It’s Wednesday, y’all! The weekend is nearly within reach and I hope everyone is looking forward to it!
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Reader Pamela sent us this link on romantic comedies, saying, “Thank goodness my new found love of romance novels as filled some of the void but to this article I say amen!”:
A great romantic comedy is driven by two characters who want each other, in spite of themselves. Maybe they end up together at the end and maybe they don’t, the important thing is that they want to have sex with each other. Desire isn’t necessarily cute or sweet. Desire is sometimes a dragon that needs to be slayed, and it can push a character to the dizzy, insane places where the best comedy lives. A great romantic comedy is hot. (I refuse to say “sexy.” I refuse.) We don’t need to see the characters go as far as they do in Bull Durham, although I have nothing against it. The most important thing is chemistry between the stars, and that has nothing to do with the amount of actual sex the characters have.
I love this article and I think Pamela for sending it our way, as I’m missing my summer romcom blockbusters.
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Need a dose of cuteness? Photographer Elena Eremina has been doing photoshoots with adorable, little hedgehogs:
Elena Eremina is an up-and-coming photographer based in St Petersburg, Russia, whose portfolio comprises cute critters including hamsters and hedgehogs.
The animals are photographed in miniature settings featuring scenes from cooking to watering the plants and taking a bubble bath.
The hedgehog in the bathtub is my person favorite.
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Sarah: Sheryl Sandberg is a “take with a large grain of salt” person for me, as I don’t think she fully acknowledges how much privilege and advantage she has when she advises other women what to do. BUT, thinking about what you’ve done well at the end of the day is a habit I’ve been doing before I found this article, and it’s a small shift that makes a big difference in how I feel about my accomplishments:
From a new virtual reality startup that trains women to negotiate compensation, to Claire Shipman and Katty Kay’s best-selling book, The Confidence Code, to Amy Cuddy’s famous Ted Talk on “power posing,” confidence– and how to get more of it– is top of mind for women today. Studies show that, while competence may get you in the door, it’s confidence in your work, your vision and yourself that will get you ahead.
Still, many successful women today struggle with insecurity and self-doubt. Shipman and Kay have shown that confidence is not a fixed state, but is more like a muscle that can be strengthened with regular workouts. Here, Sheryl Sandberg and a few prominent Silicon Valley women share the exercises they do each day to build their self-confidence.
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Lastly, Librarian Alexandra introduced us to the webcomic Oh Joy Sex Toy, which focuses on sex eduction. Here is an overall description:
Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan’s widely acclaimed Oh Joy Sex Toy (OJST) is a free weekly sex education webcomic that debuted April 2013 and updates every Tuesday.
It covers everything sex related from, sexuality and the sex industry, to toys, workshops, birth control and much more. With the aid of guest contributors giving us us many perspectives as possible, we strive to be relevant to a wide variety of genders, body types, and sexualities.
Keep in mind that the comic strips are definitely NSFW!
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We have a new recommendation feature! Sometimes we have things we love that don’t warrant a review but are so useful we want to spread the word. Special note: the link is affiliate coded so if you use it, many thanks! And if you’ve got something to suggest, please email Sarah!
iGo Keyjuice Keyring
The iGo is an itty bitty tool that unfolds to one USB connection, plus a USB and a USB Micro, so you can plug your phone into your laptop, or into a portable battery. Excellent for tiny emergency kits, too.
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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
I just read the article on the rom-com and I feel so frustrated right now please forgive me if this comment ends up rambling and not making any sense.
First, even though I understand where the author is coming from, I don’t like the suggestion to rename the romance comedy genre. It just makes me feel as a romance reader, once again, that romance is a dirty word.
I don’t completely agree with her focus on making sex funny. Honestly we have plenty of movies talking about sex and making sex funny. What I miss about romance comedies is the story of two people coming together. And yes, desire and sex are a BIG part of that but for me, romance is how two different people come together and fit. How their strengths and weaknesses compliment one another. How they have to consider one another’s feeling and worldviews.
I’m mostly frustrated about the fact that those in charge in the movie industry think there’s not a market for the romantic comedy. Yes, romance readers run away with book sales but there’s no market for good romantic movies *sarcasm*. In my opinion, the problem is they haven’t made a good romantic comedy in way too long. I know for me the last few romantic comedies I watched I just felt like there was some “Romantic Comedy Checklist” and the director was just going check, check, check! No originality.
