Redefining Romance

 

Image description: The incredible Cassandra Pentaghast from the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, seen here reading her favorite romance novel (pretend you don't know this about her). Not only do I discuss Cass extensively in today's blog post for reasons you'll see in a minute, but this image is somewhat appropriate for today's topic, all about romance in media, why it's great, why it can be not so great, and how I believe it can become better for everyone in future.

I talk about various forms of love a lot on the blog. You can find it in posts like the obviously named overview “Redefining Love”, or in posts specifically about romance where I celebrate my love of a well-crafted romantic tale, as documented in things like my two “How K-Dramas Do Romance” posts. While it may seem a little ironic that an aspec person who identifies as aromantic spends so much time talking about romance in particular, I think it’s essential for my analysis. After all, romantic and/or sexual love are extremely prevalent in our media, reflecting their prevalence in our society. One of my goals on this blog is to discuss that these things are neither a given nor a requirement, and so to do that, I obviously need to discuss these things in great depth, often providing definitions, redefinitions, and challenges when necessary.

And, as I said, I really do enjoy a well-told romance, so I believe thoughtful criticism is especially important if I want to enjoy romantic media well into the future. This is because it’s unfortunately very easy for romantic media to wander into aphobic territory, or put forth messages that, while not inherently aphobic, can lead to people misunderstanding certain facets of the aspec experience, especially when it comes to the aromantic spectrum. Beyond that, they can also contain elements that are problematic in a broader, more diverse context, not just affecting aspec people, but affecting people of all genders, sexualities, and backgrounds. These things are a two-fold problem – first in the fact that they represent problematic attitudes still very present within society, and second in that this media often then influences real-world attitudes even further, creating a vicious cycle.

However, I don’t think this cycle is unbreakable. So today, I want to talk about love yet again on the blog – rather appropriately, given the time of year when I’m writing this post – and this time I want to focus specifically on romance. Again, it might seem strange to be listening to this criticism and advice from an aromantic person, but I believe being outside of traditional ideas on romance actually puts me in a great position to analyze these things in a way that might be difficult for most people. Romance isn’t the problem, but I believe it can and should be examined, both as something that’s portrayed in media and something that’s enforced and discussed in real life. So, in honor of the supposed season of romance, let’s talk about how this concept can and should be redefined.

Spoiler warning! 

Dragon Age: Inquisition (specifically Cassandra's romance)

Brave (minor spoilers)

Frozen (minor spoilers)

Content warning: Discussions of Aphobia and other discrimination

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What Romance in Media Means – And Doesn’t Mean – to Me

Naturally, being a sex-repulsed aromantic asexual means that my relationship with romantic media can be quite unique. Considering I started my aspec journey as a teenager, I quickly unlearned many of the lessons about romance in the real world that media tends to instill in us, while other lessons I never learned at all. But even before my aspec journey began, I’ve always tended to relate to romantic media very differently. For instance, although I was raised on classic romantic tales from Disney, I was never a romcom person and still largely am not, meaning I missed a huge part of what formed romantic ideals for many people.

Beyond that, as I’ve mentioned before on the blog, I went through a period in my life where I actually disliked romance and avoided most media that involved romantic plots. This was during the time in my life when I was trying to figure out my aspec identity and had nothing to describe my feelings, nor did I have anything to model my life path on due to the lack of mainstream representation of these ideas. In addition to not seeing many people like me in popular media, I often saw the exact opposite – examples of people who were portrayed negatively due to their lack of romance, or characters for whom romance was revealed to be something they were missing in their life, much to their determent. Obviously I’ve discussed tropes like these a great deal on the blog, so I won’t go into detail here. But, suffice to say, I’m sure you can see how a young teenager still figuring out her identity would find these things frustrating enough to want to avoid romance in media at all costs.

Image description: The dance scene from the Disney masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast. Growing up, my main romantic media was Disney love stories, and for a long time they were one of the only types of romantic media I could tolerate.

Over the years, I’ve developed a healthy appreciation of romance in media and have become an avid shipper and writer of romantic fanfic. But I’ve also developed the skill to take off what my best friend and I used to call our “shipping goggles” – the thing that made us want to see potential pairings everywhere – and enjoy times when media chooses to go a different route. More than that, as I’ve continued on my personal journey, I’ve grown even more in my belief that we need more examples of non-romantic dynamics and characters. This is something that I’ve seen other aspec people and creators express, telling their own stories about how these portrayals would have helped them too when they were young and trying to figure themselves out.

