RIP Nora Ephron You Would Have Loved Felching

and fucking and eating chocolate or whatever. Those are the things that people do on Valentine's Day, right They eat chocolate? Yeah, exactly, And watch the Fifty Shades of Great trilogy and its entirety, which is what we covered last year for Valentine's Day. So go back listened to those episodes if you are

feeling spicy. But this week we are also talking about, you know, someone who is very prolific when it came to romance, but from a slightly different perspective, slightly This week we're talking all about nor Fron, the prolific writer director of such films as When Harry met Sally sleep List in Seattle. You've got mailed Julie and Julia and Queen of the rom com and as Fran just learned, and as I learned ten minutes before that from looking

at her Wikipedia. She also co wrote Silkwood, which neither of us have seen. Neither of us has have seen, despite me being a devout share stand um, I've heard it's actually good and Share plays a lesbian. There was also a really great documentary about nor eron Um on HBO a couple of years ago called Everything Is Copy, which I did walk but don't remember a lot of Fran. You you have claimed that you remember more of it. So do you want to start off by giving a

little context about who Nora Ephron was? Sure? So, Nora Efron is, you know, one of the better Neppo babies in our Neppo baby cinematic universe. Her parents were screenwriters, and she I think pretty quickly got into making films UM after having a extremely prolific career as a magazine writer. Essentially, so her work as an essayist was like immediately profound, recognizable something that everyone saw after UM, and she did it by simply like kind of captivating the world with

her own voice. And I think you see a Nora Fron voice in her movies. Right, It's very like conversational. It's from the first person perspective. It's like blunt and

funny and sometimes mean. And I think like sooner rather than later, as she sort of took up this residency at Esquire at a time when there weren't very many like women writing for magazines, let alone for Esquire, she kind of just became this like thought leader, like a kind of socialite thought leader like um, if not intellectual, that people were who were looking for and like looking toward to like cultivate the culture. Like she was kind of famous while she was alive. She was the Tolentino

of her time. She was she kind of she kind of was. And it's funny like I actually, you know, I haven't read like a ton of Nora Frans essays and didn't buy like a compilation of her work when she died or things like that. I actually only know her from her movies, and I think that I personally

didn't know the life that she had outside of movies. Right. Um, it's also so romantic, grows like so romantic compared to like our experience in magazines, like you know, Nora Fron was writing alongside like Gay Tolles and like that old school generation of writers when like they would get paid thousands and thousands of dollars to write one story totally yeah, and that one story they would have like three months to finish. You know, this was a different This was

sort of closer to Carrie Bradshaw's type of journalism. You could where you could have a weekly column that kept you in Manila obloics and you know, or Eron had an even more idyllic version of that going on, not like us where we were writing you know, like click bait about Javins, nail polish, Yeah, no, no health insurance, freelancing, begging, begging editors to give us like two fifty dollars to write like a four thousand word essay, Um that to

do in two days. Um yeah. It's it's really definitely a more romantic version of like what it meant to be a writer before the Internet age. Um yeah. But those are kind of I think the background things that are important to know. Um As she kind of went into her film career and became like the filmmaker nor Efron as opposed to just the writer nor efron Um. What about nor Effron, I guess, like, do you have like a favorite movie of hers? Yes, And I have

argued about this with with my mother fairly recently. I do think so. According to my mom, she thinks When Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made, and I slightly disagree with that, and I think that of her movies, You've Got Male is definitely my favorite and part of the reason why I am drawn to that as opposed to When Harry Met Sally. Even though I love When Harry Met Sally. It's a fantastic movie.

But When Harry Met Sally nor efron wrote it, but she didn't directed it, and she wrote and directed You've Got Mail because she did. She didn't make her directorial debut until with This Is My Life, and then for the most part, she directed all of her movies, and she co wrote most of her films with her sister

Deelia fron Um. But I think, like, obviously it does kind of make sense that When Harry Met Sally is written by a woman directed by a man, because like literally the basis of the film is this question of can men and women ever really be friends. But I definitely preferred later in her career, when Nora Ephron was writing and directing all of her films because they feel so much more her vision in totality. Um, and I think that's what I respond to. And I do think

You've Got Mailed is just a perfect romantic comedy. I agree. I I honestly wish I had ranked, like thought to like rank the Nora Evon movies that I had, but I'm pretty sure that that is my favorite too. I love when Harry met Sally. I think like it is something. It's a movie that like sweeps you off your feet in a way that her other films don't. But it's it's an amazing well both both it and You've Got My Little amazing New York movies. Yeah, they are their

love letters to New York. And like Nora Afron was a kind of classic new Yorker, like even her writing style like sounds like New York, like her literal voice, the infectiousness of her voice like sounds like what New York sounds like. Is that corny to say? No, I think it's true when Harry met Sally also has this quality that's like I think if you simplified it, like it could be a play. It could be a play

about these two couples. Because it is kind of about you know, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and then Carrie Fisher and whoever the guy is that she ends up dating. There is something um like theatrical about it. But then obviously like it's a much bigger story than that. I I rewatched it last year because I was watching a lot of rom coms last summer and it's it's such a great movie. And like, obviously the thing everyone remembers from when Harry met Sally is the I'll have what

She's having orgasm moment in Katz's Deli. But it's just it's so clever, and so much of the cleverness is in the writing, the specificity of the jokes. Um. How actually like heartfelt it is? Um And of course you know, the performances are amazing. I'm not like the biggest Billy Crystal fan, although I do love City Slickers Billy Crystal hot in this movie, Um, he's not hot, but he there is that image of him in like the chunky cabled its sweater that always gets tweeted like in The Fall. Um,

you know, because it's very autumnal. It's well, it's a very well, it's not a Thanksgiving movie, but it's a very autumnal movie because the main action of the movie kind of takes place from like summer to New Year's Eve, which is when the movie ends. So it's it's super autumn in New York, which I love. Which also I mean, we'll get to You've Got Mail later, I think, but You've Got Mail also has a very big autumnal quality to it, although I think it's more of a spring movie.

Are all of her movies automn movies honestly, are anything that Thanksgiving movie? To you? It was just like, yess a Thanksgiving movie. I mean Sleepless in Seattle, I guess is a little more winter. It's a little more winter. I actually have only seen that movie once. Um, but yeah, I gosh, I feel like I want to be Nora

f Fron. Is that like something that every does every right or want to be nor every And it feels like very natural to like want the trajectory and the success and the kind of cool girl factor that she had, Like it's I think, so I think a lot of our friends who are writers are aiming for that kind of trajectory because, you know, the I I think, not knowing a lot about her life, I would imagine that a big part of what launched her was the second

movie she ever wrote was Heartburn, which was adapted from her novel of the same name, which was like a sort of auto fiction novel based on her own divorce when I think her husband cheated on her. Um. I recently gifted the novel to my grandma for her birthday. UM, maybe I should read it too, and she and I can have a little book club moment. But it does feel like so many of our friends who are writers, so many people of our generation, especially people who come

from journalism, that is how they launched their careers. They write memoirs, or they right sort of auto fiction e novels, and then maybe those get like adapted or like get like you know, huge like buzzy you know, internet success, and then from there they go on and either like write more novels or move into TV and film. Um. And you know, that is kind of the north Front path. It really is, especially when you're a Neppo baby. UM. I God, I wish my parents were screenwriters. That would

have been so much easier, right do you think? Okay, let's let's answer the question of when Harry met Sally, do you think women and men can be friends? I mean she also didn't and she also didn't take non binary people into accounts, and when I was a man, we were friends. M I feel like, um, honestly, I'm literally I'm literally assessing the question. I'm literally as set saying the question. Well, no, it's a very it's obviously a question from you know, the gaze of the hetero patriarchy.

