Have you ever consumed a piece of media and wondered why the romance was given such a large amount of importance? And why it was pushed, possibly abruptly or unnaturally, within a story?
Writers have a habit of pushing romance as the most fulfilling thing in our lives. That even in the presence of hobbies, careers, and other interests, romance is a primarily fulfilling concept that exists as our end to pursue.
Now, this isn’t necessarily wrong or bad as an idea of life fulfillment. Biologically, we are wired to find a mate to produce offspring.
What we may find strange is that writers seem to pursue romance to such an extent that plots and characters are distorted entirely for this purpose.
Take the film "Dew the Movie"- a Thai film centering around the lives of two gay teenagers. The plot, very simply put, has one of them die and reincarnate as a 16-year-old schoolgirl who meets one of the original boys 16 years later. The original boy who is now around 30 realizes that she is his old lover’s reincarnation. As both end up realizing and desire to be together but cannot due to one of them being a woman and another being 16 years older than her, they decide to jump off a cliff and die to achieve reincarnation and find each other years later.
This is a good example of where writers will create an entire plot and idea that exists solely to get the romantic leads together.
Take the hit Korean drama, Start-Up. By around its 12th episode, the main romantic leads are unable to form a romantic relationship and break it off along with taking different career paths. The break-up episode finally has our main character joining a new company, fixing her relationship with her estranged sister and mother, and overall gaining a much more fulfilling life while the main male lead goes on to accomplish his dream of working in a large company in Silicon Valley. The episode ended in an unexpected place, but it was realistic and enjoyable nonetheless, showing its viewers that you can achieve your dreams without necessarily having a lover. But the show did not end here, it took 4 more episodes with a time skip and extended storyline dedicated to getting the two main leads together. Half the show was made to view a woman’s attempt at entering the tech start-up workspace and handling the different issues that, both emotionally and logistically, come with it. It didn’t need to do more, but it did simply because it was required to given the norm of pushing romances in Korean dramas.
It is obvious even without these examples and instead by intuition from the media we already consume that much of it promotes this skewed idea of romance, often interfering with the story itself.
But the explanation for why this happens may not be so simple. One could simply say it is for escape from reality or ‘feel-good moments’ and writers seem to take advantage of hundreds of viewers who espouse and follow this line of reasoning and enjoyment.
The primary advantage of pushing for romance seems to be in popularity and ratings.
Let’s take the example of popular anime, Nisekoi. The show effectively centers around its protagonist being ‘fought’ for by three different women, all of whom are romantically interested in him for specific reasons.
This high school manga led on for around 4 years and during that period consistently took advantage of the competition there was between its female leads.
Viewers of the anime and readers of the manga would take to Twitter and argue about who was a ‘better girl’, initiating what many in the anime community call ‘Waifu Wars’. Writers and producers enjoy this kind of publicity simply because it manages to bring in more viewership and help increase ratings and possible merchandising sales. This doesn’t necessarily limit itself to Japan either, Korean show Start-Up did the same too, with viewers taking up ‘Teams’ for which male lead they supported to get together with the main lead. This is something that exists in plenty of media spanning across different languages.
Notice how in these instances, even if a writer wanted to portray a realistic relationship, they effectively can’t because of the way the audience expects these romances to play out as well as how many writers take advantage of this outright. Nisekoi on several occasions would prevent its characters from getting together using the most trivial and mundane reasons and interruptions to make sure the story would continue and make more money.
Now the system of a writer being forced to appeal to audiences is not uncommon but within the context of something like this, where the story pushes characters together without any real purpose to do so apart from appealing to its viewers, can often create false perceptions in viewers as to how romance, relationships, and social connections work.
And in common worst-case scenarios, this can often push absurd notions of what one has to do to be in a relationship. Several shows present partner abuse, both physically and mentally, as acceptable form of ‘love’ without disapproving of the action of abuse within the story simply because ‘love triumphs all’ and ‘we take the harms from those we love’. Partners are presented as those who must put up with one another and not those who accommodate and respect one another, which are two contrasting things but portrayed as equal in an abundance of storage. For young impressionable viewers, this can create a skewed sense of what healthy relationships look like and push them into relationships that may harm them and put them in positions of abuse.
So even though the idea of pushing romance isn’t harmful in itself, it leads to the creation of stories that push for unrealistic romantic expectations, accepting abuse and stories which never needed them in the first place along with a plethora of new writers who see this success and emulate the same to gain their own.
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