Lack of Diversity and Representation of POCs in Rom-Coms

Even though, we now see people of colour more in today's films, it leaves one to wonder why there are still very few rom-coms that feature two potential lovers (who are not white!).

We do have the 2018 movie, Crazy Rich Asians, starring Constance Wu and Henry Golding which became a hit worldwide grossing about 238.5 million on box office sales. This shows that two POC leads in a rom-com, could equally be as loved and be rooted for in Western media.

Romantic comedies continue to mainly focus on white characters and their relationship problems. The underrepresentation of black, indigenous and people of colour remain prevalent. The minority and marginalised groups deserve to also have accurate portrayals of love in the media.

Even in 2023, the leads in rom-coms are still predominantly white men and women. As observed, the casts are usually white. On the rare occasions where they do feature POCs, their skin tones tend to be on the lighter end still.

Not to downplay the success of an all-white rom-com cast, but it would be nice if there was better film exposure and representation for POCs. Of course, the chemistry of the talents is an important factor but surely there's a bigger pool of non-white actors and actresses. Personally, I feel that casting directors can do better. Nonetheless, they should not merely just cast Asians to make it seem like there's 'diversity' in the film as a form of modern 'wokeness'.

As a person of colour myself, it's very hard to look past race because we do not really have the privilege to do so. I admit, it feels nice to feel represented outside of Filipino movies. It almost feels groundbreaking to have some sort of (true) representation, especially in Hollywood films.

There's also the trilogy-movie adaptations of To All the Boys I've Loved Before, a novel written by Jenny Han. Lana Condor stars as Lara Jean Covey and Noah Centineo as Peter Kavinsky, respectively. The plot centres around Lara, a shy Asian hopeless romantic who (as mentioned in the movie's title), wrote letters to all her crushes. The chaos unfolds when Lara's younger sister Kitty mails the letters to the men after she snuck into her room and finds the collection. Peter, one of her former crushes, confronts her about the letter he had received. During the confrontation, another boy with a letter tries to get a hold of her. Panic-stricken, Lara kisses Peter. Eventually, the pair makes a deal to 'fake date', because of different intentions.

Like the generic rom-com plot, Peter Kavinsky is a (white) romantic male lead. Though there's nothing entirely wrong with that because it could be a representation of interracial relationships, it gets frustrating when another POC romantic interest who was introduced in the second film installation was clearly better for the female lead. Yet, the narrative continues to push the romantic plot towards the white man.

Adding on, although Lara is Korean, we do not really get a good sense of her ethnicity in the story. Her mother was written off and headed off towards the 'dead mother trope'.

Don’t get me wrong, 17-year-old me thoroughly enjoyed that movie but I just wish that it explored a little bit more about her Korean heritage and how culture has impacted her dating as a young Asian woman (and not overtly pushing the storyline towards the white male love interest).

As a whole, I wish that there was better and a wider scale of representation for people of colour in romantic comedies.