The movie I was most frustrated with was “The Vow” with Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum in 2012. For those who are unfamiliar with the movie, it was based off the true story of a young woman who lost her memory of the last few years of her life after a car accident and could no longer remember her husband. Unfortunately, the movie basically just becomes a rich girl meets working class guy movie. While I enjoyed it just fine, it really was nothing special. Afterwards I looked up the book it was based on. From the reviews on Amazon, I got a better idea of what the real story was about including the fact that because she had brain damage, the wife’s personality changed and other issues. I just thought “wow, what a great movie this could have been.” What is it like to have your spouse no longer remember you? What is it like to be married to someone you don’t know? What is it like to have your personality change because of brain damage? What kind of stress does that put on your marriage? Your family? Instead the movie studio just used the intriguing idea of the true story to sell tickets and then just turned around and gave us a cookie cutter movie.
Sorry if this is ranty. But the death of the romantic comedy has been on my mind also and I’m mad that the movie studios killed it and they don’t even realize that they are the ones to blame.
Regarding romantic comedies, it’s funny that Meriwether mentioned Deadpool without acknowledging that it is one. Yes, it’s an ultra-violent superhero movie, but it’s undeniably a comedy, and the central plot is the love story–how it unfolded, how it ended, and what he’s willing to do to get his love back. It’s my favorite romantic comedy in years. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was very funny and had a strong romantic subplot (yes, I know it’s from last year, but still).
Beyond that, I think that there are some great romantic comedies, but they’re on TV, not in the movies. I really enjoyed Catastrophe, though I haven’t seen Season 2 yet. Galavant, sadly canceled, made me scream with laughter and swoon over the romances (SPOILERS Gareth and Madalena were hilarious and perfect and oh my god, the part where they are addressing the troops while trying to negotiate their relationship is so great END SPOILERS). Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries had comedic elements and a strong romance.
So while I agree that it’s about time for a renaissance in romantic comedies, I don’t think the landscape is as dire as that article portrays it. Yeah, I want to see the next Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day or Stranger than Fiction, but let’s not ignore the good things we have right now. Or they might get canceled. Like Galavant.
I loved Galavant! The couple you reference in the SPOILERS was the greatest. I shipped them so hard.
I also miss GALAVANT. It had great romantic leads (including a heroine who’s willing to take charge and complain, as opposed to sitting around and passively get rescued), great celebrity cameos (“Weird Al” Yankovic as a singing monk! Kylie Minogue as the owner of a medieval gay bar!), a wonderful main cast (love Timothy Omundson), and terrific musical numbers. If there was ever a show that got cancelled from network television and deserved a second life on cable or online, this is it!
Galavant: I’m sorry, I’ve been using so many horrible words to describe you that I’ve forgotten the one that describes you best.
King Richard: Musky?
What I saw of the comics at OJST was well within my comfort zone, but the ads were very HERE HAVE SOME PENIS RIGHT IN YOUR EYE HOLE OH YOU HAVE TWO HAVE SOME MORE PENIS NOW WITH EXTRA BONUS PENIS!!!!!!!!
Jeez, guys, we just met.
So… maybe a good use of your ad blocker there if illustrated sex toy reviews seemed appealingly unintimidating and aggressive peen presentation in all the margins is going to spoil that for you.
I wonder about the whole romantic-comedy thing. Honestly: I have always preferred reading romance to watching it. And most film/television comedy does not make me laugh. That said, I have a couple other ideas about why romantic comedy is not a popular genre for movie producers
1. The witty, fast-paced, innuendo-driven romantic comedies of the 1930s, for which Liz Meriwether is so nostalgic, cannot be made in a world where a) it is socially acceptable for people of the opposite sex to say just about anything they want to each other; where b) it is socially acceptable for unmarried people to have sex with each other. Those comedies are a product of their times. To create something similar that is set in the modern day would require an apotheosis of writerly genius.
