The best movie made about Hollywood is The Bad and the Beautiful. Vincente Minnelli’s 1952 classic depicts the passion of brilliant yet amoral producer Jonathan Shields (the great Kirk Douglas) to elevate his films over the refrain by his studio boss Harry Pebbel (the dependable Walter Pidgeon): “I’ve told you a hundred times, genius boy, I don’t want to win awards. I want to make pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.”
So, what can account for the absence of love on screen? The thing that ruins everything, not only for men but women — feminism.
This used to be the yin and yang of old Hollywood — artistry plus, sometimes versus, profitability. But in new Hollywoke, both yin and yang are as elusive as a romantic feature on Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s month, or the entire decade. According to the perceptive entertainment industry observer Christian Toto, there will be no new romantic comedy to commemorate the holiday this weekend. Nor even a romantic tragedy like the top-grossing film of 1970, Love Story.
Wiseguys still knock the vintage tearjerker as a sappy chick flick, though they know the reason for its enormous success. Love may not conquer all, like an incurable disease, but it’s worth the battle, whether a heroic or humorous one. For the love between a man and a woman has been a recognized truth since the Bible.
See Proverbs 31:10. “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.”
This truth inspired literary fiction for 3,000 years, beginning with The Odyssey and Queen Penelope’s deterrence of suitors out of loyalty to her missing husband, Odysseus. Then followed some of the greatest romantic fiction ever written, including Tristan and Iseult, Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Gone With the Wind, Rebecca, and, arguably, Love Story by Erich Segal.
If Shakespeare didn’t create the romantic comedy, he certainly popularized it with charming alternatives to his tragic Romeo and Juliet — As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing. And the genre never left the stage, becoming a driving force in theater, most famously Moliere’s The School for Wives, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story, Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, and many others.
All of these beloved love stories boosted the new medium of cinema, along with countless works expressly written for the screen. A quick browse through the schedule for TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar marathon just this Valentine’s week yields multiple treasures, like Libeled Lady (1936), Swing Time (1936), Ninotchka (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Casablanca (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1945), and Pillow Talk (1959).
Romantic Comedies sustained the movie industry at the turn of the century with huge hits like Pretty Woman, As Good as It Gets, Clueless (based on Jane Austen’s Emma), Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, The Wedding Singer, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Knocked Up, and Superbad. Yet at the movie theater on Valentine’s Day, as Christian Toto pointed out, not one single romantic story.
Did women tire of the genre and move on to another? The answer is demonstrably no. The demand for literary romance has only increased this decade. According to Publishers Weekly, Romance book sales blew past all other categories in 2022, jumping more than 52 percent over the previous year. And the vast majority of authors are women (with a few notable exceptions, like the Yuletide favorite, The Christmas Spirit, by, er, me).
So, what can account for the absence of love on screen? The thing that ruins everything, not only for men but women — feminism. Feminism dictates that normal male-female relationships are prohibitively heteronormative. That pretty women such as Julia Roberts played before she became an insufferable shrew (see Erin Brockovich) are not subject to the Male Gaze. Girls have more important causes than looking for love, like career promotion and advancing liberalism. Indulging in romance may lead to terrible consequences, like becoming a wife and mother and nurturing a family.
Feminists detest this possibility. And feminists of both sexes — the male type most embarrassing — run Hollywood, even as it topples around them. Because no one wants the garbage fantasy being shoved down their throat. Not real men nor normal women. What they want is each other. Or the possibility of love on screen.
Feminist filmmakers can’t give them either. They’ve forsaken romance and beauty for an ugly false religion. Their theatrical church is emptying fast, and there’s nothing they can do about it, and wouldn’t if they could.
Jonathan Shields would refill the theaters, along with Harry Pebble. So would an actual capable producer or studio player. They’d bring back romance for women and pretty women for men. They’d have a great love story premiering on Valentine’s Day — a picture that would end with a kiss and black ink on the books.
READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:
