Romantic comedies are littered with male heroes who deploy problematic, sometimes psychotic, behaviours in order to win over their heroine. After all, love conquers all, right? Even the reddest of flags.
The latest victim to this misguided trope is the Apple TV+ Chris Evans and Ana de Armas action-romance, Ghosted.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I think she might be the one,” Cole (Evans) announces to his family, after one date with art curator Sadie (De Armas). Turns out, his first impression was right – it is crazy.
From the start, their relationship is off. Their meet-cute – an awkward exchange that becomes snarky – made Sadie storm off, until Cole is persuaded that their confrontation was actually flirting. Now he’s interested, and corners her for a date.
Cole is on cloud nine after a spontaneous and fun-filled night together, but plummets to earth when she never contacts him. A common, yet brutal, part of modern dating that Cole does not accept. He sends her 11 texts in two days, before he remembers that he left his inhaler (with a tracker on) in her bag, and locates her 5,000 miles away in London.
The small-town farmer ignores his sister (the voice of reason), who tells him it is “psycho” behaviour to violate her privacy and follow her to another country. Instead, he must accept the painful reality that she ghosted him. After 48 hours, Cole is angry and, still convinced he doesn’t have the wrong end of the stick, decides to hell with it! It’s big romantic gesture time, he’ll fly out and surprise her.
It’s this self-belief that his one night with the “woman of his dreams” is his big love, that fuels Cole to track her down and not take no replies as an answer. In an attempt to subvert the genre, Cole swiftly becomes the damsel in distress, as he’s kidnapped by agents who believe he has a top-secret passcode, while Sadie turns out to be a CIA super-spy.
On finding out her secret, Cole turns sour and slams Sadie for her “lies, lies and more lies. You’re unbelievable.” Yet, when confronted with his own embellishments on the date, he defends them, as they were told out of love. “Excuse me for fudging a few details to try and impress the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he retorts.
It goes from bad to almost unwatchable. From taking a selfie of them half-naked in bed (while Sadie is asleep) to becoming passive aggressive when he finds out Sadie has slept with other men, Cole’s deluded behaviour is framed as a romantic’s desperation for love, but it’s extremely problematic. He doesn’t acknowledge how creepy his actions have been, instead he tells Sadie he was “lured by your lies” and throws in an exasperated: “I’m not a creep!” when she confronts him.
What’s sold as a love story, based on following your heart, presents us instead an entitled man who won’t take no for an answer. Sadly, this is nothing new.
Love Actually’s iconic sign scene is Andrew Lincoln’s Mark declaring to his best friend’s wife, that he has always harboured a secret love for her, and has that tape of her from the wedding where he cut out the groom. Meanwhile, young Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron in 10 Things I Hate About You, pays a man to date his crush’s sister, and proceeds to pretend to know French to tutor Bianca to get close to her.
Even in a hibernation pod, women aren’t safe, as seen in Passengers, when Jim (Chris Pratt) awakens Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) from hyper sleep 90 years early, as he’s lonely and she’s beautiful. In short, no one wants to be a Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice, who believes that a woman will be worn down to his affections, eventually.
Nor an Edward Cullen in Twilight, sneaking in at night, watching Bella while she sleeps, tracking her movements and becoming possessive about who she sees. What’s worse, these men are rewarded for their so-called actions of love, and get the girl, as Cole does in Ghosted.
We’re only one step away from You or Fatal Attraction. As Cole’s sister says on seeing his unsolicited snap of them in bed: “That’s what serial killers do before they kill their victims.”
In an age of education about consent, romantic comedies are woefully behind. In movies, when women say no to a man, it doesn’t mean no, but try again - she just hasn’t realised she wants you yet.
The normalisation of this trope shapes perceptions and expectations around dating, and in a post #MeToo era it’s an unsettling and dangerous trend as the behaviour isn’t condemned. Instead, Cole is presented as a harmless, corny romantic whose antics will make “a great story for the grandkids”.
