Today is the last day of our movie season of Hot and Bothered. We're so excited to move back to

Jane Austen to the classics. We are so excited to read Persuasion chapter by chapter with

Stephanie Paul Selle. And we'll miss Hannah McGregor and we'll miss talking about movies.

So I thought I would spend some time today discussing the things that I want to make sure to remember that I learned over the past two years.

I learned a lot talking about movies with Professor McGregor and the other experts I'd the pleasure of speaking to across this series.

I'm Vanessa Zoltan, and this is Hot and Bothered. The first thing I learned about romance movies is something we began to unpack in our very first interview with Professor Kathleen Carlin,

that romantic comedies are part of a deeply

conservative genre. Rom-coms can look progressive. They were often the first place where we

saw black characters and gay characters who weren't being stereotyped as house help or tragic.

But until recently, they were mostly only the best friends. characters who weren't being stereotyped as house help or tragic.

But until recently, they were mostly only the best friends, the side characters.

Romcoms also appear progressive in the middle section of the movie, the screwball section.

The things that keep the men and women in conflict in these movies tend to be some kind of upside-down world, where the strict rules of society get shaken up.

Baby and Johnny are together across class in dirty dancing.

Andy recklessly pursues career success in hijinks that get bigger and bigger in how to lose a guy in 10 days.

Jessica Stein questions her sexuality and explores being a lesbian.

But at the end of the day, baby and Johnny don't end up together.

Matthew McConaughey stops Andy from pursuing her dream job, calls her a coward so she stays in New York City, apparently unemployed, and Jessica Stein goes back to being straight.

There's a middle of these movies in which classes are crossed, and a woman dares to go after her dream job, and a woman explores her queerness. But the endings almost always

go back to a conservative version of themselves. The movies are arguing, don't worry,

cis-heterosexual love is going to make things go back to normal again. The second thing I learned.

Number two, these movies have trained women to self-commodify.

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