Oh see, yeah, Okay, wait what do you mean by that? Because I'm like trying to evaluate it from like a heterosexual person in the nineties perspective, like Ken, well, not nineties, this was in this Yeah, it was really the eighties. So yes, if you're thinking about if you're a straight woman in the eighties, can women and men be friends? I guess is like a more real question. Yeah, yeah, exactly from the lens of today, Like obviously yes, but as Phoebe you just said in the chat, why would

she be friends with a man? She spilled you know, it's funny because like Nora Fron was like a bit of a quote unquote feminist icon. I and you do feel like feminism imbued in her work, especially in like a line like that, can heterosexual men and women women be friends? I honestly can't think of a single example. Well, I think the thing is that straight guys are always trying to fuck literally everyone every woman around them. So

maybe from the woman's perspective, um, how is her work feminist? Her? Her? She always writes these strong characters, these strong women, characters that don't give a fun I'm not talking about I don't think she was acclaimed as a feminist because of her um screenwriting work. I think that by the time she was writing for Esquire. So when she when she was invited to write for Esquire, which at this point in her career, she her her writing was already taking off.

They were like, what do you want to write about? You can write about anything you want, which is like an offer that like every writer would dream of from the editor and Esquire. And she was like, I want

to write about women. And so she spent the whole time writing from a women's perspective about women for men in a way that I think is like kind of profound, and and and her angle, like when she was um, when she was on this like cusp of like whatever wave of feminism was happening at this time, with like glorious with Gloria Steinham literally like she was like one of Gloria Stadiams peers um. I think she felt like feminist discourse at the time was like so unfun right.

She was like, no one is like willing to self critique, no one's having any fun with it, no one is being honest, like, no one is like kind of no one's taking it there like I'm going to take it there with feminist writing. And I think that her bluntness and her willingness to say like yeah, like I like, what's a stupid examples like she wrote this like this this story about breasts and how women always want their breasts to be bigger and like what's in what how? How? Um?

Yes exactly exactly as we pull out our heads like and and she would write about like, oh yeah, like I want my breast to be bigger, as does that not make me a feminist? And like why are women so insecure about hers? She was writing about insecurities a lot of the time. I think you see that in her films. I think I think you see that in

her essays. It's like kind of in her personality. She's not afraid to self deprecate and to acknowledge her shortcomings and to and to say like, yeah, like you know, I want X, Y and Z. That might be superficial, but this is what I want. And I think that at the time, especially when you're in the middle of movement work, you don't really want to acknowledge all your flaws along with it. You don't want to add that kind of nuance. And she did, right, she was like,

this is everything else we're bringing to feminism. Um, I think I honestly like, that's just my guess. You you asked, You asked the question, and I think that's kind of how I understood it. I wonder what, I think it's better if we don't know. I kind of yeah, I kind of thinking she might be in in you know, moving forward in her career, the next big film and probably the thing that put her on the map as

as a filmmaker as well as a writer. Um with Sleepless in Seattle, which probably for most people is like the romantic comedy. Like I think when you talk about the lexicon of romantic comedies, Sleepless in Seattle looms larger than any although for me, I don't think it would even be in my top five, maybe not in my top ten. What top ten nor Aron movies? No, I'm talking top ten romantic comedies. Oh, I was talking about Nora Afron movies. Yeah, I would not be in my

act sual romcom ranking. You know, Sleepless in Seattle is a great movie. I love the Rose O'donald's in it. Um for anyone who you know has never seen it, it's about um, this little boy who like calls into a radio show looking for um a woman for his dad and Meg Ryan looking for a woman. She and Tom Hanks fall in love somehow and then meet on the umpire state ble to get the end of it. It's it's It's sorry. This is the only thing I'm

contributing to the conversation. You want Tom Hanks's load in this movie, right, like this is one where you are Tom Hanks, Um, not not in this movie the movie that I want Tom Hanks's load in Splash One of the Way, which which which for for like a virgin, for like a virgin lore Splash was one of the things that made us want to do this podcast, and we recorded this test episode talking about Splash because we went on we went on a vacation to Joshua Treat,

but it actually was sort of like a retreat to like basically blot out on the deck of this podcast and an excuse for us to write it off. Yes, and Splash is one of my favorite movies, one of my favorite rom coms, and Norah Fron famously wrote and directed Splash. Well you know where Nora Efron is the seed of this episode, but it's talking into a beautiful garden that is more generally about and Splash is a great romantic comedy starring Daryl Hannah and a young hot

