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More troubling to me is how many romance movies have our protagonist stalk their love interest, who has already explicitly rejected them... and it works, because their obsession is framed as "love at first sight" and "not giving up on love".
Oh, and the other common trope, non-consensual voyeurism... and it works, because the woman is 'flattered' that the guy finds her attractive.
...How good is the "pop culture detective" YouTube channel?
And also how often the movie is completely oblivious to that. For example it's been a while since I saw "Devil wears Prada" but if I remember right, the ending is:
Our main character has an argument with her boyfriend
Goes to a business trip in Paris
Sleeps with random guy
Returns home and makes up with her boyfriend
And the movie ends like nothing happened, she's happy, that's what's important
Her probably:
not betraying your partner's trust is important too. cheating is disgusting, selfish behaviour
I mean, that was bad, but I hated the movie more for turning it into feel-good drivel about the boss actually being kind and caring about her employee(s). The book ending, where the character realized her own self worth and started making her own decisions, was so much better than the american bullshit about putting up with a boss' bullshit because they're actually such good people and will throw a few dollars off the balcony for you to catch.
They break up in the end.
There's so many songs, TV shows, movies, etc, that's all romance or love stories that contain very blatant infidelity.
What tickles me is when very monogamous, very religious people talk that stuff up.... Like it's such a good song/movie/show... Ha. You have fantasies of leaving your spouse and running off with a younger, more attractive person. You slut.
I'm not religious, but I found a partner that gets me. Guess what. I'm not fantasizing about running off with some mythical "better" or "more romantic" person. Yeah, we're living together unmarried, and we're good like that. You rushed into marriage for God knows what reasons and now you live in regret. Good job.
Are you saying you don't like piña coladas?
Piña colada is a "you both awful and deserve each other"
for God ~~knows what reason~~
Ftfy. Skydaddy gonna be angy they fucked before marriage
This makes me wonder how many women are quite unhappy in their marriage, and are willing to jump at the nearest opportunity.
Kinda depressing to think about, actually.
Work with elderly. Coworker said "how many of these women do you think have gone their entire live without an orgasm." It connected a lot of dots. The no orgasm to elderly fox news white women is the school shooter pipeline for wasp women.
Boomer tropes exist because divorce was illegal.
You were expected to get married and stay married. You'd have unprotected sex with your high school boyfriend, you're goddamn right you were gonna keep the baby, and you were going to live together until one of you died. Even if it meant separate beds and not asking why he frequented that bar by the docks.
Blame Catholicism. That's usually a fair bet.
You can freely ignore the dipshit who thinks "almost nobody was permitted to divorce" means "people went to jail for back-alley divorces."
While there are quite a few people who would jump ship from their marriage, that's not why the trope so popular. It's just that a lot of people like different forms of "forbidden love". Although most don't actually dream of doing those things, it's pure fantasy.
Yeah, fictional romance is more interesting when it's forbidden in some way. Otherwise, who wants to read a romance novel about a nice couple who meets at the library when they're both single, and proceeds to have a wholesome relationship? Great for real life, but boring to read about or watch a movie about.
Many of the traditional reasons for forbidding a romance are gone in the contemporary world. Different race, different social class, same gender, rival families? Not convincing.
So you're left with stuff that's plausible but icky, like being in a relationship already, or being teacher/student or boss/employee. Or pornographic stuff like step-family. Those are problematic and people will criticize them.
You could set your story in a historical setting in which the countess and the gardener are truly forbidden from passion, or a fantasy world where the ogopogos and sasquatches are sexy rivals.
Or just have a lukewarm type of forbidden-ness, like "his family's greeting-card store is in competition with my family's greeting-card store" or "we're coworkers."
You could set your story in a historical setting in which the countess and the gardener are truly forbidden from passion, or a fantasy world where the ogopogos and sasquatches are sexy rivals.
The amount of pirates on the covers of romance novels is the direct result of this.
Or just have a lukewarm type of forbidden-ness, like “his family’s greeting-card store is in competition with my family’s greeting-card store” or “we’re coworkers.”
And the hallmark channel answer. I had a coworker who would watch those every single day. I vomit at the visuals (how do they get them so consistent and apparent? You can tell just from the opening shots and title!) of a hallmark to this day.
s/women/people/
"You know what would make this marriage better? Cheating!"
I don't mind infidelity in media when the one being cheated on is "evil" in some ways like they're abusive or not in love. Still icky though. It's just very different when it's something like that versus "I'm cheating because you're bad at sex."
It's usually "we have gotten bad at sex" and there's no conversation about it. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Talk about and figure it out. Then leave. Don't be a fucking dipshit about it.
Great romance requires a choice. It's difficult to find a choice that matters, ideally it is something they already have, but are giving up. That's why all the hallmark movies work because a big city girl is giving up her career to grow cucumbers or something. Making a choice to take a job somewhere else doesn't work because it's a future thing - giving up an opportunity is not the same as giving up a realized life situation. Infidelity really works because it's a former dream, and it means giving up stability, status, comfort for the unknown.
It works from a story perspective but it sends a very terrible message.
It also doesn't help that it has some heritage from courtly romance, if youve ever wondered why Guinevere and Lancelot have a thing going on in Arthurian mythology that's why. The French were enamored with courtly romance and guess who helped forge modern romance.
I recently heard Docket by Blondshell for the first time and favorited it right away.
Then I listened again more tuned in and noticed it was about infidelity and thought “aw man”, unfavorited and moved on.
Heard it a couple more times and realized it wasn’t glorifying cheating, lines like “my worst nightmare is me”. Back on the list! Real rollercoaster.
I saw Casablanca for the first time 2 weeks ago, and yep, checks out.
If I remember Casablanca right she doesn't actually knowingly cheat on her husband at any point. The woman has a relationship with Rick when she believes her husband to be dead before the events of the movie that we hear about 2nd hand. Then in the movie Rick helps her and her husband escape Casablanca.
Bothered me significantly in the will they/won't they dynamic of The Office.
The OG premise of The Office was similar to Seinfeld. They were all supposed to be awful people. Jim and Dwight and Michael were just three different flavors of incel. Jim hitting on a soon-to-be-married woman was supposed to be off-putting and gross. The front office guys treating the back office guys like trash was supposed to be elitist and revolting.
But because the writers needed to give you someone to root for, and because Jim was the "hot one" in a show full of normal looking people (aka the writers room from a bunch of sitcoms who thought it would be funny to have a show where they play each other's characters), they had to justify Pam breaking up and getting together with Jim. And then they had to turn the Jim/Pam arc into Friends. And then they had to turn the Dwight/Angela and Michael/Jan arcs into Friends. And by the final season they were just, like, "Fuck it, this show is now the same as Friends."
Remember when the hottest song on the radio was Follow Me by Uncle Cracker?
Holy shit I just looked up the lyrics, I'm glad I was ignorant to them at the time
I'm not worried
'Bout the ring you wear
'Cause as long as no one knows
Then nobody can care
You're feelin' guilty
And I'm well aware
But you don't look ashamed
And baby I'm not scared
On the other hand that is also one of those things that annoys me about romance culture, the whole notion of your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband being "stolen" by someone else as if your partner was just a passive object instead of being the actual person in the cheating who made promises to you (which might or might not include sexual exclusivity depending on mutually agreed upon preferences between everyone in the relationship) and should keep those promises or break up with you no matter what any third person tempts them with.
follow me
set me free
trust me and we will escape from this city