so i’m watching sleepless in seattle with my mom, who’s always loved this movie but i’ve never seen it and, meg ryan hears a /child/ call into a radio show /across the country from her/ and then stalks tom hanks to seattle, to his /house/, sam, /while she’s engaged/, and rosie o’donnell thinks this is a good idea? /my mom/ finds nothing wrong with this?? i mean sure, tom hanks had a ‘love-at-first-sight’ moment at the airport, but still.

copperbadge:

Oh man. Sleepless in Seattle. A BLAST FROM THE PAST. 

I don’t know how old you are so I don’t know if you were around for Sleepless in Seattle in the cinemas in 1993 but it was, culturally, a massive hit. It was one of those movies you had to see just so that you’d get the jokes on late night television.  

I haven’t seen it since probably the late 90s, and I’m sure it hasn’t aged well. But I think one of the reasons it was so popular, especially among women, was exactly the things you’re talking about. Because all you would need to do is swap the pronouns for this to be almost any other romcom like…ever. 

Tom Hanks doesn’t want any of what is happening to be happening. It’s not that he’s not doing anything; he’s trying to raise his child and recover from a shattering loss, he’s doing internal work, emotional work. But he is the passive half of the main romantic couple for the majority of the film. He doesn’t want to talk to a radio therapist about his dead wife, he FOR SURE doesn’t want the national attention it brings him, he doesn’t want a new relationship, he just wants to sulk on his houseboat forever. In the rain.

Meg Ryan is the aggressor, which is very rarely ever the woman’s role in these films. She’s the one who follows him around, who imperils her relationships for him, who JUST KNOWS that if she can convince him, he’ll be hers forever. For a woman to be in that role TODAY, let alone 25 years ago, is generally 100% unacceptable to Hollywood – you only see women doing what she does in horror films or as the “funny” B-story about the pathetic man-hungry best friend. 

But Sleepless in Seattle pulled it off – they put the woman in the male role. And that was so rare, and done so charmingly, that people lost their shit over it without even realizing that was why. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, Sleepless In Seattle is not a work of feminist grace nor is it necessarily a depiction of a healthier relationship than any other romcom. Romantic comedies very rarely give us healthy relationships, so I’m not saying like, it’s a great movie. But at the very least it took the same unhealthy tropes Hollywood has been recirculating since film was invented and did something interesting with them without turning into Fatal Attraction.