Tom Hanks. Load. I remember if I remember his butt. I remember you pointing out his butt and being like, look at his butt, and I was like, WHOA. I actually did not expect that from Tom Hanks. It was a bit of a dump truck. It's a it's a very horny movie that he and Darryl Hammon has a lot of something that's so baffling. He loves having sex with her so much that he locks her inside of like a hotel room or something like that. Doesn't he lock the mermaid inside a room He like literally holds

her captive so he can fuck her. But that's not how it's. It's it's some weird. It's some weird vibes. That also also it stars a young Eugene Levy. No Eugene Levy would get you his nose. It's about the nose. Um wait, okay, that's some pretty good lore. Actually, like wasn't I think the first things we ever watched were Splash and then I think, oh my god, to a Mrs Doubtfire episode because you know, it's one of my

favorite films. Okay, okay, okay, are there any other? So there are fast forwarding a little further in in nor Fron's career. Um is You've Got Mail in my favorite of her films and definitely up in my like top five romantic comedies of all time. Um it is a for anyone who doesn't know and if you have never seen You've Got Mail, I like literally can't believe you're

listening to this podcast. Um it's. It stars Meg Brian as the owner of a charming little children's bookstore on the Upper West Side, and she is um sort of priced out of the neighborhood because a big bookstore, UM, like a sort of Barnes Noble type store that is run by Tom Hanks moves into the neighborhood and they are secretly Internet pen pals and fall in love and it is just the sweetest, funniest but also kind of mean, like most New York and like specifically Upper West Side

ass romantic comedy. It's so nineties, but like turn of the century nineties because of the A O L of it all. Parker Posey is in it, UM and she's incredible. Greg Kneer isn't it He's Meg Ryan's boyfriend at the beginning. Dave Chappelle is in it. Dave Chappelle, Um, this movie like captures like um. This this extremely specific era of at least our lives like this generation's lives were. Then the internet felt so new and scary and thrilling, like

like this. Sending your first emails like that was such a Do you remember what they felt like? Do you ever any idea what first email was or like, what your first incidence is, what message was? No, but I do have a lot. I have so many memories of logging onto a O. L. And specifically to read fand fiction. You know. This was so um, this was such an important time for the formation of almost everything about my identity. One of the few things that I can remember are

I remember having a girlfriend at the time. Her name was Katie Crow. I was in seventh grade. I remember chatting with her over email and writing like cute emails to each other back and forth. And I remember taking forever to decide the font and font color of my you know, and the background color, which was usually a cloudy rainbow, which yeah, I think that, like that was the thing that like I obsessed over. I was like,

what the fund is the font? And this was this was the time of you know, children, our little gen Z listeners if you exist, you know, this was the time when you had one family computer that everyone shared. Mine was our our house that we lived and had an enclosed patio in the back and that's where the computer was. And I would go out there like early in the morning so I could log onto a well

and ten minutes later once I was finally online. After that, um, then I would you know, read my little Buffy fan fictions and stuff, um and chat with probably like you know, fifty year old men who wanted to murder me and you were just a little girl. It was just a little quote unquote girl. Um yeah, I god, I just I I miss when the Internet was like at this

cusp um, I do you so long to do anything? Yeah, But like our brains were better, Our brains were like Nora Afron, that's honestly, like when I was exactly no, truly, like are the Internet ruined our brains? That? I think honestly, there's something a little nostalgic about It's so weird to be nostalgic for a period that like we lived through.

But there is a nostalgia to the kind of cinematic universe of Nora Afron's characters and this kind of pre Internet purity that oh god, yeah, I'm just jealous of. I like I missed that. I missed when writers didn't

have to write about the Internet. Like now that we're in this like era of like work, like we can't really have any of our conversations without acknowledging how social media is influencing them or maybe like that it's like about social media or like about some viral trend in some way, And I don't know, I missed this like

kind of cuspol analog time. Um, it is nice to think about the Internet being something that you had to work, that you had to work for, that you had to put an effort to access, and that was actually a barrier of entry for a lot of people. And I'm sure at the time this movie came out, UM, this was very much a novelty UM using the Internet in

this way. And like it makes sense that these the leads of this film were like coastal elites, like you know, sort of like intellectual like book people, um, who were falling in love online. UM. But also I don't know, like the idea of love letters and like, um, you know mistaken identities is so romantic. But I do think this film is PROBLEMATICUM. I mean it's enemies to lovers.

