"Friends With Benefits": The New Casual Sex?

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The romantic comedy's rigid formula celebrates the burgeoning relationship between two straight, white, financially comfortable, bumbling, star-crossed lovers, who after numerous unavoidable disasters, finally achieve their love-like nirvana.  Wikipedia generously defines the genre as “films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount obstacles.”

So what is it about the romcom that draws in so many of us who do not identify with being white, skinny, straight or upper class? It rises from the dichotomy between acknowledging that idealistic love is in reality unattainable, and the masochistic longing for that “one true love” despite it all. Yet in 2011, the millennial's vision of the romantic comedy has shifted to a structured kind of free love, reflecting our generation's changing feelings about sex and flip attitude toward romanticism.

Generally, the overall framework remains unchanged—the romcom continues to reincarnate, with slight revisions that allow us to relate to its promise. New iterations reflect the progressiveness of time, but ultimately reinforce antiquated ideals of monogamous, heterosexual love. In the 1980s, there were a rash of films about (not so) liberated women “married” to their jobs—who, even with success, would be nowhere without the love of a man. (See Baby Boom and Working Girl.) The 1980s was the first full decade after a mostly white and middle-class feminist movement that focused on achieving equity for other mostly white, middle-class women in the workforce. The romantic comedies of the period reflected the realities of becoming working women, but reinforced the age-old necessity for a man’s love to provide true happiness. Progress—but only to a certain point.

Then, the 1990s presented us with a slew (why so many?) of films starring Jack Nicholson, about the possibility of geriatric love—As Good As It Gets and Something’s Gotta Give. Those films catered to graying baby boomers who suffered from high divorce rates (an overwhelming number of which were filed by women) but who were being encouraged to still hope that they could find their “one true love,” even as they entered their golden years. More progress—but only to a certain point.

Which brings us to the romantic comedy theme for those of us born between the mid-1970s and the 1990s—the “millennial generation." In a recent article in Salon, Andrew O’Hehir identifies the concept of friends having casual sex -- "friends with benefits" -- as the new “mini-genre” of romantic comedy. In the last year, four films were released on the subject: Love and Other Drugs, starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal; Going the Distance, with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long; No Strings Attached, with Natalie Portman alongside Ashton Kutcher; and finally, the newest member of the casual sex between friends club, which is aptly named Friends With Benefits. Each film centers around two attractive and well-to-do white friends who, for one reason or another, don’t want to commit to a relationship. O’Hehir says of the mini-genre: “I’m not sure this great leap forward into sexual postmodernism is enough to save the romantic comedy, at least as long as it remains tied to an inflexible three-act formula with nebulous happy-ever-after ending.”

But I think it is precisely the very inflexibility of the three-act formula that we are all stuck in. The millennial generation, as the generations before us, oscillates between drifting away from the fairy tale narrative and apotheosizing it. And that is what these movies are – a balancing act between the real and the fantasy. Unfortunately, like us, they are stuck, like gerbils in a romcom cage going up and then coming back down. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t made efforts to alter the romcom formula—and our acceptance of sexual structure—once and for all.