Starstruck creator Rose Matafeo has “massive sense of guilt” about making a rom-com
The New Zealand comedian's comments are less about rom-coms and more about how media and society treat women, though
Aux News Rose Matafeo
Like J. Robert Oppenheimer telling President Truman about the blood on his hands, only to have Truman mock his guilt and remind him that he’s the one with blood on his hands, New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo seems to have mixed feelings about what she’s putting out into the world with her romantic comedy TV show Starstruck—which airs on the BBC in the U.K. and Max in the U.S.. (Truman in this scenario is the rom-com genre itself, which existed long before Starstruck and will most likely exist long after.)
Speaking with The Guardian, Matafeo explained that she worries that, with Starstruck, she has “added to the canon of a genre” that she thinks is “maybe bad” in the way it’s “limiting for women in its presentation of romantic love and fulfillment.” Now, that seems like a spicy sentiment out of context, but the context actually makes her perspective on this seem even more solidified. The rom-com thing partially came up because of a story Matafeo told The Guardian about an interview she did with an unnamed U.K. newspaper where the interviewer asked if hosting Junior Taskmaster will “bring out the mother” in her, and though she tried to dodge the question because it made her uncomfortable, the interviewer apparently “pushed it hard” and left her “seething” over the idea that a woman who doesn’t have kids is either “totally miserable” or “making a political statement.”
Matafeo says she got in her head “in that classic overthinking way” because of how society refuses to just let women live their lives, which apparently got her thinking about Starstruck and the larger rom-com genre (which she says she has “a lot of respect for”) and how she feels “massive sense of guilt” for contributing to it. The tone of the interview isn’t quite as serious as this all makes it sound, as—despite the way she’s phrasing it—the message Matafeo wants to present is less “rom-coms are evil” and more “it’s okay to be single and/or not have kids if you want to be single and/or not have kids,” which is not a message that the rom-com genre is generally built for.
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Well, I mean, most rom-coms don’t feature mothers, just women who find true love at the end. It doesn’t automatically mean they’ll start families. Did we find out Harry and Sally became parents (maybe a bad example if they said at the end they did—I don’t remember)? How about Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox, or Susan Vance and Dr. David Huxley? But as most happy endings in fiction usually involve finding love—the classical ending to a comedy was a wedding—than I guess having kids is just the logical, becoming more happier extension of that. I think it’s less diminishing women in a patriarchy than very old rules of drama and fiction. (Penelope probably was too old to sire any more kids after Odysseus came back.)
I don’t think *good* rom coms are reductive to women since they’re about people who want to find love finding love and don’t always even confirm they get married. And in some rom coms the conclusion is that they don’t get together. It really depends more on how well the characterization is for everyone
I shall now take this response as an opportunity to crowbar in a recommendation for one of my favorite rom-com-adjacent dramedies, Living Out Loud. It’s written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and stars Holly Hunter, Queen Latifah, and Danny Devito. There IS a romance element in the friendship that develops between Hunter and Devito but the movie is mostly about Hunter recovering from an unexpected divorce and trying to make friends (her social group was very much built on mutual acquaintances with her ex). It’s pretty low stakes, low concept and the comedy isn’t larf-a-minute but I love the shit out of it. LaGravenese is one of my favorite screenwriters.
Yeah, but in the actual interview the focus is more on how romcoms push the idea of romantic entanglement as, like, the goal for women. The term the Guardian uses is “uncertain about wanting kids”, so it comes across as less about not having kids itself than about a woman’s lack of commitment to a particular kind of domestic life path.
Much of the plot is derived from the complications behind the will they / won’t they narrative so yeah, once that’s resolved we really don’t need to watch them apply for their first joint mortgage or checking account. The Rom and Com parts have been taken care of. There are plenty of movies about newlyweds and more established couples.
That unnamed interviewer should be taken out to the shid and whipped.
+10 Taskmaster reference
+10 for c’rect Kiwi pronunciation of shid.
-5 because it’s pronounced whupped.
Thank fuck you corrected that joke.
Sadly it does seem like comedies have no problem with bromance but it’s much rarer for a comedy featuring women protagonists to not involve a romantic interest. For as much as people seem to love it, I have *several* complaints about Bridesmaids, not least of which is the totally unnecessary romance between Wiig and O’Dowd. I like O’Dowd as a comic actor and he’s a charming character but that whole subplot is a waste of time we could have spent better developing the other Bridesmaids. You know, like the title. They’re all woefully underserved by that movie. They get like one or two scenes each and that’s it. And Wiig not being in a relationship is 1000% not the point of her friction with Byrne. Not having read early drafts I don’t know anything but I wonder if O’Dowd’s character was an addition by Apatow. I know he gave notes while the script was being written.
I was ready to disagree with you… but, rather, I think I might agree. The Wiig-O’Dowd romance thing could have been cut — or vastly reduced maybe – which would have left more space for the other bridesmaids who were somewhat one-note: Wendi McLendon-Covey is sexually unsatisfied in her marriage; Melissa McCarthy is off-putting and crude; Ellie Kemper is naive and trusting.