But then you know, halfway the whole twist is that halfway through the film, Tom Hanks realizes that it's Meg Ryan who he's talking to online because they're supposed to meet I r L. And then he kind of like uses his knowledge of her to get her to fall in love with him I r L. And then you know, by the by the end of the film when they actually do meet, she says I wanted it to be you, which like is a is a great line, it's so romantic, but also like he fully manipulated and her. You know.

The thing is like if she didn't say that line I wanted it to be you, the movie would have such a different ending, like it would be I think it would be easy to assume that she like hated his guss and she's like, you're dead to me forever, you know, like you needed her to say that in order to have that little Well, she was clearly in love with him by the end, but he was using in their actual lives once they started spending time together.

He was using the information he got from her when they were anonymous to get her to fall in love with him. Maybe she knew it was him all time, and she she wanted him to know these things. I know. I don't know about that. No, I don't think so either. I was gonna say, um this again with this movie, like it feels like, oh god, I feel I don't want to be a redundant because like in our Julie Roberts episode, we were like, they don't make movie stars like this anymore, but like I do feel like they

like there there aren't writers like nor Fron anymore. It's like, you know what I mean, Like she belongs to this kind of internet cost generation of writers that like, we'll just I don't know, I don't will never We don't get writers that are so magnanimous and on every single talk show the way nor Efron wasn't every single talk show, and like was actually famous during her time. Well, I think also what it is is that the um the romantic comedy is kind of dead. Um. This nor Efron's um.

You know, heyday was the golden age of the romantic comedy, which I would I would argue was really the nineties, um, when we were like post sexual liberation and pre you know, jaded internet era. Um. And she, you know, she was the perfect writer for her time, Like there are these

ones in a generation people, I think. And of course, like you know, she was speaking for a very privileged, white, sis, hetero like elite idea of life and love, of course, but you know it clearly did captivate a nation in the world in a way. And so yeah, I think she was she was this handah horvat one to be the voice of her generation, or at least a voice of a Generation. Her last films were two five Bewitched remake, which actually watched kind of recently. I think On a

Plane really is Yeah, I mean it's awful. It's it's so bad, but but it's still I mean, it's still has like some charming dialogue and Nicole Kidman's charming. Will Ferrell is just like woefully miscast. Kristin chenowis in it and like she's great. Of course, Michael Caine's fab But did you just it's you didn't like the movie? Is there anything else? If you remember about it? It's just

like a bad framing of the movie. I think, like meta, right, Yeah, it's about an actor, like a sort of like washed up actor who's making a reboot TV show of Bewitched, and it did kind of predict reboot culture. But then an actual which gets cast in it and they fall in love and it's just like stupid um. But then her last film was Julia and Julia, which is I think an incredible movie if you only watch the Julia child scenes. Oh yeah, of course. I mean I've seen

the YouTube version called and Julia. That is the movie with Amy Adams cut out of it. It's much better. And totally watch the ball and Meryl Streep is incredible as Julia Child. Okay, it should be said Meryl Streep with Stanley Tucci. With Stanley Tucci very important. And I love how how into each other they are, like they fuck,

they want to ravish each other. It's so cute. I don't understand how there's that HBO Max Julia Child show that that literally in the midst of everything going on, HBO got renewed for a second season when we already have kind of the definitive portrayal of Julia Child in media. Meryl Street, Yeah, yeah, it really is. Um it doesn't it doesn't quite make sense, but you know, reboot culture,

it's going to happen. Well, okay, I want to talk more about romantic comedies in general and like where nor Efron fits into it, because you know, as we've said, she does kind of she's the the part of the romantic comedy landscape that's like very you know, like intellectual, a little jaded, a little cynical, very New York very you know, like coastal elite. I would say, like you have fucking Nancy Meyers on one end of the spectrum, you know, she's making I would say, like more West

