Do Men Even Like Women?

A Queer Approach to When Harry Met Sally (1989)

[I guess this contains spoilers? It’s a rom-com though, so you can guess. Also, if you enjoy this film, maybe skip this one]

Poster for When Harry Met Sally (1989) from IMDb

When Harry Met Sally (1989) – Queer

2024 is going to be a very big year for me personally with a lot of massive life changes, moves towards my future, and filled with love and opportunities to celebrate, so what better way to ring it in than with the definitive New Year’s Eve film, Rob Reiner(and Nora Ephron)’s When Harry Met Sally (1989). The Review Roulette wheel landed on Queer as our approach this week, and I have been thinking about what I wanted to say for days, and I think this is our first review that challenges the approach fundamentally. Since it’s still December (and, full disclosure, I am writing this from the Leon in Heathrow’s Terminal 2 a week early so I can have my holidays and still get you that sweet, sweet review action), we’re going to keep it casual, short, and sweet one more time.

So, this is like the ultimate rom-com, right? Of rom-com ‘best of’ lists, When Harry Met Sally scores very highly every time, and I’m a fan, I get it, it’s fun, it’s flirty, it’s free, Carrie Fisher is in it, we love her. But I find Harry (Billy Crystal) insufferable (even after his alleged and unbelievable character growth) and I firmly believe Sally (Meg Ryan) can do better. I still enjoy the film though and I love the framing with the other couples talking about their love stories – that is an inspired touch.

Looking for a queer angle to analyse it from works halfway if we take queer to mean “non-heteronormative” in its widest sense of not being the absolute traditional relationship. Which is interesting because this film is one of the most beloved rom-coms and it ends normatively in that Harry and Sally become a romantic couple and, if we take the cues both Sally and Harry drop throughout the film, we are led to believe that they intend to have children, a perfect heteronormative couple.

In one sense, the film challenges tradition and expectation by having the pair meet several times in their lives, first hating each other, then being curious about the other, then tolerating, then befriending, then loving each other as they grow over an 11-year period. Harry is abrasive and has all sorts of views and theories on women and dating and marriage and men, most importantly to the plot that men and women cannot be friends because it will always end in a sexual relationship either ruining or changing the friendship into something else. In this sense, maybe Harry is just being more honest about a mainstream perspective that this is in fact normative for men and women to only want to have sex (not that that is the case, but that it is a normative idea people have (primarily because of Hollywood films like this one!)).

In this sense, that Harry may be speaking to the true normative perspective, maybe this film that presents as non-traditional is actually not traditional but a real reflection of the norm. Men generally dislike women. That’s not so much an opinion as it is just an observation of how the world works and how the majority of men act in their garbage relationships. And Harry does not seem to like Sally. He talks down to her, he’s so cocky and sure of himself, he’s oblivious and therefore inconsiderate of how his actions and lack of emotional communication skills are affecting her. And Sally even says after his declaration of love that she hates him. And if we look at the oeuvre of comedy in this 80s, 90s period, so much of it is about the “old ball and chain” or evolutions on Rodney Dangerfield just actively hating his wife on stage for several decades, so maybe a non-traditional timeline of life getting in the way of realising your attraction and love for another person mixed with straight up disliking each other is the norm this film is speaking to.

I’d like to think that’s not true and that these depictions of a pair who genuinely don’t seem to even like each other as individuals but somehow love each other within the couple are not the norm. I genuinely do not see this as a true love situation, but rather much more as a marriage of convenience, which, by the way, I’m not knocking. They have some level of appreciation and care for the other and they are very good friends who seriously need to learn how to communicate (but it’s a rom-com so there has to be terrible communication for hilarity to ensue). If that’s what they want for the rest of their lives, absolutely rock on, I love that for you. I do not think it is the romantic situation a lot of people herald it as though.

So, after days of thinking about this and a mid coffee across from my gate, I still can’t decide if there’s a queerness to this film or if it’s a reflection of a more real example of normativity rather than the more conservative fantasy Hollywood version I have in mind when thinking “heteronormativity”. Can a rom-com that builds to a normative marriage, kids, et al be queer? Or is this just the classic approach? Throwing it back to a Christmas film, White Christmas (1954) is also about ambiguously-aged-in-the-film-but-let’s-say-late-20s women and (much) older men (Bing Crosby was 51 to Rosemary Clooney’s 26) with a contentious relationship because of shitty communication. That film’s purpose was to show that it’s never too late to be forced into a heteronormative relationship even if you are a strong working woman. So, is When Harry Met Sally just a continuation of that kind of relationship on screen showing no matter how far you have strayed from traditional young marriages and old school gender roles within it, there’s always a path to get you back on the normative track? I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind yet. These are just my sleep-deprived airport thoughts.

BUT

Regardless of my twisty web of queerness, I really do enjoy this film. So, let’s end on a New Year’s message of love and prosperity and gratitude for one another and for Nora Ephron writing films we can think about so critically. I’m off to see my loved ones and I hope you get to embrace those you love at the start of and throughout 2024. Here’s to a beautiful new year, loves!

(This time I am done when I say I am because my flight is boarding).

Happy New Year!