why women's desires can only thrive in fantasy worlds

@rachelissan

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Why it worked

The video uses a strong, contrarian hook that challenges cultural norms about gendered media, which encourages high engagement and debate in the comments.

Summary

The creator discusses the decline of romantic comedies and the rise of the romantasy genre, arguing that traditional romcoms were filtered through a male perspective. She posits that women are moving toward fantasy literature because it better reflects their actual desires.

Structure

1Introduction to the concept of male taste as the default
2Explanation of why 'guilty pleasure' is a gendered term
3Data on the decline of the romcom box office
4Introduction of the romantasy genre as a counter-trend
5Conclusion on why women prefer fantasy over traditional romcoms

On-screen text

why women's desires can only thrive in fantasy worlds NOT ENJOY TASTE DEFAULT Niche Five FAVORITE "Guilty Pleasure" ROM-COMS $870 MILLION 2024 $86 MILLION Is the romcom dead? Why are you crying? It's just a line from a book. The line: "Bring me a blanket. My wife is cold" LITERARY MASTERPIECES VERSUS SMUT

Original caption

why romcoms are 💀 but romantasy is thriving #romantasy #romcom #media #culture #throneofglass Sarah j maas, romantasy, ACOTAR, throne of glass, girlhood, for the girls, let people like things

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Transcript

Why women's desires can only thrive in fantasy worlds and not in real life and who would enjoy it too. Male taste is the default. Everything else is niche at best or a joke at worst. Guilty pleasure is a gendered term aimed at women to teach us to feel embarrassed by our own pleasures before we even get to decide if they should be embarrassing at all. So what's happened is romantic comedies peaked in 1999 at over $870 million at the box office. By 2024 that had collapsed 90% to just $86 million and the industry is calling it a demand problem. Women don't want romcoms anymore. But the world of romantasy is telling an entirely different story. Romcoms even when they were made by women, they were still filtered through the lens of what men imagined women wanted. And what women want is a different product entirely. Nowhere is this more apparent in what we define as literary masterpieces versus like smut.