The Everlasting Entertainment from (500) Days of Summer as a Postmodern Romantic Comedy
(500) Days of Summer (Webb, 2009) successfully supports Oliver and Raney’s (2011) findings that entertainment can be used as a means of experiencing pleasure-seeking (hedonic concerns) and as a means of “truth-seeking” (eudaimonic concerns) as it elicits several nuanced emotions from me and allows me to enjoy the film on multiple levels—instigating both my hedonic enjoyment of joy and eudaimonic emotions to seek meaning and purpose.[1]
The film is postmodern as it subverts the traditional romantic comedy by challenging and investigating accepted common beliefs on love and relationships.[2] (500) Days of Summer communicates these challenges through filmic techniques such as non-linear narrative, the addition of a musical scene, and the use of dual focus.
Furthermore, my psychological attachment to Tom and previous exposure to romantic comedies produce idealized romantic beliefs and empathetic emotions to experience his thought processes about love and relationships. The more I watch it, the more I recognize that its postmodernism builds the psychological foundation for my deepened emotional engagement and prompts me to takeaway both hedonic entertainment and much-needed eudaimonic lessons and insights into love and relationships: it is messy, imperfect, and there may never be a happily ever after—and that has made me love the film even more.
The traditional romantic comedy includes central themes showing that love can seek out soulmates; love can happen instantaneously; love can overcome all obstacles; the couple will ultimately reconcile, and marriage is one of life’s great accomplishments.[3] It appeals to me as it always finishes on an affirmative note and presents romantic utopia as a possibility in life.[4]
Examples of romantic comedies that end with the two main characters ending up together in a happily ever after.
I was naïve and indoctrinated by traditional romantic comedies with perfect happy endings such a 27 Dresses and P.S. I Love You, and (500) Days of Summer primes me to watch the film in an escapist and hedonic level, playing with my expectations that will not be satisfied unless Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) end up together. Just like Tom, I elevated my expectations and anticipated this film to be the perfect romantic comedy platform. Instead, the film is imbued with postmodernism which digs into and challenges the traditional ideas of love and relationships.
Dowd and Pallotta (2000) state that under today’s changing circumstances, the ideal of romantic love has been redefined and overcome by a sense of rationality and realism.[5] Young lovers enter relationships that are temporary, for rational motivations, and with little or no attribution of the love being located deeply in the soul or heart. [6] Postmodernism successfully encapsulates this careful approach to love through its attention to romance’s flaws and complexities, highlighting that relationships and love may not conquer these complications. As a result, postmodern romantic comedy is gaining traction due to its representation and reflection of the current modes and meanings of romance and love.
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977), deemed as one of the first postmodern romantic comedies where it adapted and developed techniques used in previous romantic comedies, such as creating a level of uncertainty through the opening of the film revealing that Alvy and Annie have broken up, and playing with style and narrative. (https://warpedfootage.com/2015/09/04/annie-hall-more-than-just-a-romantic-comedy/)
(500) Days of Summer is one of the films that transcends the stereotypes of traditional romantic comedy and embraces the principles of postmodern romantic comedy. Having read the “Need to Belong” methodology of Greenwood and Long’s (2011) experiment and taken the Myers-Briggs 16 Personalities test, I have assessed that I generally have a moderate level of needing to belong.[7] This could explain that while I enjoy romantic comedies and initially watched the film for the hedonic reasons of romantic entertainment, what established my stronger appreciation for (500) Days of Summer is its postmodern ideals that give me greater insights into “larger” questions about the human condition of love and relationships.[8]
My hedonic motivations for watching (500) Days of Summer as a typical romantic comedy is set up from the beginning. The film’s narrator warns us through type: “This is a story of boy meets girl. You should know up front this is not a love story”. Oblivious to the narrator’s voice that foreshadows the unlikely outcome, my first reaction was that the narrator was simply trying to set a comedic tone, as later on he uses crude language to convey his bias and comes off as comical, calling Jenny Beckman a “bitch”.
