615: Romancing The Stone
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Are you the lone wolf that can’t be tied down or are you the relationship-seeking wooer that won’t take no for an answer? This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out to talk about the commonly seen media trope of a pairing that consists of one person who doesn’t want to be in a romantic relationship and one person who is 100% convinced they can change their mind.
Media pretty much always only shows examples of this trope through a monogamous and allosexual lens. It completely ignores that aromantics and asexuals exist who might just really not have any interest in dating or romantic relationships, and also largely ignores that people may be seeking a relationship outside of the lens of monogamy.
This trope is particularly gross like 90% of the time when it is applied to straight couples, but when it is applied to queer couples we think it can actually work. Often these stories play out with the man not wanting a relationship and a woman working hard to change him. But even after she does “win” a relationship with him, he still really has not changed as a person and still is overall misogynistic. There are also really uncomfortable consent issues with a man continuing to pursue a woman who consistently turns him down. The lesson these stories teach is that you can change anyone if you are the right person, which is an extremely toxic message to learn.
The reason this trope feels so much less problematic for queer couples is that there is usually a lot more nuance behind why someone does not want a relationship. They might not be fully out yet. They may still be trying to figure out their sexuality. It might not be safe to be publicly out in their career. It’s not the same as in straight pairings where the man just is a ‘bad boy’ who doesn’t want to be tied down and just wants to sleep with whoever he wants (except in the case of Shane who is literally the queer version of that exact archetype). But in cases that aren’t Shane, it usually looks less like someone only changing due to the annoying persistence of their pursuer and instead just happening to fall in love.
Some places we’ve seen this trope work are in Glee with Santana and Brittany, She-Ra with Catradora, and Teenage Bounty Hunters with Stepril. We also think it does occasionally work in straight media, because arguably The Notebook has this dynamic but Ellie still eats it up everytime. And we do like how 500 Days of Summer flips the trope on its head a bit, because it has the woman being the one who does not want a relationship and they do not end up together in the end.
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