The “romantic-comedy” and “romcom" and "rom com" keywords should be deleted, with Romance and Comedy as genres instead.

Hi bradley_kent- Thank you for posting the submission reference number! Further reviewing, I can see that this was already approved. If the titles have these genres, yes it will also apply not duplicating them on the keywords just as the example of romantic-drama. Cheers!

IMDb has the organizational outline for excellent genre/subgenre, and series/episode keyword distinctions, BUT that outline is NOT being followed since accurate corrections and additions are not being accepted. GUIDELINE: Repeating genres: For example, we have the genres Romance and Drama so you can submit these as genres to the title rather than submitting the keyword romantic-drama. The “romantic-comedy” subgenre keyword should be deleted in favor of a title having both Romance and Comedy as genres. Any keyword that combines two genres should be deleted in favor of recording those two genres AS genres, I.e, “crime-drama” should be deleted in favor of Crime ad Drama as genres. (Warning: Don’t do a “scorched earth” delete since these titles should be audited to make sure that they have the correct genres.) A keyword that combines two genres is an unnecessary duplication. Any keyword that has a genre as a addendum (the last word in the keyword being a genre) should automatically be a subgenre. It is illogical to have a subgenre WITHOUT also having that genre, GUIDELINE: Episode-specific keywords submitted to the TV series page: Keywords submitted to the TV series page should be relevant to and describe the entire series. Keywords that are specific to a particular episode should be added to that episode only.Episode-specific keywords submitted to the TV series page: Keywords submitted to the TV series page should be relevant to and describe the entire series. Keywords that are specific to a particular episode should be added to that episode. I have submitted over 800 contributions that delete Incorrect Subgeres at the episode level and add correct genes at the series level, but they are not being honored. All I am asking is for logical consistency. I hope that is possible. What is there to do to get my contributions accepted? Am I being barred from making genre contributions? Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation Link : https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/the-genresubgenre-situation/68ccd8b1d6b94e4d33e7a5b4 Title : The genre/subgenre situation

So... why are you not honoring the deletiion of subgenres at the episode level that already exist at the series level?

"Romance and comedy" refers to a blend of two genres, where a story includes both romantic plot and comedic elements, but the ending isn't necessarily happy for the couple. A "romantic comedy" (or rom-com) is a specific subgenre where the central focus is a romantic relationship that is guaranteed to end happily, with the comedic elements serving to enhance this core romantic journey. The subgenre "romantic comedy" (or rom-com, or romcom, or any other good and popular term for this) must represent the specific interest of the audience on IMDb.

Again, the guideline is so clear that this should not be debatable. "we have the genres Romance and Drama so you can submit these as genres to the title rather than submitting the keyword romantic-drama." Ergo: we have the genres Romance and Comedy so you can submit these as genres to the title rather than submitting the keyword romantic-comedy.

