Wealth & Money Quote by Laura Kightlinger

Kightlinger’s complaint lands because it pretends to be about taste while really being about the cultural training manual hiding inside “romance.” She name-checks Indecent Proposal and Pretty Woman not as isolated offenders but as shorthand for a whole era of glossy morality: women’s problems become solvable the moment a wealthy man enters the frame, wallet first, humanity second. Coming from a comedian, the line plays like a deadpan intervention at the exact moment the audience expects escapism. Her “really detest” isn’t prudishness; it’s irritation at how these films launder transactional sex into aspirational destiny.

The key move is her phrasing: “send a message.” That’s media literacy disguised as a punchline. She’s not arguing that women literally watch a Julia Roberts movie and run to the nearest hedge-fund manager. She’s pointing at the drip-feed of narratives that narrow desire into a single, market-friendly plot: access, upgrade, rescue. The subtext is about power. When sex with a rich man is treated as “the ultimate goal,” women’s agency gets reframed as strategic consumption, and intimacy becomes a job interview with better lighting.

Then she undercuts the fantasy with a deflating twist: “such a small part of it.” “It” does a lot of work - love, security, autonomy, dignity, actual compatibility. The joke is that Hollywood sells a shortcut to a life, but life stubbornly refuses to be a montage.