(500) Days of Summer also suggests it is a traditional romantic comedy by beginning with Day (488) showing Tom and Summer sitting on a park bench and Summer’s hand with an engagement ring above Tom’s, creating the assumption that they are both married or engaged with each other. Furthermore, the film continues with a dual focus, in which scenes of their childhood centering on Tom alternate with parallel scenes centered on Summer, while Regina Spektor’s “Us” is overheard.[9] The dual focus uses an extreme close-up on young Tom’s eye on the left and a matching extreme close-up of Summer’s eye on the right, giving me the impression that the two are each other’s matching half and primes my emotions and expectations that they will live happily ever after together.
The narrator describes Tom and Summer’s contrasting background and beliefs in love, stating that Tom felt that “he would never truly be happy until he met The One” while Summer “does not share this belief”. Holmes’ (2007) study found an association between belief in predestined soul mates and preference for romance media. My previous exposure and preference for traditional romantic comedies made me believe that if two people are “meant for one another” then they should understand and predict each other’s wishes and desires with little effort or communication.[10] As a result, my first interpretation was that this was part of the romantic comedy’s ploy; Tom and Summer would overcome these differing perspectives and ultimately reunite with each other because they were each other’s soulmates. However, upon re-watching the film, I realize that the narrator was truthfully foreshadowing their relationship’s demise, and I was only choosing to see the promising side of their romance and wanting to gain the hedonic entertainment found in traditional romantic comedies.
While (500) Days of Summer disregards the typical romantic comedy chronology and echoes postmodern elements through its use of a non-linear narrative and parallel editing, I was convinced that this formatting does not interfere with the ultimate reconciliation between Tom and Summer.[11] The intertitles function to clarify the story as it proceeds to bounce back and forth through time, conveying Tom’s stream of consciousness through his interaction with Summer.
The romantic comedy plot is furthered—boy loses girl—and the very next scene occurs on Day (290) after Tom and Summer’s breakup. Despite the non-chronological narrative, I was set up to believe that the rest of the film will abide by the traditional romantic comedy formula. His recollection of the relationship uses a parallel editing montage of happy moments between Summer and Tom laughing, kissing, holding hands, hugging and buying music together. Tom’s voice-over proclamations of love can be heard over images of Summer’s smile, hair, knees, and eyes and even her imperfections. Yet, the film later shows the same sequence of images with Tom proclaiming that all the things he previously loved, he now hates. There is a postmodern element in this parallel of images and their portrayal of Tom’s contrasting feelings, suggesting that reality is perspectival.[12]
Although I was taken aback by the non-linear narrative and sudden change of Tom’s feelings, I interpreted them as an indication of fast forwarded effects on Tom who has yet to overcome the obstacles between him and Summer. Furthermore, the use of intertitles and the non-chronological narrative set up the expectation that there would at least be a conclusion on Day (500), also set up by the title of the film, and gives me hope that they will eventually reconcile their relationship.
My hedonic reactions to the film is amplified through my personal connection with Tom and I was rooting for him and his desire for Summer, as his ideals and values about soulmates and love is what I value as well. While Tom’s perspectives are already privileged in the film, often using single focus, Holmes’ (2007) study further supports that my exposure to traditional romantic comedies, in parallel to Tom’s exposure to “sad British pop music”, has led us to believe in soulmates and eventual happiness after finding “The One”.[13] As Greenwood and Long (2011) suggests in their research, media figures may function as accessible, idealized surrogate attachment figures and my shared outlooks on love with Tom made him my idealized partner and further incentivized me to be completely biased to his feelings and gain hedonic emotions throughout the film.[14]
Another scene that gives me faith in Tom and Summer ending up happily ever after is the climax of emotions personified in the musical dance scene. After Tom has sex for the first time with Summer, the scene represents his feelings of being in love. He checks out his reflection in a car window and sees Han Solo wink at him—the epitome of masculinity.
