Here’s Zachary Levi and SNL’s Kate McKinnon starring in Falling for You, a new fake trailer that takes on one of the oldest, weirdest rom-com tropes in the book, the phenomenon whereby screenwriters think that in order to make the super-pretty female lead relatable, they have to show her being a clumsy doofus. The question I have is, does the clumsy rom-com chick trope actually work, or is it all just based on a weird sexist assumption?
Because if you flip it around, you get the screenwriters of a James Bond movie sitting around going, “Hmmm, so you’re telling me this guy’s handsome, super charming, a secret agent, and drives a car that shoots rockets? I’m worried regular dudes are just going to hate this guy unless we show him accidentally shitting his pants two or three times.”