Definitions may slightly vary, but the point remains the same: romantic comedy is a subgenre that has its own specifics and does not automatically arise when two genres (romance and comedy) are combined. Some quotes from professional sources hereafter. ========================================== BOOK: A Dictionary of Film Studies [by Annette Kuhn, Guy Westwell]. Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0199587261 Page 352 Romance (love story) -- A cross-media genre of popular fiction in which a positively-portrayed love relationship (conventionally male-female) dominates plots, mood is predominantly sentimental or emotional, and love is presented as a saving grace. Romance was a mainstay of early and silent cinema around the world. In the US, for example, love stories made stars of actors such as Lillian Gish (True Heart Susie (D.W. Griffith, 1919)) and Rudolph Valentino (The Sheik (George Melford, 1921)); and the genre reached its pre-talkie zenith with Frank Borzage’s Seventh Heaven (1927), regarded by many as the definitive love story of the silent era. In Sweden, Mauritz Stiller's Gésta Berlings saga/The Atonement of Gésta Berling (1924) brought Greta Garbo to the attention of Hollywood, where she became the most celebrated face of 1930s Hollywood romance in such films as Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932) and Camille (George Cukor, 1936). As well as being the raison d’étre of the romance film, love has been and remains a commonplace subplot element in films of other genres, including—but not only— those (like the musical, the melodrama, the costume drama, and the woman’s picture) that cater to the perceived tastes of female audiences: indeed it has been estimated that in classical Hollywood cinema a plotline involving heterosexual romance figured in more than nine out of ten films. After World War II, notwithstanding the success of Brief Encounter (David Lean, UK, 1945) and The Enchanted Cottage (John Cromwell, US, 1945), the pure romance fell into decline, certainly in English-speaking cinema. However, the love story lives on in hybrid and variant forms: in India, it remains a key component of the masala, or mixture of genres, that characterizes “Bollywood; it resurfaces in the gay romance (Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, US, 1985), Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, US, 2005)), in the social art film (Angst essen Seele auf/Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1973)), and above all in romantic comedy. Where pure romance survives in mainstream cinema, it is most commonly to be found in stories set in the past, and especially in film adaptations of classic romantic novels such as the 2011 remake of Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, UK/USA, 2011). In film studies, the pure romance, unlike romantic comedy, is little studied as a genre; though it does figure in studies of silent cinema. Further Reading: - Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet, and Thompson, Kristin The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (1985). - Everson, William K. Love in the Film: Screen Romance from the Silent Days to the Present (1979). - Pearce, Lynne and Wisker, Gina (eds.), Fatal Attractions: Rescripting Romance in Contemporary Literature and Film (1998). Page 354 Romantic comedy (romcom) -- A subgenre of the comedy film in which “romance is integral and interdependent with comedic elements. In the romantic comedy the formal characteristics of the comedy film—a lightness of tone and a narrative resolution governed by harmony, reconciliation, and happiness—shape the telling of a ‘boy-meets-girl’ story in which a (more often than not) white, heterosexual, middle-class, couple successfully overcome a series of obstacles to their romantic union/marriage. Antecedents of the romantic comedy include 18th century restoration comedy and 19th-century romantic melodrama in literature and theatre, though these related forms tend to treat their subject matter in a more realist manner. Territory is also shared with the costume drama, melodrama, the woman’s picture and the chick flick. In the US, the work of Cecil B. DeMille (Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), Male and Female (1919), Why Change Your Wife (1920)) and Ernst Lubitsch, as well as a number of situational comedies from the 1920s including So This Is Marriage? (Hobart Henley, 1924), and Robert Z. Leonard’s The Waning Sex (1926) and Tea For Three (1927), have been identified as precursors to the genre; these films are usually set in an upper-class milieu and depict the trials and tribulations of married couples. Between 1934 and 1942, the romantic comedy in a number of variants became a staple genre of US cinema. Screwball comedy, a subgenre associated with the 1930s, characterized by fast-paced farcical action, broad physical comedy, and combative dialogue has attracted considerable commentary within film studies. Inheriting some of the dynamic energy of slapstick, and with a ‘battle of the sexes’ plot, films such as It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934), Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934), and Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) have been canonized, and have influenced later films such as When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989). The emergency of World War II shifted gender roles and led to a hiatus. After the war the career woman comedies of the 1940s (often starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) and the sex comedies of the late 1950s and early 1960s (associated with Doris Day and Rock Hudson) signalled the longevity of the genre. Even during the 1970s, with the core myths of heterosexual romantic love questioned by the historical and cultural experience of feminism and rocketing divorce rates, Hollywood continued to produced ‘nervous romances’ such as Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977). This moment of hesitancy gave way to the reactionary cultural and sexual politics of the ‘new