Millennials grew up with the most prestigious era of Disney. During the Renaissance they not only got the cream of the crop when it came to soundtracks but also a lot of lessons about love that may have made things a little foggy as they got older; abandoning family for someone you just met, sympathizing with your captor, accepting a liar. On the flip side, the lessons were to fall for someone you know nothing about, keep someone captive long enough and they’ll love you, and lie until they love you. Those are just a few examples of where millennials started out in life when it came to the examples of love in the media. From there we got sucked into teen TV and movies, later taking in every Reese Witherspoon and Kate Hudson rom-com we could get our hands on at Blockbuster. All of those made-up romances seemed like perfection, even when they weren’t, but as millennials entered the real world, they quickly realized that one doesn’t always land a job in publishing and meet their perfect match in the cutest of ways.
I’ll get more into how that all pans out on the episode that’ll coincide with this piece, but until then – let’s focus our attention back on the 2000s and the rom-coms that came from that era. In many ways, they were just the live-action Disney movies of their time, only instead of Will Smith as a genie, he was a dating coach. ‘Hitch’ was just one of the dozens of rom-coms that dug deep into the collective psyche of the millennial mind at that time. Although many millennials were still teens in the early ‘00s, watching movies like ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and ‘The Wedding Planner’ set something in motion in their brains. I mean, there’s a reason why millennials are huge into those cheesy Hallmark movies around the holidays, and eat up literary offerings that give way to endless meet-cute scenarios. Which, shout out to Libby Kay, an author whose sweet romance novels are available now, and who was a guest on the show!
So rom-coms, in many ways, are the expected media evolution of every generation as they deliver modern-day fairy tales; very outlandish scenarios that ultimately end with a kiss accompanied by a really amazing song. For millennials though, the Disney to rom-com pipeline was even more crucial because, arguably – we grew up with the best of both. Yes, Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan served in the ‘90s, and millennials definitely had plates ready then as well. Still, they also went back for seconds and thirds with their own dose of rom-coms in the 2000s when that genre really hit a theatrical stride thanks to the likes of the aforementioned Witherspoon, Hudson, and of course Jennifer Lopez.
Say what you will about her orange drink story, we cannot deny the rom-com prowess of Jennifer Lopez in the ‘00s. From wedding planning to mother-in-laws, JLo gave a variety of rom-com goodness to the world, adding to the already heap of movies millennials would rent in that realm, or watch on repeat on TBS during a lazy weekend. All the while believing in the fantasy that romance is always right around the corner, and yes – there will be obstacles, but when the person is your soulmate – all the drama is worth it. Just like in those Disney movies, just now the drama revolves around potential soulmates being engaged to another, a workaholic, or scheming you as part of a bet while you’re simultaneously scamming them for an article. It’s complicated.
Well, not really, because these are works of fiction but as viewers with rosé-colored glasses, we ignored all of that and leaned into the fantasy. Could this be the reason why millennials were less likely to be married sooner than later like the generations that came before them? Perhaps because in so many of those ‘00s, rom-coms were women blessed with sick-ass careers but stressed about everything else. Look around millennials, does that sound familiar? Being the first generation to be preached to about the importance of higher education, millennials did focus more on careers than romance, much like the women of their rom-com era – but we’ll discuss in this week’s episode why our lives didn’t quite play out like our name was Jenna Rink.
Crushgasm 
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