Apparently no friend to romantic comedies, Suzannah Paul nonetheless rejects the above label:
There is no emotional porn. That is not a thing. The emotional porn argument is just the same Christian legalism in a shinier package, and it’s a lie.
Unlike Paul, I am a fan—and writer—of romantic comedies (can we please stop calling them “chick flicks”?), but I agree. Anyway, the real problem with modern rom-coms is the genre’s seeming inability to reconcile its traditionally heightened sense of reality with the more cynical (realistic?) sensibilities of modern audiences.