Obviously my unique circumstances allow me to take that viewpoint, but I believe this isn’t just something that will positively impact certain aspec people, but something that is actually a good thing for all people and for all types of stories. Even for people who want to someday have a romance for themselves, seeing other types of relationships has the power to be extremely helpful in showing them that romance doesn’t have to be treated as the most important thing in life, nor does it have to be the only way to get emotional fulfillment (more on this in a minute). So, when I talk about redefining romance as a concept, this is predominantly what I mean, and there are a few key beliefs I think highlight why this is essential.

Romance Is Not the Magic Fix-All

The heading of this section may sound like an obvious platitude, something that many people may have already adopted as a statement of self-empowerment. And yet, there are many people who still believe that romance is essential to life, and often use that as an excuse to meddle in the lives of others. More than that, this is still very prevalent in our media, especially when it comes to "love stories." Of course, not everyone has equal access to love; familial love, parental love, the love of friends, other forms of unconditional love, etc. are all privileges, not guarantees, and so it’s not surprising that many people need romantic and/or sexual love to supplement these concepts. Furthermore, not having any of these things is not something to be ashamed of, nor should a person feel bad if they know they crave romantic love more than any of these things.

But when it comes to media and fandom, I have often seen how non-romantic things are often treated as “less than” and even looked on with suspicion, as if these things can’t possibly be true and must be some kind of undesirable state to be “corrected.” This can be as simple as fanfiction without shipping being less popular than romantic and/or sexual stories, or it can be something as large and insidious as the erasure of a character’s aspec tendencies to fit a narrative. But it all points to the same tendency to make romance the highest and most respected state of being. While there’s nothing wrong with ascribing this level of importance to romance in one’s own life, it is wrong to believe that everyone should – a problem that becomes worse especially because romance is often treated by media and fandoms like the magical secret to all happiness.

In many cases, I don’t think people even realize they’re doing this – they’re just merely enjoying the dynamic between two characters and are expressing that as fandoms do. But while this is not inherently a bad thing, sometimes it can lead to various issues. For instance, I admit I haven’t seen the Disney animated film Wish, but recently, I have seen some interesting things about the movie’s development process. Apparently, in the original iteration of the story, the film’s anthropomorphic wishing star was not supposed to be a cutesy little celestial being, but rather was supposed to be a humanoid character the internet has taken to calling Starboy.

One of the descriptions of Starboy in that original storyboard refers to him as being the main character Asha’s soulmate. Setting aside the fact that soulmate does not, despite common associations of the term, have to be a romantic concept, the internet obviously has very strong feelings about the idea of these characters being romantically involved. From what I’ve seen, I admit the relationship had the potential to be very cute, and I can’t blame people for feeling robbed of this story, especially given the flaws of the final product (so I’ve heard). However, I think the internet’s response to it should be discussed, even though this story never manifested, because I think it covers many of the points of this post.

Image description: A screenshot (obtained from Google, pic not my own) from a book about Wish's development and original concept. As you can see from the photos and descriptions, the concept of "Starboy" went through a lot of iterations and several different ideas were discussed, but the online fandom community is mainly centered around the idea of him as Asha's romantic partner.

For a start, as an aspec person, I find myself leery of the possible development for a character like Starboy and the prospect of a romantic relationship. Although characters of this type are actually not unusual, I find myself worrying that Starboy would fall into any of the common tropes I discuss on this blog that plague non-human characters. A romance with Asha could have potentially exacerbated this, making it seem like romance is the thing that makes someone human.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the idea that love is what makes someone human, but that love does not have to be romantic. However, romantic love seems to be what most people think it should have been in this case. Again, I can’t say I blame them, considering that seems to be the original intention of the movie (down to the fact that demo versions of certain songs exist that seem to have pointed to the romance). But I do suspect that Starboy learning to be human and also learning to love Asha may have been conflated in a way that would have been unfortunately difficult to swallow.

Overall, I can’t say for sure if a romance would have saved Wish – given the final product, it doesn’t seem like it would have hurt at the very least. But I also don’t know if a lack of romance was exactly the problem either, and I personally think it’s a mistake to assume that it was. Disney has produced many wonderful romances and there’s nothing wrong with loving those classic tales or hoping to see more of them in future. But I also think a large portion of the internet doesn’t realize how important visible non-romantic characters can be for those of us who crave this type of representation.

Again, not having seen Wish, I don’t know if Asha is a good character, and I can’t say if romance would have been better or worse for her. But I can talk about other non-romantic Disney characters that have meant the world to me, such as Merida from Pixar’s Brave. I know there are those out there who believe Merida should have had a romantic relationship or who gladly ship her with other characters – whether from the film or from other pieces of media. I’m not blaming them for their “shipping goggles,” but from an aspec perspective, it is a bit disheartening to see. Whether intentional or not, these things feel as though they ignore the validity of Merida being non-romantic and what seeing that story might mean to real people who are likewise non-romantic, whether on the aromantic spectrum or otherwise.

