Likable quirky.

Don't get me wrong, I love good AND terrible romantic comedies as much as the next girl.  When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I can still curl up on the couch at home and watch The Jane Austen Book Club whenever it's on TV.

However, I recently stumbled upon an xkcd cartoon (that frickin' Random button can get you SO EASILY) that made me think: 

http://xkcd.com/122/

Yes, a lot of my favorite romantic comedies, or just plot lines in general, have "quirky" heroines, or heros, but this is the thing: they're the right kind of quirky. 

Sally's character is "high-maintenance," and she can't sing, but that's really okay because she's successful and gorgeous.  Grigg's character in JABC is super into science fiction and really awkward, but that's okay because he's really nice, has money but doesn't flaunt it, and OH WAIT is gorgeous. 

Seriously, I love Grigg's character, but people who read science fiction just simply do not look like that.  The ladies spend most of the movie pretending to overlook the fact that he's frickin' Hugh Dancy and just go "aww poor awkward computer dude, thought the books were sequels!"  This is not how the world works.  Sally can't sing and she's difficult in restaurants, but she's stunning and fun and she'd be single for roughly two days.  She's the right kind of quirky. 

I have the 7th Harry Potter book and an Orson Scott Card short story collection on my bookshelf, along with the MST3K movie.  I read fantasy like it's nobody's business, and I'm not talking like "I read Ella Enchanted when I was little and stopped" I'm talking like, full-on, let's-go-meet-Tamora-Pierce, Terry-Goodkind's-a-boss, read-books-designed-for-25-year-old-socially-inept-single-dudes I read fantasy.  I can sing, but what I sing is church hymns and Biggie and A Goofy Movie's soundtrack.  I can quote things like nobody's business, but it's things like Arrested Development and Anchorman.  None of these things is entertaining to an outside viewer, and thus none of these things would make me a good romantic comedy heroine.

This REALLY bothers me.  Somehow we've decided that these, and only these, forms of quirkiness (preferably accompanied by veela-level good looks) are acceptable ranges of human.  They're always a lack of coordination, filter, or skill and/or entertaining to a potential significant other.  (Twilight, I'm looking at you and HATING YOU for making a shell of a character).  Would seriously no one watch a movie or TV show or read a book that has an average-looking fantasy nerd guy/girl with a personality?  I love these romantic comedies, but I can name about a hundred friends of mine who fit into none of the characteristics of these heroines and heros and would totally watch something more relatable.  There's GOT to be a market for that.

Or I'm wrong, and no one in Hollywood finds my never-ending search for gorgeous harmony lines in Catholic hymns and my adamant opinion that while both are awesome, Speaker for the Dead is better than Ender's Game and my hopes to be able to spit Twista's verse in Let's Go before I die REMOTELY interesting.

In that case, movie people: suck it.  You're missing out.