If anyone would know about Galentine’s Day, it is Mike Schur. Creator of Parks and Recreation, the showrunner has moved on to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place now. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t go back to his Parks and Recreation-loving roots. In fact, he made sure to spread the love today when some publications seemed to miss the memo.
For those who don’t know, Galentine’s Day is to celebrate the women in your life. You focus on those friendships that mean the most to you and help you grow, and you celebrate them. So when someone tweeted suggesting that we watch romantic comedies as part of Galentine’s Day, Mike Schur had to step up and right this wrong.
Perfect #GalentinesDay fare: a straightforward male-female romance, a movie about a fumbling woman trapped between two men, and a movie where a woman tries to ruin another woman’s wedding out of jealousy.
If you’re going to commercialize it, at least be accurate. pic.twitter.com/j6Q8lroVyE
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) February 13, 2019
It’s not a bad thing to commercialize Galentine’s Day. It would mean a day of celebrating women and our friendships with one another, so it would maybe be worth it to spread that positivity into the mainstream media. The problem comes when people misunderstand the point of the holiday. It isn’t just an extension of Valentine’s Day celebrations. So suggesting that we spend our day celebrating the women in our life by watching romantic comedies filled with men doing something wrong isn’t exactly on brand.
It’s wonderful to see Schur stepping up and stopping the nonsense, however. Many of us still miss Parks and Recreation and the joy that the show could bring audiences. It wasn’t too proud and didn’t make itself out to be anything other than a light-hearted comedy about friendship and love while working in government.
But the important thing about Parks and Recreation is that it taught us about the importance of those in our lives. Whether they be our significant others or those friendships we sometimes take for granted, it is little things like Galentine’s Day that show us that there are plenty of people in our lives that we should celebrate beyond romantic bonds.
So, listen to Mike Schur and focus on your friends today. Save the rom-coms for tomorrow.
(image: NBC/screengrab from YouTube)
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