Audience Expectations

Romance Genre

-What do you expect in the first 2 minutes of a romance film?
The older of the people I asked this question to mentioned Sex and the City and said that the 'main middle-aged woman character' would be introduced.  They also said there's usually a narrative overlay on the introduction, if not the whole way through.
Teenagers said a similar thing, however the main character(s) was also a teenager/young adult, as opposed to middle-aged, there would be a group of friends introduced at a school and that a male character may also be introduced.  They also said that there may be more than one main character and that there can be multiple storylines within the film.  Some teenagers referred to the film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.
The youngest of the people I interviewed suggested films such as Shrek, and spoke about princesses and princes.

-What sort of main characters will there be?
As I mentioned before, the older, more mature people I questioned envisaged a middle-aged, single, female main character within a group of friends - similar to Sex and the City.
The majority vote of the teenagers concluded the main characters would be a group of high-school friends and their love interests.
The younger people I interviewed mainly referred to Disney-type films, such as The Little Mermaid and Shrek, where there are the female (princess waiting to be found) and male protagonists (prince searching for princess) and an evil antagonist trying to deter the main characters from finding their 'true love'.

-What kind of event do you expect to occur/begin?
Strangely, all the age groups were referring to 'rom-com'-type films, rather than any other romance-hybrid film.  Therefore, on a whole, they expected to see the main character/characters eventually end up with their love interest, after embarrassing themselves - maybe more than once - or making mistakes trying to make their love interest notice them or fall in love with them.  They said that it would end happpily, or if not, it would be comedic in nature.

Overall, we have learnt that within a popular romance (rom-com) film, there is usually a female main character, mirrored by a male one and that the basic storyline is that somehow, whether it be through slaying the dragon, through embarrassing oneself at the school disco or through a work dilemma, they end up falling in love.  A. rom-com may or may not end happily, but it won't usually dwell on the fact it has ended badly and will turn it around into comedy.