The scene continues with the fountain exploding while the diegetic music of Hall & Oates’ ballad “You Make My Dreams Come True” plays. It ends with a dance number where the whole community is dancing in sync whilst wearing matching blue hues, and the animated blue bird that Tom interacts with rings true to a Disney movie, stimulating the already fantasy-like atmosphere. The use of the colour blue is significant as much of the film’s colour scheme alludes to Summer’s clear blue eyes.
Summer’s intoxicating blue eyes.
As Richard Dyer (1985) mentions in "Entertainment and Utopia", musicals present what utopia, or in this case, what love should feel like, and offer escapist images that “propose as solutions to real needs” and lacks in society.[15] In Tom’s case, the musical scene is the paramount reaction to the proof of love he expected from Summer without her having to say anything and attempts to resolve contradictions of the undefined relationship between him and Summer.
The culmination of his feelings emanates energy out of the film and I feel exhilaration because it epitomizes the love Tom feels—as if everything is perfect, everyone joins you in harmony, and you are on top of the world. The aesthetic ambience that represents Tom’s constant infatuation with Summer ultimately blinds him from reflecting on the rifts of the relationship. Similarly, this emphatic scene is the hedonic entertainment that I want out of a traditional romantic comedy and I expected this to continue at the end.
The iconography commonly found in romantic comedies of the “green world”, in which pastoral settings provide a space for characters to discover themselves, and weddings, which represent festival rituals of connection, hope, and euphoria, provides me with the sense that the film might abide by the romantic comedy formula where boy and girl are reunited at the end and I will experience the expected hedonic entertainment.[16]
After their break up when Tom and Summer are traveling to a wedding, Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” sets the mood with its lilting guitar tunes. As every song in (500) Days of Summer also interacts with the visuals on the level of its lyrics, the lead singer’s cooing of “We won’t stop to surrender…Won’t stop till it’s over” reflects Tom and my refusal to give up on Summer. The close-ups on Summer while she laughs highlight her blue eyes and contrasts with the scene’s intoxicating atmosphere of orange hues, drawing me to her as much as Tom is.
Tom becomes her date at the wedding and they continue having intimate conversations, dance closely, and Summer catches the bride’s bouquet—ringing Tom’s bells that he will finally marry her. Summer invites him to a party at her house and the wedding’s atmosphere of affection manufactures the potential of Tom and Summer’s reconciliation and brings me and Tom hope.
The whole series of events are my favourite parts of the film as the embodiment of the restoration of harmony and the hope of love captures the hedonic entertainment I wanted out of the film. It is as if Summer became better and more beautiful than ever and Tom is so close to getting what he wants and I am comforted that they will be together on Day (500).
The portrayal of Summer’s style and fashion also contributes to my hedonic entertainment in the film.
Summer’s tastes in clothes are as sweet as honey, even to the dot as she sings like an angel to her karaoke song “Sugar Town”.
Almost all of her fashion choices have a ribbon or bow or a hue of blue, once again drawing attention to her eyes.
Her style creates my assumption that she embodies the typical sweet girl-next-door personality and is the representation of what I deem to be perfection.
Greenwood and Long (2011) proposes that women reported greater imagined intimacy for a same gender media figure than men, supporting my initial imagined attachment with her due to my expectations that she personifies the perfect girl and soulmate for Tom.[17] Furthermore, Summer’s clothes reflect Tom’s infatuation with her and the more I empathize with him and idealize him as a partner due to our shared values of love and relationships, the more I want to embody her classic style that “fits” into the cookie-cutter idealized wife that Tom wants.
The portrait of Summer depicted by Tom is one of elegance and flawlessness and I gain hedonic entertainment through the film’s portrayal of Summer as Tom’s idea of perfection.