romances’ of the 1980s and 1990s, with Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time. The genre remains extremely popular, and contemporary variants (including prom-coms and bromances) are often driven by a strong nostalgia for earlier cycles, especially those of the 1930s and 1980s. During the 1990s, British director Richard Curtis reconfigured the basic elements of the genre to great commercial success in films such as Notting Hill (UK/US, 1999) and Love Actually (UK/US, 2003). Further Reading: - Abbott, Stacey and Jermyn, Deborah Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema (2009). - Cavell, Stanley Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (1981). - Evans, Peter William and Deleyto, Celestino Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1980s and 1990s (1998). - McDonald, Tamar Jeffers Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre (2007). - McWilliams, Kelly When Carrie Met Sally: Lesbian Romantic Comedies (2011). ========================================== BOOK: The film studies dictionary [by Steven Blandford]. Arnold, 2001. ISBN 978-0340741917 Page 53 Comedy -- Most generally, any film that treats its subject matter in a humorous way. Although sometimes referred to as a GENRE, comedy is really a tone that cuts across genres, so that there are comic WESTERNS ( Blazing Saddles, dir. Mel Brooks, 1974), comic GANGSTER FILMS (The Ladykillers, dir. Alexander Mackendrick, 1955), even comic DISASTER FILMS (Airplane , dir. Jim Abrahams, 1980) and comic HORROR FILMS (Young Frankenstein, dir. Brooks, 1974). Nevertheless, there are several distinct comic genres, including SLAPSTICK COMEDY, SCREWBALL COMEDY, ROMANTIC COMEDY, and PARODY. Page 202 Romantic comedy -- Form of comedy focusing on a heterosexual couple and the humorous misunderstandings in their relationship. Romantic comedy needed synchronized sound for the humorous verbal interplay between couples, as well as charismatic and attractive stars. In the early days of sound Ernst Lubitsch was known for his sophisticated romantic comedies, including Love Parade (1929) and Trouble in Paradise (1932). The 1930s was the era of screwball comedy, a specific subgenre of romantic comedy, but also a decade that featured other romantic comedies such as the series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the series of Thin Man detective films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. In the 1950s romantic comedy became more genteel, as in the bedroom farces starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson, such as Pillow Talk (dir. Michael Gordon, 1959). In recent years, When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner, 1989) shows that romantic comedy can still connect with audiences, but with changing sexual mores. Romantic comedies like Chasing Amy (dir. Kevin Smith) and As Good as it Gets (dir. James L. Brooks) (both 1997) have expanded the genre’s traditional focus on the heterosexual couple. ========================================== BOOK: The complete film dictionary [by Ira Konigsberg]. Penguin, 1997. ISBN 978-0670100099 Page 337 Romance -- A film that emphasizes a male-female love relationship at the expense of other story elements. The relationship itself is presented in an emotional, sentimental, and generally positive manner that glorifies the feelings of each character for the other and heralds love as the saving grace of human existence, even when environment and circumstances lead to ultimate sacrifice or unhappiness. Film has offered audiences an escape into the world of fantasy from its inception and romances have been a main staple to fill the empty lives of its viewers. Notable film romances have been Erich von Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1928), which also included a good bit of social satire; the adventurous The Sheik (1921; dir. George Melford), starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres; Frank Borzage’s popular Seventh Heaven (192V); George Cukor’s Camille (1936), with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor; Henry King’s Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955); Claude Lelouch’s international success, A Man and a Woman (1966); and Arthur Hiller’s popular but trite Love Story (1970). Romantic comedy -- A film dealing with the relationship of a man and a woman who, after many trials and tribulations caused by their own misunderstandings, a number of obstacle figures, or both, are finally united at the end of the film. A slight variation on this theme is the couple who start off united, are temporarily separated, but are reunited at the end of the film. In both cases, it is crucial that the attraction between the two is evident and that their trials and tribulations be treated in a comic manner. Romantic comedy has sometimes been thought of as synonymous with screwball comedy, but the second classification refers to a group of films too specific to be so all-inclusive. A number of romantic comedies have heroines less aggressive or actions less madcap so that they are distinguishable from the screwball variety.

A Romance can be a Romantic Drama. It seems like you are suggesting that Romantic Comedy is a subgenre of Comedy (very Classical Greek). Or, that Romantic Comedy means the Romance and Comedy genres, while Romance Drama means just the Romance genre. Then, of curse, there is the “romanticism” keyword, which might specifically be applied to titles in genres other than Comedy and/or Drama.

Sure wish IMDb would follow its own guidelines: Repeating genres: For example, we have the genres Romance and Drama so you can submit these as genres to the title rather than submitting the keyword romantic-drama. Some think that romantic-comedy is a sugenre of Comedy. If that is so, then, logically, it is also a subgenre of Romance. You could do this with EVERY SINGLE keyword that incorrectly combines two genres. Do users know about the ability to search for titles by combining genres? Cal Needham told me about this, and I love it! Duh! It’s called “Advance Title Search."