2. It is very difficult for a modern audience to suspend disbelief to the degree required to buy into a screen romance. We all know too much about the actors as people. Add to that, we all have extremely specific notions of how a fictional romance situation should play out. If the actors are not attractive to us personally, we won’t go. If advance press indicates the story contains tropes that we assume we will dislike, we won’t go. If the screenwriter or director is famous for making comedies that we equate more with drunken frat parties than with a pleasant date night, we won’t go. There used to be a conventional expression of romance, there used to be a mystique (however artificial) about our performers, and that ain’t the case anymore.
3. Producers and executives (if they are not also writers) are not, generally speaking, super-imaginative people. They are parts of a very expensive machine, and their role is to make decisions that will create profit so that the machine runs smoothly. It is not actually in their interest to “take a chance” on a story that may appeal to only 1% of the ticket-buying public.
The truth is, romance stories that have sufficient interest to hold us -without any other plot devices – are and always have been super-rare. And modern culture no longer presents A Great Romance as something to aspire to, something that can define a life.
The modern movies that Meriwether references are not all specifically love stories, but they point to something she overlooked even while mentioning Mad Max (and I’m assuming she meant Fury Road): a strong love story will elevate any genre of movie. When it’s comedy, though, you have to tread a thin line between making your characters and situations funny, and making fun of them. If the writers, director, and actors do not take the romance seriously, neither will the audience. The audience has to CARE whether the romance works out, and whether the protagonists come across as deserving.
Finally, I disagree pretty strongly with Meriwether about the nature of the romantic comedy. Having a sex life is not the same thing as having a romance. Desiring someone is not the same thing as falling in love. Trying to get laid is not the same thing as looking for your soul mate. Romance is about connection, not about gonads. If Meriwether really wants more romantic comedies produced, I think she needs to read a hell of a lot more romance on the page.
Ren Benton wrote “What I saw of the comics at OJST was well within my comfort zone, but the ads were very…” Sadly, this is a common issue with a lot of adult entertainment. I find a lot of great articles on the website Adult Video News http://www.avn.com but they’re usually accompanied by, whatever the topic, very explicit and often unrelated ads. Some great adult movies on DVD are preceded by trailers for… trashy and explicit movies, or for older movies 1-900 ads (which definitely go for the basest appeal to sex). It’s just something we purveyors of adult entertainment have to deal with and get used to.
I think the last good rom-com I saw was “Crazy Stupid Love”. Granted, I watched it for the ever-adorable Josh Groban, but I love how the suave playboy falls for this beautiful but awkward (“Oh my god! It’s like you’re photoshopped!”) woman who is funny and smart and real. I loved watching them actually connect on a personal level, so that she helps him to become a better man because he wants to be the man she deserves.
Give me an actual rom-com that isn’t a frat boy college shagfest with correspondingly crude humor.
I like Sheryl Sandberg and since she gets a lot of people on the internet who hate for being a woman I’m usually on her side.
I don’t really understand what the issue. If you think it’s important enough to tell about, say something specific. Otherwise don’t bother trashing a link you’re linking to.
I can’t really tell what the issue, but I’ve the same problem with advice on this site.
I appreciated the link with Sandberg in it, but I’m annoyed by the commentary.
[…] Linkity from Smart Bitches. […]
@Emily: I’m really surprised and a little offended by your comment. I don’t hate Sheryl Sandberg because she’s a woman. What a ghastly thing to say.
I thought was very clear: I take her advice with a grain of salt because I don’t think she acknowledges the full scope of her privilege and the advantages she’s had when she gives other professional women advice. Her suggestion about acknowledging daily accomplishments, however, is very useful – which is what I said. I wasn’t trashing the link at all. I’m honestly so confused.
Sarah, I am sorry I was unclear. I didn’t mean to imply that you hated Sandberg, because she’s a woman. I meant to say that most of the negative things I’ve read about Sandberg on-line seemed to be written by trolls that think that way and that it’s maybe made me a little defensive of her. I didn’t mean to imply you were of them. My bad.
That being said I was genuinely confused by what you were trying to convey.
Do you mean she’s racist? Elitist?
Galavant, 21 minute episodes, and Amazon wants $1.99 for the SD version. I have Prime but they’re not included. Sigh. I want to try it, but I really can’t justify purchase (which will lead to a season) given that the only reason we pay for Prime is the videos.
Anna, Galavant just came to Netflix, I just started rewatching the entire series.