Celine Song states rom-coms are not taken seriously due to “misogyny”
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker Celine Song has stated that she believes romantic comedies are not taken seriously due to the “misogyny” of deeming the features “chick flicks.”
Song was previously nominated in the ‘Best Picture’ category for her directorial debut, Past Lives. Materialists is only Song’s second movie of her career, and she also wrote the screenplay and produced the film, as well as sitting in the director’s chair. Now, she has shared her thoughts on her latest undertaking with Southampton Playhouse’s Artistic Director, Eric Kohn.
Her next project will follow the character Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, in New York as she is stuck between two lovers—a wealthy man, played by Pedro Pascal, or her down-and-out former boyfriend, played by Chris Evans, who is struggling to get by as an aspiring actor-turned-waiter.
Musing on the genre, Song stated that, “There has been this diminishing of the genre by calling them ‘chick flicks,’” Song said. “I think about this in terms of what I’d consider the middle class of movies. Either you can make a movie for so much money that you have to make so much money back, or the movie is being made for festivals under $2 million, where it’s for some people and the goal is to go through the journey of accolades and all those other things.”
She continued, “Generally speaking, there are so few movies that fit into whatever category mine is. It’s a theatrical film, not for streaming. It’s an R-rated romantic dramedy and not based on a book. It’s an original story. It has these great actors in it and the genre has been historically dismissed as chick flick.”
Song said there were a “few” reasons for this, “One of which is misogyny. But there’s another part of it. Romance is something that we’re all embarrassed to be obsessed with.” Terming it a “chick flick” means, to Song, that you are “Saying chicks are not serious people. Secondly, it’s not the concern of serious people to think about love and dating. But serious people do it, too.”
In a statement that surely belongs in her script, Song added, “True love is the only thing that is real. I don’t know why true love is any less real than a Birkin bag or a Maserati. True love has endured throughout time. It’s a thing that is so ancient.”
The new international trailer for Materialists is available to watch below before its release on August 16th.
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