New York: Concrete Jungle Where Love Is Found?
Just how did New York City become synonymous with rom-coms?
What makes romantic comedies so exciting to watch is the connection that we watch happen on-screen between our leading stars. Whether our leading stars are singers, waiters, investment bankers, writers, or doctors, or shop owners. The city is bursting at the seams with life, yet, you never really know who the person next to you is. Navigating the city, especially if it is your first time living there, can be dizzying. Like stepping off of a roller coaster when all the world is flashing colors and blurring past you. The city is bursting at the seams with the many lives of people you have yet to meet all leading vastly different lives but many looking for one thing in common: love.
I can’t tell you how often, when I first moved to New York City back in 2018, I found myself getting off on the wrong stop or discovering things about strangers simply by overhearing a conversation. Much like the girl with rainbow hair who sat next to me. A barista by day and erotic pottery maker by night. The city was full of some of the most interesting people I didn’t think even existed. I was not immune to the charm of New York City. Even on my most tiring of days, I would find myself having a crush on a total stranger. Simply because of how they balanced a book in their hand on a crowded subway car, or even doing something as small as giving up their seat to an elderly commuter.
What more ideal of a setting than New York City, where you never truly know the people around you. The person you could be fantasizing about could be someone you thought you hated.
Last week here on Mirandatory, I kicked off a series called What Happened To The Rom-Com? A deep-dive three-part series where I discussed what led to the decline of one of the cinemas’ most beloved genres. In this week’s installment, I wanted to focus and how New York City came to be one of the most romantic settings for all of our beloved tales.
Vitagraph Studios was one of American’s most prolific film production companies that produced many famous silent films. The company was founded in 1897 by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in Brooklyn, NY. One of the first-ever rom-coms ever put on-screen has a scene from the silent movie era has appropriately titled The Kiss. It only lasted about two seconds, the reaction from the crowd was thunderous as they demanded more “Audiences crowded vaudeville theaters and music halls to see the two actors embrace on the film “in a way that [brought] down the house every time,” according to a Thomas Edison, Inc. catalog.”
Movie-goers of the early days packed theaters to catch a glimpse of the actors embracing, and it was no surprise that the first rom-com was filmed in New York City. People wanted to see people falling in love, and in New York City, with so many people stacked on top of each other, you get such unique perspectives of the people living there with their odd jobs and exciting lives.
In many of these films, we saw characters who had all sorts of careers that I thought if I moved to New York City. I could work at a women-led magazine as a writer like Andie Anderson, played by Kate Hudson in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, or a cool gossip columnist like Sara Melas, played by Eva Mendes in Hitch. I had never heard of these careers growing up in the Midwest, and I thought the ticket to this sort of life was moving to the city.
Even movies not primarily set in New York City find a way to sneak the Big Apple into their films. Sleepless In Seattle’s the most memorable scene when Jonah flies to New York City to meet Annie on top of The Empire State Building. Even in the All The Boys I Loved Before Trilogy. After Lara Jean is crushed by not getting into the same university as her boyfriend Peter Kavinsky. During her class trip to New York City, she has the opportunity to explore the city and visit the NYU campus. We watch her fall in love with the city and imagine her college life there through her eyes, and she decides to enroll in the university in the coming fall.
New York City became the place of love and romance, and while it sometimes can be difficult between all the noise, the mess, and crowds. Yet, the charm is still very present in the city in its towering buildings and discoveries of new places to eat, explore, or even moments to take it all in on roofs overlooking the skyline. New York has something for everyone, and it is no wonder that so many of our favorite movies take place there. A city where anything can happen.
Next week in my final installment on this series, I will tackle the makings of a good rom-com. What are a few of the must-haves, and what makes them so rewatchable? Thank you for reading, and if you liked what you read here, feel free to subscribe or follow me on Twitter @mirandatorys, and we can talk more there.
Take care!