Redefining Romance, part 2
 |
| Image description: A scene from the end of a childhood fave of mine, The Princess Diaries. While Mia's story of going from regular girl to princess does include some romance along the way, the best love stories in the film are not romantic (more on that later), something that I think a lot of media can learn from. I'll be discussing all that and so much more in this, another sequel post, and a big topic I can't wait to dive into. It's good to be back! |
Early in 2024, I did a post called “Redefining Romance” which, as
the name implies, was all about the ups and downs of romantic media. I explored
the ways romantic media can influence real-life perceptions of romance and its
role in our lives, chiefly how these things can be used against asexual and/or
aromantic people. The post heavily looked at how these concepts are portrayed,
how they’re accepted in fandom, and how those things can perhaps change moving
forward.
Of course, like many of my posts, I realized rather quickly that
this topic was large enough that it needed a second iteration to cover even
more of the ways I feel we can redefine this concept. I covered a lot of ground
in that post, so I highly recommend reading it or rereading it, because in it I
explore a lot of my mindset and my own attitudes towards romance as an
aromantic person. I also deeply acknowledge that romance isn’t a bad thing, and
unpack a lot of ideas about it as a concept.
Today, I plan to unpack those ideas even more fully, diving deeper
into the ways romance can be misused in media and the real-world implications
of that. As I said in that first post, romance and its portrayal in media
doesn’t necessarily need to change, but our thoughts around it might benefit
from being refreshed and our cultural attitudes rethought. So, without further
ado, let’s once again usher in Valentine’s Day season with a discussion about romance
– the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Too Much
of a Good Thing Can Be a Bad Thing
As I said in my first iteration of this post – and in many, many
other posts on this blog – I gladly own my strange anomaly status as a
sex-repulsed aromantic asexual who nevertheless loves a good romance. But I
think this strange intersection of things makes it easier for me to identify
that sometimes romance is too prevalent. Just like the old saying that it’s
possible to have too much of a good thing, I think our culture and our media’s
over-reliance on romance has incredibly adverse consequences that need to be
considered and should be at the forefront of any conversation about romantic
media.
Just to reiterate, there’s nothing wrong with romance. There’s
nothing wrong with seeking romance out in real life or in media. There’s
nothing wrong with imagining or pursuing an ideal romance for one’s self or
even prioritizing romance highly in one’s life. But all of these things can
become issues when one assumes that everyone feels the same way about romance
or that everyone should value romance above all else. That notion is called
“amatonormativity” – the societal pressure to make romance a priority in your life,
even when you may not wish to – and while romance media doesn’t always
highlight amatonormativity, I find that too much of it can, something that I
discussed at length in my first post.
Amatonormativity can crop up in a lot of ways in media, including
characters being treated as “less than” because they don’t have romance or as
having a character who doesn’t want romance go through an arc where they are
shown the supposed “error of their ways.” However, I believe that these aren’t
the only ways that we experience amatonormativity in media; on a more meta
level, I believe even the act of overemphasizing romantic media or making too
many things romantic when they don’t need to be also plays into this
problematic societal attitude.
This is because culture and media don’t exist in a vacuum. Rather,
they often act as mirror to one another, reflecting each other and shaping one
another in a constant circle. When our culture overly emphasizes romance, so
does our media, which in turn allows culture to keep emphasizing romance, which
then allows media to do the same. It becomes even more impossible to escape
this cycle, and it becomes even more allowable for people to scoff at and
dismiss aspec attitudes or identities because of it. Romance can be great, but
not when it’s the mandate, as it often feels in modern media.
For instance, something I’ve discussed when reviewing the novels
of aspec author Nicole Kornher-Stace is the fact that she actually struggled to
get her books published expressly because publishers didn’t think young readers
would be able to relate to a character who wasn’t in a romance. The
implications of that attitude are, quite frankly, both staggering and
disturbing. Just like sex sells, unfortunately so does romance, even when it
doesn’t make sense, and for that reason, our access to other stories can become
extremely limited.
