Hey blog!!!
Here's my romance genre research:)
Romance Research:
The romance genre, like the coming-of-age one, is very broad. Romance can be a part of any film, whether it's fantasy, coming-of-age, dystopian, quite literally anything. But it always focuses specifically on the love story of a couple, their falling in love and their struggles to make it happen. The target audience for this genre is mainly teens/young adult to adult women and is commonly watched with significant others. This genre really plays with cliches and stereotypes as well, making it cringy for some, yet it is one of the most used genres in the history of film and continues to infect screens worldwide.
Content Conventions:
This genre consists of a love story/romantic relationship. Exploring themes of passion, intimacy, conflict, and personal flaws, these films follow the journey of two people falling in love, getting together, and staying together, facing an insanely large number of challenges to allow for this to happen. This genre relies on dramatic scenes leading up to a final one before ending with either a happy ending or tragic one.
Romance typically features relatable characters with common flaws for audiences to understand what these characters are experiencing and feeling, and basically allowing for them to put themselves in their place, imagining what it would be like if they replaced one of the characters. The use of tropes, crucial in romance, adds more depth into the protagonists' personalities and relationship, showing their way of thinking, reactions, how they interact with one another when faced with a conflict, and also simply makes a film more entertaining. The most popular and loved tropes are enemies to lovers, love triangles, fake dating, and grumpy/sunshine, which are all very different but still make up a romance. Other tropes include how a couple meets, like bumping into each other and dropping whatever was in one of the character's hands, being academic rivals since elementary school, and randomly choosing each other to fake date, all of which could happen to people in real life, making it more appealing to audiences.
There are also many common settings throughout this genre that make scenes more romantic and visually beautiful for example the beach for picnic dates and iconic cities to create excitement. As mentioned before, this genre is very cliche and predictable, so basically everything that appears and occurs in these films are repeated. Using a bouquet of flowers for forgiveness is a classic example of this.
Plot wise, most romances turn out the exact same way. Usually, a couple meets in a cute way, instantly connecting. Sometimes they get together immediately, others they spend a longer time due to external conflicts. At first, there is always one character that refuses to get together, again, because of external conflicts where they simply cannot be together, but after enough convincing and suffering on both ends or the fact that they cannot stay away from each other, they give the relationship a try. At this point, the cute lovey dovey things occur and their chemistry is over the roof. They tend to work perfectly together, always on cute dates and always making the other the best version of themself, but eventually something happens where they begin to think that they can't have each other. Conflict is very important in romance, creating the angst needed to develop the plot. Dramatic dilemmas like family issues, misunderstandings, keeping secrets, and opposing lifestyles are all examples of this. After spending some time apart, the lovers realize, that this isn't possible. They can't stay stay away from one another, they need each other. After an emotional scene, they make up and end up together once again.
Technique Conventions:
There are multiple techniques that play into creating a romance film. The most popular ones being color theory and lighting. The colors used in the mise-en-scene throughout the film, along with the overall lighting helps create the ambience the director wants to show the audience. Usually bright colors start off the films, with yellow, blue, and red dress on the girls as they go through dates and are happy to be with the guy. The background involves hues of orange and yellow, creating that cozy feeling while everyone is happy. But once the conflict occurs, there is less lighting, and the focus is now on darker and neutral colors, emphasizing the sad tone. But once everything is well again, the bright, happy colors return.
To emphasize emotional turmoil and connection, showing face expressions is extremely important, so most of these films develop through mid-shots and close-ups, especially during intimate scenes.
And lastly the soundtrack is crucial to a romance film. Soft love music is often used to better demonstrate the love shown from the characters, before it turns either very melancholy and, on other occasions, very chaotic and heavy as conflict is occurring. Emotional scenes where the protagonists get back together depend on emotional music that moves the audiences and helps them truly feel the overwhelming need each character has for each other.
Institutional Conventions:
The marketing for romance films isn't much different from those of other movies. They use the same strategies as every other genre, like trailers, social media usage, and collaborations; however, they tend to focus on the emotional portion of the film. Throughout all of the marketing, they really push the angst and drama by always showing the very emotional scenes, moving audiences enough to get them to watch the film. They also tend to show the beginning of the film a lot, the couple's happy scenes where they are seem like the ideal couple, to the point where one thinks that nothing could go wrong. Eventually those find out that that is incorrect once they watch the film.
Since romance isn't necessarily popular now, with people enjoying other genres more, the marketing of these films through social media is crucial. Connecting with audiences before the film is used by using popular actors doing interviews, starting or taking part in trends, and more, causes people to connect with the movie before it even comes out.
Distribution wise, romance doesn't usually do well in theatres, so they focus on putting these on online streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO, and Prime. Here target audiences can find these films by simply scrolling through their recommended and those who connected with them through social media, have easier access to them.
Films:
The Notebook
2004
"The Notebook" is a classic romance focusing on the love story of Noah and Allie. The intensity throughout the whole film makes this romance quite a good example of this genre too. Noah and Allie meet when young and after a few rejections, get together and become the couple everyone aspires to be. But, as expected, a conflict causes them to break up and they continue their lives separate. Years after, something brings Allie back to Noah where they realize that they never truly stopped loving each other. After a few more problems are solved, they end up together. And while, there are a few plot twists, the main plot is that of a typical romance film.
The protagonists face a lot of the same conflicts that other romance characters face, like family disapproval, misunderstandings, distance, and other relationships pushing them apart from each other. This movie contains a lot of emotional scenes, which is what makes it so enduring to watch and reels in audiences. Many can relate to it in some ways and knowing that in the end, Noah and Allie still end up together, showing their true love, really affects watchers.
The Notebook (2004). (n.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332280/
Sources:
Hellerman, J. (2023, March 6). We love the romance genre in film and TV. NoFilmSchool. https://nofilmschool.com/romance-movie-genre
Michellehui. (2016, February 27). Genre conventions: Romance. It’s Already Here. https://itisalreadyhere.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/genre-conventions-romance/
Pereira, G. (n.d.). The structure of romance. DIY MFA. https://diymfa.com/writing/structure-romance-writing/
Ringel, S., & Dagerman, D. L. (2025, April 23). “We uncovered just how many pain points exist”: Distribution case study of indie romantic comedy ‘You, Me & Her’. Distribution Advocates. https://distributionadvocates.substack.com/p/we-uncovered-just-how-many-pain-points
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