When Miley Cyrus told W magazinethat rom coms were as mythical as storylines in porn this week, she wasn’t wrong. ‘Guys what too much porn. Those girls don’t exist. They’re not real girls. And that’s like us watching romance movies. That’s girl porn, because, like, those guys do not exist.’ Here, in the spirit of proving Miley right we’ve de-bunked the rom com stereotypes.
Notting Hill
Myth: Nerdy English everyman Hugh Grant falls in love with an American movie star in Notting Hill and they end up happily ever after because at end of the day she’s just an every-girl too, yeh? <3
**Reality: **Either the words ‘restraining order’ would immediately put his thing to bed. OR in the unlikely event this ever did get off the ground we’d never know cos they’d slap a super injunction on this quicker than you can say ‘Yuppy love’.
Pretty Woman
Myth: LA prostitute gets picked up by a guy who doesn’t just want to smash and dash, but instead, falls in love with her and they end up happily ever after.
**Reality: **Well, surely Richard Gere would get arrested, right? Failing that, Julia would probably sell his shoes for meth.
How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
Myth: Women’s mag journalist uses a man for the benefit of a story, ends up falling in love.
Reality: Probably one of the most unlikely tales of journalism I’ve ever witnessed. Trust me, the idea of falling in love with someone after you’ve just written a damning piece about them just never happens – or else surely Katie Hopkins and Liz Jones would just be wading in dick, right? Plus you’d probably never even get that far. Because the object of your desire would go straight on twitter before your first date and see: ‘looking for someone I can date and dump in 10 days. anyone know a suitable loser? #journorequest’ tweet.
What Women Want
Myth: Mel Gibson finds a way to use his new found powers of mind-reading to manipulate women and exploit the knowledge to his own ends. It’s actually pretty fucking creepy.
Reality: He’d find out that what most women really want is to get head every three hours and get left alone the rest of the time. I could do a six minute vine of this film and it would be about 6000 times more accurate.
Never Been Kissed
Myth: Drew Barrymore has never kissed a guy – and then she does and even that first kiss is really great. All she’s had to do is pretend to be a kid again.
Reality: If this was real then wouldn’t Drew be referred to some kind of mental health worker for pretending to be a decade younger than she is and re-enrolling in school? Also if she really had never snogged anyone before in her life then surely it wouldn’t be the kind of thing you’d want to do in front of thousands of people in the middle of a football match. My first kiss saw me smashing teeth so hard with a guy so hard we both got migraines. So y’know, that’s reality.
Love Actually
Myth: Loads of people fall in love with each other and it’s Christmas and it’s great and it all ends up OK for everyone.
Reality: As Keira Knightley utters the words ‘I’m really quite pretty aren’t I?’ in that insufferably doe-eyed manner the guy in question would tell her to shut the eff up and run the hell out of there.
She’s All That
Myth: Popular kid Freddie Prince Jnr makes a bet that he can make arty weirdo Laney Boggs the prom queen. She changes out of her dungarees into a red dress and then they fall in love!
Reality: It’s kind of hard for me to tap into the crazed minds of teenagers in American high schools because even though things like cheerleaders and jock culture actually exist in reality it’s been so fictionalised for our generation that everything about it seems unreal. If this was an English school though, Laney Boggs would probably just get her head dunked in a toilet while the fit footballer that you all wanted to notice you would just carry one scoring goals – staying true to the balance of school power dynamics by never realising that you had ever been born.
Valentine's Day
Myth: Valentine's Day!!! It's a thing!!
Reality: It's not a thing.
You’ve Got Mail
Myth: Two people fall in love over the sensual sounds of an AOL email alert and behind an online relationship over email. (??!!) And then fall in love.
Reality: It’s so cute that this is what people thought the internet would bring to their dating life, kind of like how kids think that holding hands with a boy can make a baby. In reality, most online dating is just a way of exposing sexual deviance like fetishes about toenail cuttings and sweat-filled t-shirts. Anyway, this is kind of sweet but would never happen IRL because no URL email relationship would ever get past my spam filter.
27 Dresses
Myth: Jheeze, I never realised how many romantic comedies involve journalists. Anyway this one’s all about how through the conflict of boys hating weddings and girls liking them there can end love. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention half way through.
Reality: The thing is, I always think it’s totally unlikely that anyone loves weddings that much, but then when you look at Pinterest and you see normal women cooing over swan napkins and different shaped confetti you start to realise that maybe you’re just alone in this world and everyone is secretly holding out for the day they get to pick out one of 2000 potential veils for their special day. Anyway, if this was me I would just flatly decline to wear a shitty dress and probably get purged from the friendship circle forever.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.