While there will always be stories that don’t feature sex or
romance, finding them becomes that much harder when you know media platforms
are ignoring these stories or trying to change them. While Kornher-Stace
managed to find a publisher that let her tell the stories she wanted to tell,
how many other authors aren’t so lucky? How many stories are out there right
now that were forced to include romantic and/or sexual relationships where
perhaps none existed? In that sense, romance may be getting forced into our
media more than we know, and thus forced into our culture more than we realize.
Unfortunately, not even older media is exempt from this. Late last
year, while researching another project, I ended up reading the classic Jules
Verne adventure novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas for the
first time. I sincerely enjoyed the book for its own merits, but something that
I enjoyed in the background was the fact that the story, given its very insular
nature, doesn’t feature romance at all. Other than a brief mention that the
mysterious Captain Nemo once had a wife and children, there is very little about
the novel that entrenches the usual ideas of “normal life” that tend to be all
too present in media.
Part of my project also necessitated that I find and use clips
from the film adaptation – in this case, Walt Disney’s famous 1954 adaptation
of the book – which then led me down something of a rabbit hole of looking at
other film adaptations of the book as well. In doing so, I discovered that some of these adaptations decided that romance was actually a
necessity, and went out of their way to either add female characters for the
express purpose of making them romantic interests or even genderbending male
characters in order to let there be heterosexual romances where none existed in
the original source material.
The two main offenders of this can’t even claim to hide behind the
veil of vastly archaic attitudes, as they were both made in 1997. The first, a
miniseries version of the novel starring Michael Caine as Nemo, makes the main
character of Pierre Aronnax – an older gentleman in the novel – a much younger
man (and casts Patrick Demsey to play him) for the express purpose of
romantically attaching him to Nemo’s daughter Mara, a completely invented
character. The other miniseries from that same year chooses to keep Aronnax as
an older man, but gives him a daughter. This character is a replacement of a
male character in the novel, Aronnax’s loyal manservant Conseil, and instead
this daughter character exists to become involved in a love triangle between
Captain Nemo and the novel’s other prominent male character, Ned Land.
 |
| Image description: The 1997 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea miniseries, starring Michael Caine and Patrick Demsey. While romance is often used in an effort to make media more accessible and therefore more successful, the romance clearly did not help this adaptation, which was panned by critics as feeling incomplete and dull. |
I find it somewhat noteworthy that a novel written in 1869 manages to somehow be more aspec friendly than adaptations which are made over a hundred years later. But at the same time, I can’t say I’m exactly surprised by it either. As I mentioned earlier, there is clearly a pervasive attitude that romance is what makes media and characters relatable, and as long as that troubling attitude exists, romance will continue to be pushed in media as the be all to end all. But this raises a lot of questions for me as an aspec person.
Whether intentional or not, if non-romantic characters aren’t seen
as relatable, then by these same standards that means non-romantic people
aren’t either. And if society and culture continue to hold non-romantic people
as separate from the norm – whether these people are arospec or simply people who
aren’t prioritizing romance at a given time of their life – that creates an
atmosphere in which it feels like it’s not valid to be non-romantic. I fear
this in turn creates an environment where people feel forced to embrace
romance, even if they may not want it, just so they can feel “normal” and
“human.”
Recently, I watched a video in which the narrator said something
that really stuck with me: “Even if you want to do something, even if you were
planning on it anyway, the second someone takes away your choice, threatens
you, or takes away your ability to opt out, you are no longer free.” Not only
does this statement strike me from the standpoint of perfectly encapsulating
the struggle with consent within romantic fiction (which we’ll be discussing in
the next section), but I think it unintentionally speaks to the larger issue I
have with how romance is enshrined within our culture.