However, as the film progresses, I become more conflicted with Summer, whose thoughts are opposite to the goody-two-shoes personality I assume of her, creating my eudaimonic enjoyment through her postmodern ideas of love. She is unlike unruly women commonly depicted in films who are often sexualized figures wearing promiscuous clothes and are rambunctiously loud.[18]
Summer as an unruly woman is depicted in her postmodern ideas by stating that she does not believe in love or labelling a relationship and pursues her own desires.
Furthermore, when Tom wants their relationship to be consistent and Summer’s feelings for him to be constant, Summer responds, “I can’t give you that. Nobody can”.
Summer’s poignant statement about the persistent existential threat to love is ignored by both Tom and me, but upon repeated viewing, I recognize the postmodern ideas that love and feelings are inconsistent and imperfect and you cannot rely and expect others for reassurance.
Furthermore, Summer’s actions pose postmodern romance as she does not follow the model of a traditional relationship by initiating the first kiss and sexual activities with Tom and often crossing the boundaries of “friends”.[19]
Although Summer has clearly said that she is not looking for anything serious, she sleeps with him and gets upset when Tom tries to defend her from another man.
After she tells Tom she wants to be friends, she dances with him intimately, leading him on and inviting him to a party. Although I deemed Summer to be perfect, I was infuriated with her as she not only led him to create expectations of a reconnection, but did not inform him that she was already in a serious relationship. Summer’s postmodern ideas of relationships of love produces eudaimonic entertainment by making me question if she really is the ideal partner for Tom.
These concerns are solidified and challenged in the scene when the screen splits in half again to contrast Tom’s fantasy of what will happen at Summer’s party versus the reality of what actually takes place. Before the party, the film foreshadows the despair Tom will face, with Regina Spektor’s Hero singing that “(h)e never ever saw it coming at all” and the narrator informing us, “Tom walked to her apartment intoxicated by the promise of the evening; he believed that this time his expectations would align with reality.”
Throughout the party, his high expectations for Summer’s reconciliation and potential to rekindle the relationship are constantly turned down in reality.
When asked why Tom works at a greeting card company instead of pursuing his passion for architecture, Tom’s response is like his actions that he could neither fulfil his desire for architecture nor Summer. When he finally realizes that Summer is engaged and there is no chance of him “getting her back”, I am completely filled with anger at her as she had led him on earlier at the wedding. The haunting sounds of Regina Spektor’s “we’re cheating, cheating, cheating” not only depicts Tom’s feelings of betrayal by Summer, but that he was also cheating himself with the idea that he would have a happy ending with her.
As he flees from the party, the image moves from colour to charcoal, the background is erased, and Tom is a silhouette, conveying the hollowness of his experience.
Yet, I have not completely given up on their reconciliation even when the dual focus shows Tom on the bus whilst Summer’s fiancé lifts the wedding veil from her face, hoping the film is being deceptive and is simply creating the possibility that even a divorce is possible and they will resolve their relationship eventually.[20] Up to this time, the film still had not concluded with Day (500) and as I was still within the scope of the traditional romantic comedy, my expectations that Summer somehow might return to him.
However, (500) Days of Summer begins to elicit my eudaimonic emotions through Tom’s reevaluation of his relationship and eventual improvement and Summer’s change in beliefs. Greenwood and Long (2011) suggest that opposite gender media figures may function in a compensatory capacity for those with unmet relational needs.[21] As I have a moderate level of needing to belong, Tom’s re-assessment and recovery further increased my attraction to him—not only because of his shared ideals of romance, but also because he overcame his problems and pursues his real passion—representing inspirational ideals I would want in a partner.
Ross (2016) states that love’s postmodern value is to further one’s authenticity and provide a learning environment for the lovers’ greater self-actualization.[22] (500) Days of Summer frames this postmodern form of portraying flaws in love and relationships in flashbacks to scenes previously witnessed in warm lights and smiles now show Summer’s ambivalence as a common thread.
