You know that giddy feeling that comes when you discover a truly special romantic comedy? The goofy grin that only a sweet love story on screen can inspire? This is a feeling I live for.
I was raised on a diet of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and She’s All That. I crushed on Devon Sawa in Now and Then and have watched 10 Things I Hate About You no fewer than 20 times. I am self-aware enough to know this isn’t a unique experience. The collective love of a swoony rom-com has fuelled the genre for decades.
But over the past 10 years, we have been severely lacking. With the rise of “bad” movies and predictable romantic comedies, not to mention the countless Christmas movies from big streamers that rival a Hallmark classic’s cringe, the genre had seen better days. Thankfully, that’s all started to change. In early 2023, publications like The Guardian boldly declared that the rom-com was officially back, baby, and more than a year on, I think we’re all finally ready to admit that those claims are correct.
This year is increasingly becoming known as the year of the rom-com. Most recently, Adam Brody and Kristen Bell’s series Nobody Wants This proved that, in fact, everybody wants this. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway’s The Idea of You flipped the script on age-gap relationships and sent us all into a collective swoon.
With the rise of feel-good (and I mean genuinely feel-good, not slap-dash shows and movies that pretend to be feel-good) content, the girlies (me) are finally getting excited again.
The rom-com renaissance is in full swing, catering to our love of nice, charming, effortless watching that doesn’t require us to be critical or feel stressed over the ending. Instead, we can settle in with the knowledge that a happy ending is waiting for us at the end.
This pursuit of effortless giddiness has also come at a time when some of us (again, me) are re-engaging with celebrity relationships in a way we haven’t done in years. Of course, we’re never short of A-list relationships to peer at. But until the last 12 months, the celebrity relationships filling our FYP have been more about angst and drama.
Take the rise of Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter’s careers, with boyfriend drama as a catalyst for brilliant songwriting and lighthearted gossip from onlookers like us. But in the past year, the celebrity relationship has taken a turn, and thank god, it’s a turn for the better.
In 2024, celebrities aren’t just going for pap walks to tell the world they’re in a relationship with a fellow celebrity. They’re bunkering down with normies, kissing their boyfriends on horseback, flying across the world to watch the Super Bowl before running into their man’s arms after he wins the Big Game. Incredibly famous men are waiting in the wings while their megastar, pop icon girlfriend sings to a sold-out stadium.
They’re rom-comming their relationships so hard and so publicly that we all (yes, me again) refuse to look away.
In the past few years, the concept of a celebrity PR relationship has entered the mainstream consciousness in a way that it never has before. Where, once upon a time, we might have shrugged at seeing paparazzi photos of Nicole Richie and Brody Jenner leaving a hotel hand in hand, we now put a lens of scepticism over every single celebrity we see in a relationship.
I don’t have the energy or inclination to debate whether specific relationships are “PR”, and if it’s that hard to tell whether a relationship is fake or not, then I respect the hustle either way. Maybe the PR relationship game has improved since the 2010s, to the point that I don’t care what’s real or fake anymore.
The extreme measures that celebrities are taking to romanticise their, well, romances are so overt that it’s actually quite special that we get to witness it.
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The example that takes up the most of my brain space is Bella Hadid and her professional cowboy boyfriend, Adan Banuelos. As the story goes, Bella escaped the city for some rest and relaxation in Texas, to recover from some health challenges. And somewhere along the way, she met and fell in love with Adan, a National Cutting Horse Association Riders Hall of Famer.
The pair is usually pretty private, but their strategic photo opps are quickly becoming the stuff of rom-com legend. They were first spotted out and about in October 2023 by TMZ, and then in January 2024, Bella soft-launched Adan on her Instagram.
Since then, they have coordinated their public appearances at various horse-related events into some of the most cinematic celebrity photos I’ve ever seen. She’s wearing sparkly tops and a Stetson while cheering him on. She’s posting dramatic hype reels with Fifty Shades-like music over the top, and dedicating entire Instagram posts to saying how proud of him she is. And I’ve lapped it all up.
These joyous moments where a celebrity couple looks so obviously loved-up is a rarity. Usually saved for behind closed doors, celebrities like Bella Hadid are now giving us fan fiction-like images that allow our imaginations to run wild.
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Another obvious example is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Rumours of their relationship being a publicity stunt have swirled since they started dating in September 2023, and yet, they’re still reportedly going strong.
In the year since they got together, we’ve been privy to countless moments in their relationship, all captured in HD to make it easier for us to lap up. Whether their relationship is real or not (which, for the record, I think it probably is), I’ve often wondered whether A Cinderella Story is on their publicity mood board — and that’s genius.
For the first time in a long time, celebrities are allowing us to peer behind the curtain to see the curated and sparkling public image of their relationship that makes us feel like we’re a part of it. I, along with every other rom-com lover on TikTok, always enjoy seeing Barry Keoghan simp for Sabrina Carpenter while she performs on-stage.
🎥 | Barry Keoghan’s reaction to Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Nonsense’ outro during night 2 in Singapore!
“He said that he wishes he was on me,
Got me wetter than the Jewel Changi,
Singapore I hope you like my songy”#SingaporeTSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/DHSKkpLVKx
— Sabrina Daily Updates 💋 (@SCdailyupdates) March 3, 2024
I’ll forever love seeing Taylor Swift’s Chiefs-themed outfits as she enters the spectators’ box at a game. And I will always head straight to Getty Images to see every photo of Bella Hadid kissing her cowboy on the back of a horse.
Read the original article on ELLE Australia.
