EXTRA
EXTRA: Author Curtis Sittenfeld on the Longevity of Rom-Com Couples
To celebrate Valentine's Day, this extra episode features author Curtis Sittenfeld (Romantic Comedy) in a game where she must decide if famous rom-com couples broke up or lived happily ever after.
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Luke Burbank: Hey there, Live Wire. It's Luke Burbank. This week we are dropping a little podcast extra for you just in time for Valentine's Day. Okay, back in 2023, we had Curtis Sittenfeld on the show. Of course, Curtis is the New York Times bestselling author. This was part of the Portland Book Festival. And Curtis was talking about her latest book, which is Romantic Comedy. It follows a comedy writer on a TV show, like a sketch comedy show, that goes live on Saturday night. It's not called that, but you kind of get the idea. And Curtis was talking to us about her book and about how these characters in the book kind of flipped the script on some real life celebrity love stories that we have heard about, where a certain kind of person in a show like this tends to land a certain other kind of person. In Curtis's book, the main characters kind of they ride off into the sunset happily ever after. But we wanted to get her opinion on if happily ever after is possible for some popular movie couples. So we put together a little game that we're calling Happily Ever after or not. We actually ran out of time on the radio broadcast to put this in, but we just thought it was too funny and also educational to leave it out. So here it is. Because it's Valentine's Day, y'all. We are going to share it with you. Take a listen to this. It's Curtis Sittenfeld live from the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Okay, so on the subject of romantic comedies, which if you write a book that's called romantic comedy, you are to me the world's expert on the topic. And we would like to put that, into effect here on the show. We were hoping that maybe you could use that expertise to tell us definitively what happened to some of our favorite rom com couples after the movie was over.
Elena Passarello: After the HEA.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. They HEA'ed, then the credits rolled. But now we need to know what really happened to them. And since you've studied this scientifically. We were wondering if you could kind of weigh in on some of these. So we have to start of course with the, I don't know, like if there was a big bang of rom coms is probably when Harry met Sally. [Curtis: Oh yeah?] I mean it's a, it's kind up there.
Curtis Sittenfeld: I think, I think the big bang of rom coms is like Pride and Prejudice, but okay.
Luke Burbank: Fair point.
Elena Passarello: They stay together, right?
Curtis Sittenfeld: Probably.
Luke Burbank: Elena, can you finish the show for me? Fair. Fair point. Fair point. As far as movies go, when Harry met Sally is a biggie. What do you think about, Harry and Sally? The movie ends. They're together. Actually doing that little kind of interstitial thing. It's very genius. Yeah. Storytelling. Yeah. I mean, if you're not walking around saying: people were always crossing rooms to talk to Nadine, you have not watched that movie enough. That being said, do you think they would stay together?
Curtis Sittenfeld: Yes.
Elena Passarello: [Gasps] wow
Luke Burbank: Is that a is that a hot take?
Elena Passarello: I don't know why I guess like that. I don't know. It's like, well, in the online community that I follow. Yeah. They, murder each other.
Luke Burbank: There is apparently there is apparently some online. Some online, pushback to the idea of them staying together because of the fact that they weren't supposed to be together in the first place, that so much of the conversation was around. They you know, we're not going to be an item that maybe there's something like them being like, they wouldn't have made it.
Curtis Sittenfeld: I think the opposite, that I think that it's it's almost like because it wasn't a foregone conclusion and it was it was a conscious decision. And, yeah, that's I will say that, you know, because of how old I am and my, my personality, like, I saw many of those kind of classic rom coms in the theater in my teens. So it's like I eventually had to write a novel, right? Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I want to mention that's the only romantic comedy we have on this exercise. Everything else is not a romantic comedy. Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Oh my God. So I will say I consider that to be actually my favorite movie. Well, maybe. Maybe I can answer this in a in a slightly different way. I feel like for years, like, I don't I don't really yearn to write screenplays. I mean, I don't really know how to write screenplays, but I always I was like, I want to write, a sort of, well, which apparently, actually Jennifer Gray is doing is writing some sort of sequel. But I was like for, for probably like 10 or 15 years. I was like, I want to. Someone needs to and it might, it might have to be me. Like, write a sequel to dirty. I know there's like Havana Nights, but.
Luke Burbank: Right. Which is written by my pal Peter Sagal.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. No, this is like the the big bombshell of the.
Luke Burbank: Wait. True story. Wait, wait. Don't tell me that Peter Sagal wrote the original screenplay that was adapted into Dirty Dancing to Havana Nights.
Curtis Sittenfeld: No.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I didn't mean to derail anything that way. I thought you all knew. I thought we'd even probably talked about it on this very show.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Yeah. So this is very disorienting.
Luke Burbank: You wrote a much more nuanced and interesting screenplay about a young woman coming of age in Havana. And through the way that movie.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Became.