He realizes that he ignored her signals and insisted on enforcing expectations for Summer to be the perfect personification of “The One”.
This greater self-actualization is further exemplified when upon marriage, Summer recognizes that love and fate does exist and like romantic comedy heroines, is eventually tamed.[23]
The film now prompts me to reflect on love and relationships as perhaps they were better off separately and were not helping each other grow and improve. However, the reconciliation of their differences—where Tom realizes that his beliefs are “bullshit” while Summer now believes in fate and love, coupled with the seemingly never-reaching Day (500), convinces me that they both reached a middle ground and have the potential to get back together.
Tom realises that his ideas of love have been manufactured by media and society and he is a working cog within its manipulative system by working at a greeting card company which does not allow people to express their feelings about love – akin to how he is constantly unsure about Summer and her feelings.
It is not until the absolute end where the intertitles change to Day (1) after he meets Autumn, a potential soulmate, that I finally grasp the eudaimonic idea of postmodern love—Tom and Summer do get their happy endings but just not with each other.
Tom looks into the camera to acknowledge that he still believes in fate or “The One” and the film’s use of intertitles to track his relationship with Summer is finally understood as a single chapter of Tom’s life.
Despite the fact that the two main characters do not end up happily ever after together, the film does not reject the idea of love entirely, positing my hopeful feelings of love. The tunes of “She’s Got You High”, the name of the new girl, Autumn, indicates Tom’s next seasonal and personal transition, and the restart of the intertitles back to Day (1), tell us that romance continues to be alive.
Hefner and Wilson’s (2013) study builds on Bandura’s (2002) social cognitive theory that individuals learn about ideals from media and emphasize that watching romantic comedies with the motivation to learn and repeated viewing is positively related to the endorsement of romantic beliefs such as the idealization of one’s partner and marriage-related ideals.[24] This supports my eudaimonic reactions to the film as the more I watch it with the motivation to learn and seek meaning, the more I idealize Tom and continue with my romantic ideals as he symbolizes the hope for moving on and starting over in relationships and love. Just like Tom and Summer, I am back to believing in love, but with the postmodern eudaimonic ideals that it is not always as perfect as traditional romantic comedies convey it to be.
(500) Days of Summer gives me not only the hedonic entertainment of a traditional romantic comedy but also provides eudaimonic entertainment as it teaches me about how my romantic preconceptions from exposure to traditional romantic comedies can cloud my understanding of relationships and helps to comprehend the truth and nature of love.
The film has made me hold on to the traditional romantic comedy idea that Day (500) will result in a happy ending of Tom and Summer together and the possibility of the ideal and utopic romance.
However, (500) Days of Summer complicates this idea of love and presents that in reality, two ideal candidates may not end up together and I learn to come to terms with this separation and have faith in Tom’s next chance at love.
(500) Days of Summer subverts the romantic genre and breaks up the ideal romance but does not destroy it. I love (500) Days of Summer and my love for it grows exponentially the more I watch it because it shows that romantic comedy still has its value and produces the hedonic experience, but it also reconstructs and rearranges it, and I additionally seek the film for eudaimonic reasons, as it presents a flexible and realistic way of dealing with romantic relationships and a newfound postmodern hope that “love is still out there”.
Works Cited
Bandura, A. “Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication,” In Media effects: Advances in theory and research, ed. J. Bryant & D. Zillmann, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum: 2002, 61-90.
Collins, Jim. “Television and Postmodernism,” in Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism, ed. Robert C. Allen. The University of North Carolina Press: 1992, 758-771.
Dowd, James J. and Pallotta, Nicole R. “The End of Romance: The Demystification of Love in the Postmodern Age,” Sociological Perspectives, 43:4, Pacific Sociological Association: 2000, 549-580.
Dyer, Richard, “Entertainment and Utopia,” Movies and Methods, II, Ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley: U. of California P., 1985), 220-232.