Admittedly, when I look at the mental gymnastics people often have to do to ship characters like Merida or other non-romantic heroines like Elsa from Frozen, it makes me scratch my head. This type of mental back-bending isn’t just done by fandoms, however, but sometimes happens within the media a character appears in. While romance certainly can and often is an important element for many characters, it doesn’t have to be, and there are some instances where it really doesn’t add anything to the story. Even if fans might enjoy it, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the right choice.

Circling back to Wish, this is a movie that might have been saved by other things that aren’t romance or dependent on a romance subplot. On the flip side, it still may have been a bad movie even with the romance, or the romance itself might have ended up being poorly written. All that to say, we have absolutely no way of knowing if romance would have improved the story or kept it the same. Romance is not a magic bullet to better storytelling; rather, it’s just one of many possible avenues and techniques, and better storytelling is possible even without romance.

De-Fantasize the Fantasy

This section is, I admit, going to be a bit meandering as I attempt to explain what I believe is an important but difficult to define concept. If I had to summarize this point in one sentence, it would be the following: there is nothing wrong with pursuing your personal ideal romance, but it’s a mistake to think that everyone wants or needs that, or that everyone has the same notion of what the “ideal” even is. Obviously as an aromantic asexual person, I don’t have an ideal romance or type of person in mind, because that’s not what I’m looking for from my life. But that fact doesn’t deter things in my environment from trying to convince me that it should be – whether that’s media, advertisements, or people on the internet.

I know I’m not alone in that struggle, and I’ve seen many aspec people discuss the difficulty of striving to be themselves in an atmosphere that tries to tell them they’re broken for not wanting these things. I believe that’s because, for many of us, our society often tries to sell us the “ideal version of life”. This is a complex issue, and the supposed “ideal” to which we are all supposed to be striving often changes depending on circumstances, but I’m sure you can think of examples of what I mean. How often do you see things trying to sell you a picture-perfect version of life? It’s everywhere from commercials to social media, trying to convince people that they’re only going to be happy, successful, well-liked, etc. if their life looks like it does in photos, magazines, and movies. Not to get too deep into this topic, but in short, everyone is trying to sell us the perfect fantasy.

As a writer and a big-time fangirl, I can tell you firsthand that the ability to fantasize and imagine a better world is vital, whether that better world is a utopic future or just a simple short-term personal future. I think there should always be things in our life that are held separately and above the regular parts of life, and there’s nothing wrong with having a rich imagination or picturing a better, more beautiful world. In fact, improving the world around us is possible only if we can fantasize a better one.

This goes for romance, too. Perhaps this is because I don't have to worry about the desire for a romantic partner and thus I can make these judgments, but I believe there’s nothing wrong with searching for the ideal. The best way I can think to describe this comes from one of my favorite characters in the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition – Cassandra Pentaghast. Tough, strong, and resilient, Cassandra harbors a secret romantic side, and loves romance novels, which she describes as being “swept away by the pursuit of an ideal.” If your character romances her, therefore, she tells you she wants this ideal in her own life – a man who will read her poetry by candlelight and sweep her off her feet and give her the passionate ideal she’s always imagined.

Image description: Cassandra Pentaghast as she appears in Dragon Age: Inquisition

I love that Cassandra is adamant about this point, and that she doesn’t want a romantic partner that isn’t willing to acknowledge this part of her; in her eyes, this is the base minimum of what she wants, and she’s not willing to compromise. I don’t think that’s a tall ask, so when I say we need to de-fantasize the fantasy romance, I don’t mean giving up these things. Again, I’m a fangirl and I’ve written enough “ideal romance” fanfic in my life to understand why this notion is attractive to people, and I believe they should passionately pursue what they know they want and deserve.

Rather, when I call for people to de-fantasize their fantasy notions, I want people to separate the fictional from the real. This is not something I often advocate, nor do I ever advocate giving up your comfort media. But this section of the post is the real-life consequence of what I discussed in the last section; that is to say, I think romance can become a problem when people assume that real-life romance is going to be the magical fix-all it often is for characters in a piece of media or the way it often is for those of us reading/watching a “perfect romance” at the end of a long day.

I think the generally accepted standards of the perfect romance are indeed possible – yes, you can find romantic partners that will hold an umbrella for you in the rain or carry you home when you’re sick (a common K-Drama trope that gets me every time). But that doesn’t mean everyone wants those standards in their own life, nor does it mean those things have to be inherently romantic. As an aromantic who loves romance but likes to emphasize that romance is not a requirement in life, I have seen firsthand how the ideal romance is often idealized into massive and problematic proportions.

