Are romantic leads becoming too nice and perfect? Yes, yes they are

American writer R.F. Kuang was a guest of the Sydney Writers Festival last month when she put forward a point which, at first, seemed ridiculous.

Characters in romantic comedies and romantic dramas have become too nice and too perfect, she argued.

Wait, really? Aren’t these genres meant to be a fantasy wish-fulfilment? If they’re been held up as the ideal of a romantic partner, then shouldn’t they be, well, ideal?

But as Kuang continued, she cited When Harry Met Sally, almost universally beloved and frequently held up as one of the best rom-coms of all time. She called both them “arseholes” (or “assholes”, because she’s American).

Harry and Sally, when you meet them at the start of the film, and a good three-quarters of the runtime, are both deeply annoying. He is rude, patronising and pessimistic, and she is judgemental, rigid and doesn’t seem to have any enjoyment for food. They’re both neurotic and exhausting.

And yet. The reason the movie works so well is that they grow and soften, and often because of each other. Neither Harry nor Sally are different people than they were at the start, but they have evolved, as people often do in their 20s and 30s.

Being kind of annoying is part of the conflict of the film. The fact they didn’t get on because of their personality clash means there was something to overcome.

Because those stakes were internal and not external factors, it made the investment more personal and intimate — “why can’t they just pull it together?”

Plus, screenwriter Norah Ephron would never have brooked characters that were perfect. Ephron thrived in the mess of human foibles and flaws, it’s what made people interesting. It’s what made When Harry Met Sally interesting.

Or, think of The Way We Were, the adored 1973 Sydney Pollack romantic drama starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.

Katie and Hubbell both had, in their own ways, characteristics that made them less than ideal romantic partners. She couldn’t compromise her principles even when it hurt his professional prospects, and he could never really get behind her passions.

But there was this spark between them that made Katie and Hubbell irresistible to each other — until the differences were just too great.

But The Way We Were isn’t remembered as a great tragedy just because it didn’t ultimately work out. As an audience, we accept Katie and Hubbell as one of those examples of the right people for you at the right time, which doesn’t mean forever.

We loved watching them make it work, for as long as it did, because they were relatably human. It’s more aspiring to see flawed characters find happiness than it is to be perfect. You can’t deeply connect to perfection.

What Kuang had said about modern romance characters being too perfect is true. There has been a shift in recent years towards fictional idealised lead characters who arrive on screen almost fully formed — even in coming-of-age stories.

They may have character blemishes but we are told from the get-go that they are inherently virtuous, and if they hurt someone or make a mistake, it’s very much unintentional, and usually the result of unprocessed trauma.

No one is petty or mean just because sometimes even good people can be an arsehole.

Take, for example, Off Campus, the young adult romantic drama series that, according to Prime Video, reached 36 million viewers in the first 12 days of release.

The two leads are Hannah (Ella Bright) and Garrett (Belmont Cameli), two university students who initially become involved in a mutually beneficial arrangement — she tutors him and he pretends to be her boyfriend so she can appear more attractive to the real object of her affection.

Along the way, they discover their pretend relationship has morphed into a real one.

Off Campus became a streaming hit, particularly among female audiences, in large part because Hannah and Garrett are sweet, tender and respectful. They both have baggage that could potentially gummy up the works, but it originates from things that happened to them, not what they’ve done.

Especially for characters who are so young, they’re both relatively polished, they’re talented (he at hockey, she at music), attractive, respectful and kind.

The Summer I Turned Pretty, another young adult romance, had a similar template. It was a Sabrina-esque love triangle, with a sensitive teen girl at one point, and two brothers she both dated. All three characters were virtuous, and any character flaws were negligible.

How can this be a bad thing, you ask? Don’t we want good role models, especially in romantic scenarios?

Don’t we want to watch Anne Hathaway’s 40-year-old single mum character Solene be wooed by Nicholas Galitzine’s 20-something pop star, and to have them both be good people who are only kept apart because of other people’s expectations and judgment?

It’s a complex problem because on the one hand, yes, obviously.

For the longest time, literature, cinema and TV have thrown up romantic ideals that aren’t. Characters who were brutes, who were physically or emotionally violent, that gave cover to real-life cruelty.

These toxic fictional figures, including, arguably, The Beast from Beauty and the Beast, Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre, Christian Grey from 50 Shades of Grey, Heathcliff and Cathy from Wuthering Heights, gave rise to the idea that passion should engender forgiveness. Nonsense.

Rather, these examples, particularly male characters who are sensitive and considerate, tender and thoughtful, and not obsessed with chasing some alpha stereotype, should be ubiquitous.

It’s one of the reasons Heated Rivalry has attracted legions of female fans, because here were two such characters with interiority and, heavens forfend, emotions, as well as desire.

But most of these modern examples are, it must be said, boring.

They’re so dull and interchangeable. By conforming to characteristics bound by safe parameters, they exhibit little of the spark we saw with the likes of Harry or Hubbell.

In the case of The Summer I Turned Pretty, it honestly didn’t matter which brother the female lead ended up with, they’re basically the same person. Yes, yes, the super fans will disagree, and obviously saw enormous differences because they were all so vehemently team one brother or the other.

But they’re of an archetype.

It’s as if filmmakers and storytellers are afraid of alienating audiences in this age of red flag culture, where any hint of arseholery would make a character problematic, rather than accept that humans have shades, and it’s part of our overall experience of life and love to grapple with the whole spectrum, and not a curated sample.

Perhaps this stems from how online culture has evolved so that most people are only ever presenting a version of themselves, whether it’s in an online dating profile or on social media.

When was the last time you posted about being testy with the supermarket salesperson because they were too busy to help you with your query? Of course you didn’t, you didn’t want to look bad.

Because what we often see is perfection, we’ve become increasingly less tolerant of anything less than. It sets up impossible standards that no one can live up to.

Google any list of “red flags to watch out for on a first date” and half of it will be small, petty things that most of us have done at least once or twice in our lives in a low moment.

Obviously, any of the more serious red flags such as coercion, control, deception, emotional abuse and physical violence are not so A-OK.

Last year, Celine Song’s film Materialists, starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, triggered a discourse where the internet debated over whether any of its three characters should’ve been a romantic lead.

So much criticism was directed at Johnson’s character, Lucy, for being “unlikeable” or toxic because she had specified she wanted to marry someone rich. Or that Evans’ character, John, was a loser because he was almost 40 and was still trying to be an actor and sharing a messy rental.

Materialists was actually one of the more interesting romance screen stories of the past few years precisely because its characters were, in some aspects of themselves, kind of ratbags.

This is going back to a different era now but the 2015 series Catastrophe, starring and created by Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, was one of the best rom-com shows of this century. The fictional Sharon and Rob could be awful and selfish people, but they did love each other, and they felt real, like people you actually know.

It was also ridiculously funny and smart — and incredibly emotional – because it embraced the full mess of being in a relationship.

God love Yerin Ha’s Sophie Baek from the most recent season of Bridgerton, but she was so . . . worthy. What we want is more of Rose Matafeo’s disheveled Jessie from Starstruck.

What we’ve been missing from pop culture is a bit more arseholery. Enough with these boring, sanitised and milquetoast romantic ideals that don’t reflect people’s real selves.