Greenwood, D. N., & Long, C. R. “Attachment style, the need to belong and relationship status predict imagined intimacy with media figures,” Communication Research, 2011. 38:2, 278-297.
Hefner, V., & Wilson, B.J., “From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People’s Beliefs About Relationships,” Communication Monographs, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013, 80:2, 150-175.
Holmes, Bjarne M. “In Search of my “One-and-Only”: Romance-related Media and Beliefs in Romantic Relationship Destiny,” The Electric Journal of Communication, Communication Institute for Online Scholarship: 2007, 17:3-4, 3-29.
Kozloff, Sarah, “Romantic Comedy”, in An Introduction to Film Genres, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, 120-159.
The Myers & Briggs Foundation, “16Personalities Test”, NERIS Analytics Limited, 2017.
Oliver, M.B., & Raney, A. A., “Entertainment as Pleasurable and Meaningful: Identifying Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motivations for Entertainment Consumption,” Journal of
Communication, International Communication Association, 2011, 61, 984-1004.
Rowe, Kathleen, “The Unruly Woman: Gender and Genres of Laughter,” University of Texas Press: 1995.
Webb, Marc. (500) Days of Summer. Directed by Marc Webb. Los Angeles: Fox Searchlight Pictures: 2009.
[1] Webb, Marc. (500) Days of Summer. Directed by Marc Webb. Los Angeles: Fox Searchlight Pictures: 2009; M.B., Oliver and A.A. Raney, “Entertainment as Pleasurable and Meaningful: Identifying Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motivations for Entertainment Consumption,” Journal of Communication, (International Communication Association, 2011), 61, 984.
[2] Jim Collins, “Television and Postmodernism,” in Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism, ed. Robert C. Allen. (The University of North Carolina Press: 1992), 758.
[3] Sheryl Tuttle Ross, “(500) Days of Summer: A Postmodern Romantic Comedy?” The Polish Journal of Aesthetics, 41:2, (University of Wisconsin La Crosse: 2016), 148; V., Hefner, & B.J. Wilson, “From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People’s Beliefs About Relationships,” Communication Monographs, (Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), 80:2, 151-2; James J. Dowd, and Nicole R. Pallotta, “The End of Romance: The Demystirication of Love in the Postmodern Age,” Sociological Perspectives, 43:4, (Pacific Sociological Association: 2000), 571.
[4] Sarah, Kozloff, “Romantic Comedy”, in An Introduction to Film Genres, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), 122.
[5] Dowd and Pallotta, 569.
[6] ibid.
[7] Greenwood, D. N., & Long, C. R. “Attachment style, the need to belong and relationship status predict imagined intimacy with media figures,” (Communication Research, 2011). 38:2, 282; The Myers & Briggs Foundation, “16Personalities Test”, NERIS Analytics Limited, 2017.
[8] Oliver and Raney, 1001.
[9] Kozloff, 136.
[10] Bjarne M. Holmes “In Search of my “One-and-Only”: Romance-related Media and Beliefs in Romantic Relationship Destiny,” The Electric Journal of Communication, (Communication Institute for Online Scholarship: 2007) 17:3-4, 2.
[11] Ross, 150.
[12] Ross, 147.
[13] Holmes, 2; Kozloff, 137.
[14] Greenwood and Long, 280.
[15] Richard, Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia,” in Movies and Methods, II, Ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley: U. of California P., 1985), 221.
[16] Kozloff, 146-148.
[17] Greenwood and Long, 292.
[18] Kathleen, Rowe, “The Unruly Woman: Gender and Genres of Laughter,” (University of Texas Press: 1995); Kozloff, 144.
[19] Kozloff, 155.
[20] Kozloff, 139.
[21] Greenwood and Long, 293.
[22] Ross, 147.
[23] Kozloff, 156.
[24] Hefner and Wilson, 169; A. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication,” In Media effects: Advances in theory and research, ed. J. Bryant & D. Zillmann, (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum: 2002), 61-90.