Coast romantic comedies, like big, big white kitchen comedies. Um. And then nor Efron is like East Coast. You know, she's making small you know, exposed brick kitchen. Um, still still very nice kitch, still very expensive kitchen. So they're they're the two coasts. Um. But you know, like like their characters, I think there's like a shared cinematic universe

that their characters live in. I think so. I mean I frequently kind of like lump Nancy and Nora like in in the same kind of category in my brain, even though the writing is so different. I am like such a Nancy Meyers stand. Like, as I said on the pod before, I love like, you know, movies about like white women in crisis, like wealthy women who are going through it emotionally. Um. But yeah, no, they're there.

I think West Coast East Coast is like the perfect assessment, like there is something Nancy Myers movies are just sorry, like so much more shallow, Like they don't they don't have the voice Nora has. Like there Nora is, at the end of the day, the thing that has stuck with Nora through the entirety of her career and something that we remember her for, even if we don't say it explicitly, was like her voice, like she had a very yeah the right the writing is Fancy does that

Nancy doesn't? You know? Um? But god, but think about Nancy's She was like having so much fun. I want to write any Myers movie not a Nora Afron movie, you know what I mean? Yeah, I wish, I do wish that Julia Roberts had been in um, an Nora Efron movie at something. But but Meg Ryan is so is the Nora Efron protagonist? Like that is the kind of woman she was writing, I don't know, just like a white blood woman with short hair with with anxious speaking patterns. Yes, um I am. I love Meg Ryan.

She was certainly a mother at some at one point in the culture. Um and I will always love her, especially for being the voice of Anastasia in the animated film Anastasia. Oh God, I forgot about that. And that movie was stacked. It had Christen Dunce, It had um John qu Sack, Uh, Angela no no, Bernadette Peters, oh yeah, and Angela Lansbury. Um that Kelsey Grammar, Um yeah, Meg Ryan? Wait there was another really, oh Hankazaria? Yes? And then

who was who was Resputen? It was like Christopher Christopher Lloyd. Okay, Um, have we already talked about how rest we need you? We? Should we do an Anna station episode? Should we do? Should we do our Russian Dynasty episode? Um? Sure? Have you ever read we could we could do like a non and Disney animated movie, um? Episode? Because I think Anastasia is one of those movies that everyone thinks as

a Disney movie but it's not. And there were quite a few of those in the nineties when others studios started to get in on the animation game that Disney had like sort of created a monopoly around. Have you have you ever read about when Risputant died? Yes? Like how like how he died? It's so crazy. He died like he like got shot like three times and then was like beaten to death and stabbed and thrown in a river, like a frozen river. And that's how I want to go. Yes, And and it didn't in That's

what I'm gonna do to you. But his body they found that he died from like like freezing, like he didn't die from the gunshot. Runs or stabbing or anything. It's crazy. It's also crazy that when they adapted Anastasia into a Broadway musical that I never saw, they cut rascipute in from it, and his song is one of the best songs in the film. I wonder why is it like too dark or was because? I think because they did they didn't want it to be magical. Yeah, okay,

that's fair, which is boring? This fuck? Um? I remember you? Will you watch season five of The Crown, the episode about the Romanofs where they showed them all getting executed at the beginning. Oh my, that episode is so gaggy. They really pretty gay. Yeah, they popped a couple of bullets off into the Romanofs. Oh my god, it's so sad. Meg Ryan Love love her. Who are the other like rom com diva is obviously Julia Roberts We've talked about. Um, Jennifer Lopez. Monster in Law is one of my favorite

rom coms. Would definitely be on the like top ten list. Queen Latifa is a rom com diva. Last Holiday is she really is? Although he was? She? Did she do any other? Oh Rene Salwagger, Bridget Jones. I've never seen Bridget Jones Diary. What I've never seen an Oh my god, I wrong with you? Are those Christmas movies? Um? Yeah, kind of. I always well, I always watch Bridget Jones Diary in the period between Christmas and New Year's because it starts on New Year's Day. So mate, we'll do that.

