In romantic comedies, female characters fall over. They fall over a lot.

It’s something of a Hollywood trope: a woman starts out strong and independent, then (literally) topples off her pedestal and humiliates herself in a spectacular and symbolic revelation of her own innate helplessness. Shortly afterwards, when our heroine is suitably humbled, a man will save her, they will live happily ever after, and the picture will fade to credits.

It’s strangely akin to the scene in so many horror movies where a soon-to-be victim tries to flee from a predator through dark, misty woods, then takes an undignified but inevitable tumble into the mud. Yet in romantic comedies, it’s love that awaits our heroine, not death.

Why should this be the mass-marketed template for dating? To be desired – or even tolerated – by a man, non-fictional women shouldn’t have to be demeaned beforehand, their high statuses destroyed, some unseen narrative crushing them into a state of submission worthy of a man’s love. And thankfully, they’re not. No healthy relationship starts out like that (aside from the overtly non-abusive 24/7 BDSM kinds, of course, but that’s another story).

So why do so many romantic comedies follow this exact pattern? Just how much has this kind of crap influenced how women grow up believing they should behave, in the hope of being loved? Why has this become a standard plot device, why are films containing this generic storyline so regularly commissioned, and why are women the majority consumers of this sort of thinly-veiled misogyny?

The last word comes from The New Yorker, on screenwriting for female characters: “Funny women must not only be gorgeous; they must fall down and then sob, knowing it’s all their fault.”

Quite. Just take a look at a few examples:

I realise I’ve somewhat neglected the footwear fetishists of the flock lately. Here, therefore, is a little treat from the wonderful “How To Be A Retronaut” blog. It’s a collection of vintage shoe designs from 1939 that are so unexpectedly modern that Lady Gaga wouldn’t look out of place falling off any of them. Click here to see them all.

Here’s part of an interesting article from the Sydney Morning Herald by Monique Roffey, author of “With the Kisses of his Mouth”, exploring why women write sex memoirs and men – on the whole – don’t:

“…Personally I’m glad of these books; they are valuable social documents and they show that the times are a changing. Yet sex is still riddled with social stigma and taboo. Church and state still patrol what is deemed OK, moral, loving and safe. Anyone who chooses to write about sex will attract stinging criticism from the moral right and so, relatively speaking, sexual memoirs are still rare.

And they are mostly written by women.

Men, by and large, leave this subject alone. Somewhere, it’s a given that men don’t have anything too reflective to say about sex, or they feel silenced by feminists. Where is the male Suzanne Portnoy, the male Melissa P? What men will write honestly about their highs and lows, their triumphs, their sexual sorrows? What man is brave enough to express himself freely about his desires? Few.

My guess is that male sexuality has been so heavily associated with violence that men suffer an even stronger taboo than woman. Best keep quiet. Male sex writers do exist, but in much fewer numbers.

I met a shy man once, Karl Webster, who made a humorous reply to Belle de Jour. But his Bete de Jour, the Intimate Adventures of an Ugly Man, didn’t have comparable sales figures. Similar attempts seem to create less buzz. It’s as if no one cares about what men do, think or get up to sexually…”

Full article here.