>>713800958
The are two real reasons:
1. Western media has never traditionally made romance content for men.
2. Tropes that actually appeal to men for romance are unfairly viewed as “problematic.”
There’s lots of American stereotypes about romance as a genre. It’s long been considered deeply “unmanly” to watch or read romantic fiction. This doesn’t mean that men don’t want to watch or enjoy romantic stories though, so romance gets shoe-horned into “manlier” content like action movies and fantasies. We also see this in games, as romances are included in western RPGs. These are usually shallow romances though, since they aren’t the focus of the stories.
Men DO like and want romance though, and we can see that with how popular Japanese romantic media is. Lots of huge and very popular shows, manga, novels, and games, are explicitly aimed at men. Toradora, Clannad, Kagura-sama, etc.
But the tropes required to make romantic media appealing to men clash heavily with the western feminist media zeitgeist.
1. The main woman has to be conventionally attractive, or at least attractive to whatever niche audience that you’re targeting.
2. The man is not going to be perfect. Romance arcs require mental, emotional, and psychological character challenges and growth. Men frequently do stupid things when trying to court women because we’re dumb or have our own misunderstandings or hangups. Sometimes, we are dicks and hurt girls’ feelings not because we mean to be, but because we’re fuck ups.
3. A happy end necessarily requires that the woman be the “prize” the man receives for getting his shit together and courting her. You can view any romance like this if you want to. There’s no way around it.
Two notable male-oriented western romance films are The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Both have been dragged by feminist film critics for the points above.