For example, something I’ve discussed for a while is the way non-romantic characters and real people are treated as needing romance, or how it’s often considered sad that they don’t have these things. I’m not talking about characters or people who actively want these things, of course, because if someone wants these things and can’t have them for some reason, then yes, that is sad. But in many instances, these are characters and/or people who are not expressing an interest in romance and seem fine without it, yet are essentially being forced into something they don’t want in the name of the “ideal.”

There are many reasons why society expects romance to be a necessity, often dealing with definitions of “normal” and people wanting to see what have been termed “normal” relationships. But ironically enough considering that fact, I think the idea of fantasy also plays just as much of a role. When media shows us romances that are magical and defy all odds and lead to wonderfully better lives, I think it’s inevitable that people will try to model their real-life relationships off of these fantasy ones, if only to try and live out said fantasy. But not everyone wants that, and the idea that they do can become toxic very quickly, especially when people try to push non-romantic people in that direction.

Furthermore, like I said, a lot of the things that are considered part of the fantasy romance experience are not solely, inherently, or implicitly romantic. While being read poetry by candlelight certainly is, having someone hold an umbrella for you or carry you home piggyback style (again, a K-Drama classic) does not have to be exclusive only to romance. Rather, it’s all about how these things are portrayed within context, and sometimes this can get muddled so that certain things are considered romantic despite the context saying otherwise. The obsession with romance or ascribing romantic notions to things has, in my eyes, severely limited the ability to express certain emotions, making it harder for platonic expression to be fully realized.

So, de-fantasize the fantasy of romance being universal or only looking a certain way. De-fantasize the idea that only this type of love matters. Doing so, I believe, makes romance even stronger, and allows people to articulate their wants or needs better than ever before. By accepting that not everyone wants these things and that the “ideal” of some people may be a nightmare to others, we can make those actual fantasy romances mean more. By respecting those fantasy romances in storytelling, I think we can strengthen real ones and allow even more people to find their own ideal.

Using Cassandra Pentaghast and her unwillingness to compromise as an example, I think a lot of people could learn from her romance-specific storyline – regardless of their gender, sexual/romantic orientation, or situation. If the player character doesn’t want this type of romance, Cassandra respects that, but doesn’t settle. Instead, she tells them she is truly flattered, and puts an end to anything before it can start. If the player takes the crueler path and criticizes her for these attitudes, stating they’re just an excuse to make sure she “never has to be with anyone,” Cassandra’s response is a masterclass in self-love: “I think too much of myself to settle for less.”

So, to summarize, I hope more people can be like Cassandra and not settle for less than what they deserve. But I also hope society can allow aspec people to do likewise. Unlike Cass, I don’t want an ideal romance for myself, but in my eyes, my ideal fantasy is being allowed to love the romance I see in media without the expectation that one day I should have one for myself. Being without romance is not a sad thing or a personal failure; rather, it’s just an extension of living my true, authentic life. Some people may respond as the player character can, with dismissal and disrespect, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen. And, like Cassandra says, I think too much of myself to settle for anything less than my own ideal life, romance not required.

Image description: Another pic of Cassandra, an inspiration to anyone who longs to know and embrace themselves (special thanks to my dear friend Laura for finding this in her Dragon Age screenshot folder for me).

In my opinion, romance and its portrayals shouldn’t disappear; in many cases, romance doesn’t even have to change much. Rather, what does need to change is how it’s presented to us and how we as audiences accept it. More than that, I believe we also need to change perceptions of non-romantic characters, plotlines, and people. People who don’t like romance or who want to see more non-romantic storylines portrayed are not automatically bitter people who hate love, and it’s not right to label them as such.

Likewise, in many cases, they’re probably not trying to take things away from people who enjoy romance, nor are they automatically trying to invalidate the experiences of anyone or any group of people. Consider instead that many of them might be starving for alternate expressions of love or alternate types of relationships, many of which are not often portrayed in media or aren’t portrayed well. I believe it costs nothing to portray these types of relationships, and I likewise believe these things can be beneficial in so many ways.

Despite my appreciation of romance, I wish that non-romantic characters and stories were treated with the same type of serious emotion that romantic ones are. It seems romantic stories tend to be enshrined as iconic, genre-defining, obsession-worthy classics, whereas non-romantic ones seem far easier to push aside. This doesn’t need to be the standard, though; we can have amazing romances and amazing non-romances stand side-by-side and be respected. But, for this to happen, I think media and fandom alike need to take a step back and realize that romance isn’t the be all to end all. If non-romantic bonds are treated with the same respect as romantic ones, I believe we can tell better stories and influence our culture in an overall positive way – and that is something worth falling head over heels for.