Luke Burbank: Get optioned and such, it ended up being the thing that was developed into Dirty Dancing to.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Oh my God. At one point I had the goal that I would write because I wanted to watch, you know, get some sort of like, you have to write the book that you want to read sometimes. Like I wanted to write a sequel where baby is like she's married someone else and she's had her own life, and then she's middle aged, and then she goes back to the resort and she and Johnny. But I mean, sadly, Patrick Swayze, when he could still be teaching.
Luke Burbank: Oh, I.
Curtis Sittenfeld: See. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank: That he was still teaching that.
Curtis Sittenfeld: No no no no, that would be. Oh, that would be beautiful. I mean, they could both have had all this like, life experience and then so I feel like, I mean, she maybe she could, get together with his cousin or something.
Luke Burbank: You know what? You know, what would have definitely happened would have been they they go their separate ways. They. Because their lives, you know, the trajectory of their lives is pretty different. Yeah. At some point, one of them goes on Facebook. Just catch up with the other one, which is, by the way, how every affair in America starts for people over the age of 50. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody went on Facebook to see what happened to that person.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: From 20 years ago.
Curtis Sittenfeld: I mean, if you think about their age, is actually what I would have to do this math off. It's better to think about the ages of, but I do I actually think that they would. They would not. This is like I've given this too much that I think they would not have stayed together if they had married immediately when the movie ended. But then I think they might have found each other via Facebook.
Luke Burbank: Right? They would have said.
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: How about Danny and Sandy from grease?
Curtis Sittenfeld: So okay, I saw this, most recently like 40 years ago. So I don't, I don't I don't think I'm qualified to comment on this serious matter.
Luke Burbank: Passarelli do you have thoughts?
Elena Passarello: I think, anyone who can drive a pair of pants like bad Sandy, I think if she wants him to be on her arm for the rest of her life, she's got it.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Somebody said online that, they have to stay together. Given that he shot his car into the stratosphere. So what is her escape plan?
Elena Passarello: She can't.
Luke Burbank: She stuck with him just for aeronautical reasons. How about this? Jack and Rose from Titanic? Oh, if Rose had scooch over. On board. Yeah. Yes. How would that have turned out?
Curtis Sittenfeld: Well. So actually, I only ever saw Titanic once in the theater, and I think I was, I was like, in my early 20s, and I think I was like, oh, this is so, like, moving in, you know, and I almost, I mean, obviously. Well, it's I almost could never watch it again because it's like so sad. Right? So I think that that must be a testament to the emotionally persuasive connection between Jack and Rose. I say yes.
Luke Burbank: What do you think, pastor?
Elena Passarello: No way. Jose. Yeah. Why do you think she's always going to. She's going to leave him and ride that donkey and climb the pyramid or whatever she does. And all the pictures at the end of the movie. She was. She's a rambler.
Luke Burbank: So was she basically like, was she sort of quiet, quitting on him when she didn't let him onto the board? Did she know that it was not gonna work out?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, she was like, I actually don't think his prospects are that good. She. Or maybe she thought about, like, being harder. DiCaprio. Cute now, but just wait till. Right.
Luke Burbank: He's a little older. Okay. Last one. And this is definitely not from a rom com, but Bert and Ernie.
Curtis Sittenfeld: Sure. Yeah. And and kind of in the same category. Frog and toad. Absolutely. Right.
Luke Burbank: We love that.
Curtis Sittenfeld: So, so complimentary and compatible with you. So, so understanding of each other.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I think we all aspire to have Frog and Toad more than Bert and Ernie. That's more of like a sort of grim deadlock that they're.
Elena Passarello: Bert and Ernie. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Well, didn't you say in the, in the in the soundcheck that you think one of them is very toxic?
Elena Passarello: Yes. I won't say which one because it'll anger a lot of people, but I think any one of us doing a heads up emotional labor out there. And the other one is your personality will will show if you say who you think the toxic one is.
Luke Burbank: I just assumed it was Bert.
Elena Passarello: See, that says a lot about you.
Luke Burbank: I don't know how much we've learned about the guests this week. We've learned a lot about Luke Burbank, so I guess that's been something. The book is romantic comedy. Curtis Sittenfeld, thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: That was Curtis Sittenfeld right here on Live Wire. Make sure to check out her new book, Romantic Comedy and have a great Valentine's Day. Dear Live Wire. When we first met, I was really shy. I had no idea we'd spend so much time together. Or that you'd be one to fill my heart with joy and make me want to be a better person. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here. I was busy reading a review from one of our many, many rapturously smitten listeners. Oh, actually, no. Sorry. This is from Elena. Anyway, the point is, it would be really helpful if you wanted to leave us a review. Feel free to say really nice things about us, and, we'll even read them now and then on the show. So you might hear your review of Live Wire read on the program itself, Reviews help other people hear about the show, and then we can keep doing this for a long, long time because we love having this job. Thank you so much. If you've left a review and if you're about to leave a review, you can go ahead and do it right where you get the podcast.P
