I thought a lot about Nora Ephron when I was making my first film, Romantic Comedy. I thought about how, if the genre was held in the same esteem as thrillers or dark dramas, Ephron—who wrote and produced When Harry Met Sally, and wrote and directed You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle and Bewitched—would be considered a titan, as lauded as Scorsese or Kubrick. But as rom-coms are often dismissed or even derided—too fluffy, too feminine—those who make them are taken less seriously.

Even I had to reckon with my own internalized misogyny when diving into the subject. Romantic comedies encourage heteronormative values; they insist women be fixated solely on finding a partner. But perhaps the most problematic thing about them—other than their insipid whiteness and privilege—i...