It’s a perfectly fine subplot on its own and like I say, O’Dowd is very charming in the role. It’s just tangential to the story. Wiig’s conflict with Byrne does contain some elements of jealousy and regret over the mess her life has become but the notion of successful romantic relationship doesn’t seem like a tension between them OR between Wiig and Rudolph. It’s maybe emblematic of the life mess/Wiig’s personal shame/disappointment but then those story beats should belong to Wiig and Byrne or Wiig and Rudolph. God, the movie SO frustrates me! And yes, a thousand times yes to the one-note weakness of those other bridesmaids! All of whom were played by immensely talented comic actresses! But they’re each playing straight into their known comic personae and the script never gives them more depth than that. And it so easily could have. The fact that Wiig and Mumalo were nominated for Best Original Screenplay over Diablo Cody for Young Adult is just fucking bananas to me. It’s such a *badly written* movie. I didn’t love Young Adult either but the narrative is so much stronger…
What bromance comedies are you thinking of that don’t have romantic interests for at least one of the male protagonists? I can’t think of one off top of my head as the ones I can think of (Old School, Wedding Crashers, Anchorman, I Love You Man, etc) all do.
The Hangover movies, I guess? The women in those guys’ lives are completely secondary to the goings-on.
Can see that but also thought Chris O’Dowd was a secondary character in Bridesmaids. Definitely has a bigger role than any of the women in the Hangover series though.
He IS secondary but he’s also 100% unnecessary to the plot. Whereas the titular bridesmaids are on the fucking POSTER and get as much or less screen time than him.
It’s pretty telling that the movie was originally titled Maid of Honor as the movie is clearly meant to be about Wiig vs an ensemble of characters. I do agree the way the movie was marketed is a bit odd but it was wildly successful so not going to question it.
It’s also difficult to discuss the weaknesses of the film without running up against a certain amount of reasonable but not entirely fair suspicion of sexism. That’s why when I rail against it being nominated for Best Original Screenplay I generally bring up Young Adult as well since that, too, was written by and starring a woman. And I think it’s the far superior narrative. I’ll admit it benefits from being a dramedy as opposed to a straight-up comedy like Bridesmaids but as it relates to the quality of scripting that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) make much of a difference. It’s not like Bridemaids was bereft of human dynamic conflict, just that the conflict was lower stakes. With Young Adult there’s a fair bit of self-concept, self-esteem, arrested development, etc. Bridesmaids handles a lot more interpersonal conflict and it’s played pretty light.But to tie this all into the success of Barbie, it’s kind of a shame that both Bridesmaids and Young Adult were directed by men when they both could easily have gone to women directors who might have had a better handle on the material. In interviews everyone’s quite positive about Feig and Reitman but it’s still worth wondering how those movies might have differed under someone like Gerwig. (And it’s tangentially interesting that Reitman then went on to make Ghostbusters Afterlife after Feig’s Ghostbusters Answer the Call. Neither of which *really* did the job as a GB movie since Answer the Call was too focused on half-assed improv and Afterlife was enjoyable but shallow nostalgia porn.)
Eh, you might have a point. I would argue that for some of those movies the romantic interest is strongly backgrounded in a way that the Wiig/O’Dowd subplot isn’t but it’s close.Now that I’m thinking about it, I’d say I kinda dislike romance subplots *generally*. I don’t think about them as much in comedies because the stakes are generally pretty low so every bit of conflict helps but honestly I rarely find that a romantic interest adds much. And in genres outside of comedy and maybe straightforward dramas or melodrama I find that romantic interest tends to be a distraction. Maybe people enjoy the back and forth between Keanu and Bullock in Speed but I always roll my eyes HARD at their flirty banter. Like… guys, put your hormones away, there’s a fucking explosive bus to deal with.
I have a friend who, after attempting, unsuccessfully, several times to have a child via IVF, finally gave up rather than continue the pain of repeated failures. She is a university professor (and single) and now gets the “Oh, you just focused on your career and now it’s too late, you must feel awful about that decision.” She has too much class to respond in the way that I would…
I’m single, childless and in my 40s. Whenever anybody says anything close to that to me I tell them something like ‘Oh god no I have plenty of friends who have kids I do not need that kind of shit in my life.’
People used to ask me if I was ever going to “grow up and have children”, but now they’re more like “Thank god that depressed suicidal guy* doesn’t have children”.
*About twice a year, then I get therapy or up my medication (though rarely both as the NHS is absolutely fucked) and I’m fine for six months or so.
The world would be a much better place if those people that aren’t deeply interested in having children, both men and women, could just not have them without society constantly wondering what is wrong with them.
They also tend to act like guys are miserable if they’re not in love even if they don’t know it when the movie starts, which is reductive and not true too.
I feel guilty about this thing that I deliberately did.
My favorite rom-com is 1988’s “Miracle Mile”, although it works best if you know nothing about the plot going in and just see it as a rom-com.
I saw that when it came out on video in the eighties and loved it to pieces, but at least in the UK the cover was something of a spoiler.
Yeah, I can understand feeling conflicted about making a rom-com when it can feel limiting to women. But also, and hopefully it doesn’t undermine what she’s saying: Starstruck is really good! Very funny show! There is a scene set to ‘Return of the Mack’ in the first season that is hilarious! You should watch it!
I saw Rose do an hour of stand up at a pub venue called The Bill Murray* about a month ago and she was superb, it was clearly a work in progress but it was still something I loved a hell of a lot. Then I went to see fellow NZ comedian Brynley Stent at the Soho Theatre on Friday and Matafeo was sat in the row behind me, and after the gig she was outside chatting to a friend for about half an hour, so I briefly asked for a photo and she couldn’t have been nicer. And I’m not sure what the point of this is now, other than that she seems to be an awesome human being and I hope she has all the success that she wishes so that she can make whatever projects that appeal to her.
*Though the ongoing joke is that it’s probably only a matter of time before it’s renamed The Dan Ackroyd.