You know, at the end of this year, I can't believe you've never seen Bridget jes Diary. It's going to rock your world. Okay, we'll do an episode on it. Let's do it done, and it's gonna be and you're gonna be feel insane when they talk about how fat she is when she's like not fat. Wait, there are jokes about how fat she is. Hold that she's like fat and she's like, you know, she weighs like a

hundred fifteen pounds. God. There's been so much discussion about how kind of romantic comedies are a lost art, and we did we did touch on this, you know, in the Julia Roberts episode, which definitely go back and listen to that if you haven't heard it. But the era of rom comms was also the era of movie stars, and that's what a lot of these films were sold on. By having these movie stars in the starring roles so that it almost didn't matter what the movies were about.

People were coming to them to see these stars fall in love over and over again. And we kind of

don't have that anymore. And now rom comms really are the main place they exist is on streaming, and so you know, there's maybe something to be said about how, you know, streaming could create this like renaissance of rom comms because they are you know, like cheaper to make than big budget blockbusters than like Marvel movies, and they might just not ever reach the same you know, highs of popularity and like universal peel that the rom coms of of yester year of year old he hot times times.

I was gonna say, yeah, I think that a lot of the reason that we don't have like the volume of rom coms that we used to is has a lot to do with streaming and with like kind of the Marvel stuff. Just as you said, like, I think that because the blockbuster movies are all actions now, it's almost like these got scooted out. Um, maybe because the movies of the two thousand's, like the late two thousand's are like bad, like the romantic comedies were like not

on the level. It's just you feel like nostalgic for like what a rom com used to feel like before social media and before like millennials started making things like Love Simon and like Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist like like or or a five Days of Summer like that that actually feels like But those are kind of romantic drama das most you think they don't count it. You don't think five hundred days of Summer that's a rom com, isn't it. Maybe, Um, well, there really, there really is

a renaissance of romance, but it's happening in books. Um, you know, like there is a huge market now on book talk for romance. You know, we've talked about like all the those books with like vector cover art of little cartoon people. Like that's the biggest part of the book industry outside of like you know, huge sci fi novels is romance, and a lot of them are being adapted into TV shows and movies. But it is books

more than anything, um that are selling. You know. You look at like the like Colleen Hoover, which I've never read a Colleen Hoover book, but um, the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo bitch Um, Taylor Jenkins read Emily Henry, who's whose books I like, although I've heard that her book that's coming out this year is not very good. Um, but these books are like are like romance first, and then some of them are funny, and then some of them are dramatic, and it's more about the romance of

it all than the comedy of it. And I think what what was so amazing about Nora Fron's work, and I think why she maybe even haralded the age of romantic comedies is that the emphasis I think was always on the comedy and the characters, and the romance was really the container for that. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, it's just like it's like the framing is kind of what made I think, the framing and the lens on it is like what made it so great.

I would like to see more queer rom colms, specifically because like you know, we were all kind of tired of the like sad gay period stuff and and like you know, I also talk a lot about how I like, you know, gay historical erotica, but those are usually not comedies, although sometimes they're funny, but they're not specifically comedies. I also like, wouldn't even really call Red White and Royal Blue a rom com what? No, I would call it a romance novel. I would call it a young adult

I would not young. I would call it a new adult because that's like the categorization that exists now. I would call it a new adult queer romance. Um, it is funny, but it's not a comedy. Wait, Phoebe dropped in the Chat Happiest Season as a roum? Did you watch? Did we? Did we ever talk about that? Yeah? I watched it when it came out. I rewatched it this past Christmas season. Well, um, I was at my best friend Ryan's moms for Christmas and she had never seen it,

so we watched it on Christmas Day. That bad. I think it's I think it's good. I think it's a cute movie that that has problems. The problems are mostly that one of the romantic leads is irredeemable, is irredeemable and Christ and Stewart should end up with opry Plaza. But I still think it's a It's a well made movie with some really good performances. Yeah, it is a well made movie, and it does have good performances. That's

very diplomatic. The cannon of queer rom coms is so small that you know, we kind of have to take what we can get, and like I do hope we get to the point where that's not true. I'm trying. I'm putting in the work now to make sure that you know the genre is expanded like I as as I have alluded too many times, I'm in the process of writing a queer romantic comedy and you know, look out for that whenever I finish it plus probably two years. Um. You you know you you've consumed a lot of roum

