I’ve worked out why we love Christmas rom-coms and it’s actually depressing-Laura Harman-Entertainment – Metro

The sad truth about why we all love an unhinged festive rom-com (Picture: Brooke Palmer/Netflix/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

Netflix has become known for its variety of romantic festive releases that put the Hallmark channel to shame, but there’s a depressing reason we all love their leading men.

When I heard Netflix was releasing a film called Hot Frosty in which a snowman turned into a real hunky guy and fell in love with a widow played by Hallmark icon Lacey Chabert, I was all in.

Nothing warms my heart more than a low-stake romantic Christmas movie and I’m obsessed with the specific brand of unhinged plots Netflix has been cooking up in their HQ.

However, I regret to inform readers that there’s a bit of an alarming reason these leading festive men are so endearing to a mostly female target audience.

These fictitious male leads aren’t socialised like other normal men in society.

Allow me to explain…

Lacey Chabert and Dustin Milligan star in Hot Frosty (Picture: Netflix/Everett/REX/Shutterstock)

Hot Frosty is a tongue-in-cheek bonkers creation where a snowman learns how to behave by watching TV, and by witnessing 13-year-olds flirt.

The childlike naivety is endearing and the whole town just accepts that ‘Jack’ is a snowman as ‘a man that sweet has just got to be magic!’ And they are not wrong, he’s charming as a character because he’s a complete fantasy.

How can he know modern pitfalls like gaslighting, ghosting, and love-bombing? He was literally born yesterday.

A former snowman doesn’t have the time to be socialised and learn behaviour from other men – and I fear that’s what makes them so enchanting.

The film was a modern retelling of Jack Frost (Picture: Petr Maur / Netflix © 2024)

This isn’t the first time the streaming platform has created a similar style of festive nonsense that I for one have lapped up.

The 2019 masterpiece The Knight Before Christmas starred Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse and told the tale of a noble knight from the 14th century who was teleported into the modern day for a quest.

Like any fictional medieval knight, he is gallant, kind and chivalrous and wins over Brooke (Hudgens) even though he is completely baffled by modern contraptions and confused by modern life.

Again his charm is in the fact that he’s blind to societal norms and the realities of the modern age. He can’t cheat on you on Tinder- he doesn’t even know what a phone is!

A medieval knight won’t break your heart (Picture: Brooke Palmer/Netflix/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

A time traveller is certainly an eligible bachelor (Picture: Brooke Palmer/Netflix/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

Netflix isn’t the only culprit when it comes to romanticising a completely fictitious magical man.

The 2019 hit Last Christmas starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding was a completely normal romantic comedy until the last few moments of the movie when it was revealed (spoiler alert) that he was a ghost the whole time!

He was wise and kind and oh yeah, a dead man haunting the recipient of his organ donation!

He might not have been a time-travelling knight or a snowman come to life, but a ghost who has learned the errors of his ways and uses his afterlife to help at a homeless shelter still seems pretty unlike the modern man (sorry men).

Elf may not be exactly in the romantic comedy genre but you can bet that Will Ferrell in those green tights wouldn’t have been able to pull Zooey Deschanel had it not been for the fact he was a loveable goofball who grew up in the North Pole thinking he was an elf.

A ghost is unlikely to ghost you (Picture: Universal/Everett/REX/Shutterstock)

Nothing says abnormal socialisation like a Christmas elf (Picture: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)

A Prince isn’t you’re average Joe (Picture: MPCA/Netflix/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

Of course other Christmas tropes for the leading man in a Christmas movie that aren’t magical. They can also be a widowed dad (The Holiday), a Prince (A Christmas Prince, The Princess Switch), or the owner of a local Inn who cares for a local woman with amnesia (Falling For Christmas).

While these jobs aren’t exactly mythical, certainly being a Prince or a Duke of an imagined land is just glancing at that abnormal socialisation that we’re all craving.

Yet nothing quite scratches the festive romance itch like a truly unattainable leading man.

I’ve made peace with the fact that there is something appealing about a man who has never been socialised by modern society.

But as living snowmen are a little tricky to find, I’ll have to stick with Hinge.

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