Snobbery about romcoms goes all the way back to the 1930s

There is no medicine on earth that has the power to heal me in the way romantic comedies do. OK, well that statement is probably completely medically inaccurate, but I just completely and utterly adore this wildly underrated genre. 

For many years, I was somewhat coy about my adoration of this genre. In my early twenties, I wouldn't admit to friends that I'd watched Notting Hill for the umpteenth time, but would instead gush about some arthouse film that I'd barely understood, let alone enjoyed. At university, I'd hide my DVD copies of My Best Friend's Wedding, When Harry Met Sally, Bridget Jones' Diary. Looking back now, I wish I hadn't done that. But I also know that I did that because of a palpable cultural snobbery surrounding the genre of film I love the most. Whenever I did talk about the genre, it was always met with disparaging comments that it was a lesser art form, that it wasn't high-brow. Read more...