coms as market research for this book. Did you learn anything new? Well, not necessarily like market research. More I want to write something that is like aware of the genre it exists in UM and like I think tropes are very interesting and like it's fun to riff off of them and to acknowledge them and be aware of them. Um. Did you learn anything new in this in this exploratory

period about raum commas, specifically, anything you noted? Well? Yeah, I think what I learned is that, you know, I kind of had this revelation last summer, which is that I was I was dealing a lot with um, worrying that what I was writing was to the thinking that I needed to make the story I was writing more like general and like accessible to a wider audience. And what I kind of realized was that, no, in making my story as specific as possible, that is what would

make people want to read it. Um. And so that's I think what I learned from watching a lot of rom coms and also just consuming a lot of queer media and kind of Bros in particular. Rose, Oh my god, but we are not gonna we are not going to speak about Bros. No, we don't. There's nothing left that needs to be said about Bros. But God, do you think Bros Is going to ruin it for the future of all gay rom coms? Do you think that I don't think will get a green light anymore? Okay, good,

because we need to make some movies. Rose, Yes, Um, who would you want to play your love interest in a rom com? Adam Driver? Definitely for a ent sure, Adam Driver. Adam Driver in a transamorous relationship. That's all I've ever wanted. What about you? Um? Kiki Palmer Balmer Stanley Tucci, Stanley Palmer and Stanley Tucci, and we like form a polycule. Yeah, you're in a throuble with We're in a May December. I'm now trying to imagine when

a March May December polycule. I'm trying to imagine Stanley Tucci. We need a throuble rom com. Although I absolutely support polyamory and throubles, I don't particularly like reading about them because like, yeah, I'm very much drawn to like two people being in love and like, but that's also just kind of the way I was socialized. So I'm trying to unlearn that there should be throuble representation in rom coms. Like,

we have never had a polycule rom com. We've never had Well, what I always what I always wondered about the favorite is why didn't they just Why weren't they just in a throuble? There are a lot of movies that are like, why aren't they just another terrible I mean, my best friend's wedding, Why aren't they just in a trouble? That's true because I do think that Julia and Cameron how to vibe. Yeah, but I always think I always think everyone has a vibe and everything I watched famously,

do you think everything has a vibe? Um? And you know what, I think nor Evron would agree with me. I honestly, nor Efron would be so problematic about polyamorous relationships if she were like problematic about a lot of things. Yeah, thank god she like died before the internet like really became a same. Don't say that's so horrible. We love you, We do love you, but you probably would have hated

the Internet too. I mean you kind of did well. Anyways, I was going to say, there needs to be Polly representation in romances, like how come we have not had like a Polly Disney princess, Like we need we need Polly Nora Efron movies. We need um, Yeah, we need like not we have not reached the representation part of the conversation. No, we have. We were fifty minutes. Representation doesn't matter. Representation matters, and we need polycueles on screen

that we need. We need a Disney princess who felch is? I want to see a rom come with Felching in it. That's when that's when I'll know that we really have reached Um. It's a queer utopia in media. Will you remind me what felching is? I feel like when you eat your own come out of someone after you've come in them. How did you not know that the version the woman was too stun to speak? Have you never felt someone or been felched? No? No? No? Really? Well you don't let you don't love come the way I

love come Bobe, Phoebe has Babe has felched. I really I really wish, I really wished. I really wish that I was on that level. Honestly, I honestly feel ashamed. I wish I had felched. Well, nor Evron. I hope that before you left us you learned what felching is, and I think you r I p nor Efron, you would have loved felching. You can follow our burner account at Like a Virgin Fine. We will be keeping you updated on an extra special announcement on the coming episodes.

Um stay tuned for more surprises. Follow me at France Squish go and follow Rose Dammo at Rose Damu anywhere you want on social You can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rating on Spotify and Like a Virgin, Isn't I Heart Radio Production? Our producer is Phoebe Unter with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etre Until next week, See you later versions. Bye,