waking up to realize they loved me, chasing me down the hallway at school, and openly declaring their love they always secretly had for me.  But just as often, I would dream of openly professing my love for the guy of my dreams, usually through song.

I blame The Little Mermaid. Ariel’s rescue of Eric, followed by her serenade to him on the beach, inspired many of my own rescue fantasies where I saved the man I loved through an act of daring bravery and then sang to him.

I think my fantasy of singing my love to a man also comes from the knowledge that I have a very nice singing voice (not to brag or anything – well, no, I’m bragging a little) and I can’t count on my future husband being able to carry a tune.  That’s not important to me, anyway.  My future husband doesn’t have to be able to sing, but he has to enjoy hearing me sing, since I’ll burst into song at the drop of a hat.

Even aside from that, there’s something deeply appealing about the idea of declaring, “I’m in love with you and I don’t care who knows it.”  Of course women want to hear that from men.  But why should men have all the fun?

In the rom-com, the men who make grand romantic gestures are inspired, daring, romantic, and dreamy.  If a woman does it, she’s a clingy, usually ditzy stalker who falls down a lot.  Bridget Jones got to tell Mark Darcy how she felt about in him in the middle of the street, which was great, except she had to run down the block in her underwear first, humiliating herself.  If a man declares his love for a woman, he’s passionate and heartfelt.  If a woman declares her love for a man first, she’s desperate.  I don’t know of many male-centric versions of All About Steve, for example.

Of course, there’s something inherently creepy and invasive about the grand romantic gesture in the first place.  Being open and direct with your feelings is one thing; forcing those feelings onto someone else can be invasive and threatening.  The appropriateness of the grand romantic gesture depends on the comfort level of the person receiving it, as well as the depth of the relationship.

But as long as we’re dealing with pure fantasy, women should get to have more fun.  I want to see one of US hold the boom box over our heads – or at least an iPod attached to some stereos.