In our world, romance and romantic values rarely feel opt out. Sometimes
this is frighteningly literal, such as in cases where people have tragically
little agency over their own lives and choices; other times, even when people
can choose not to engage in romance, they still aren’t truly free. And
naturally, because our culture is influenced and shaped in no small part by
popular media, the inability to escape romance in our storytelling mediums is
especially problematic. How can we feel truly empowered to not prioritize
romance in our lives when media goes out of its way to celebrate it at the expense
of all else? How can we opt out of romantic culture when media’s glorification
of it makes it easier for people to look at a lack of romance – whether in
media or in life – as a bad thing?
I’ve mentioned in other blog posts that I think amatonormativity
is the enemy of good consent, and this is why – because even people who like
romance or even want romance for themselves can be affected by the way society
robs them of their ability to freely choose it. The prevalence of amatonormativity makes me question where this
romance obsession comes from and why romance is pushed so heavily in media, and
I believe the reason is because we’ve been taught to see romance as exciting
and satisfying, as the true "happy ending". But romance can only truly be all those things if it’s
optional, both for people in real life and for characters in media. If there’s
no choice in the matter, then even a perfectly crafted dream romance is
actually a nightmare.
Consent Is
More Romantic Than Most Romance
The discussion in the previous section really puts a finer point
on something that I think needs to be redefined in romantic media – not just
the idea of consent for characters, but a broader, bigger, consent-obsessed
attitude that I think needs to be reflected in all things related to romance.
As I said earlier, I believe romance is so entrenched in our society because
it’s perceived as satisfying. Like I did in my previous post on the subject,
allow me to quote one of my favorite video game characters, Cassandra
Pentaghast, a tough-as-nails warrior who is also a secret romantic, and who
summarizes this point best: “[Romance] is passion, it’s being swept away by the
pursuit of an ideal.”
I love this description because I think describing romance as
passion doesn’t just mean “sex” or “sexiness” as it might be easy to think;
rather, I think this passion speaks just of sheer emotion and the willingness
to embrace it. I’ve always considered myself a very passionate person in a way
totally devoid of anything sexual or romantic, instead focused on my own
pursuits of my own ideals, and I think that type of passion leads to some great
creative works of art. Romance is no exception to that, and I think too often
people miss that a great romance should be about that passionate pursuit of the
ideal because they get too caught up in the idea of a sexy, spicy, titillating
romance instead.
In my opinion, if we’re redefining the way romance works or how it
should look, we need to redefine how we view consent’s role in romance and
romantic media. While I believe very passionately that any good media should
have characters who are consent-obsessed, I also think the true
consent-obsession should be something that the creators and fans of media
pursue as well. This includes how our media is written, of course, but it also
extends to how media is consumed and interpreted.
Something that I think is essential to consent is understanding
that not everyone wants or values the same things. Some people may be perfectly
fine with certain things, and those same things could be absolutely unacceptable
for others, and that goes for sex, romance, and general human interactions.
True consent is about bridging the divide between people by respecting and
honoring their boundaries while they also respect yours; but that requires mutual
understanding and cooperation.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this point, in that we can
apply these same tenants of consent-obsession to how we interact with each
other in media and fandom spaces. If we can just come to understand that
different people interact with media differently, I think we’ll all be better
off. If you want to ship characters or have a great time envisioning romantic scenarios
for characters, that’s great! But not everyone around you is going to share
that same desire, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean they’re less worthy of
being in the fandom or that they themselves are somehow “less than,” and I
think those attitudes need to be challenged if we want to have a better media
and fandom landscape.
Freeing Our
Thinking
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I happily own my
duality of being an aromantic aspec who nevertheless loves romance, but every
now and then I do stop and ask myself what I love about romantic media. In my
previous post on this subject, I even mentioned that I went through a period of
time where I found any kind of romantic media so off-putting that I’d reject it
out of hand, perhaps understandable considering I was a young aspec person trying
to figure out her identity amid an otherwise overwhelming media landscape of
sex and romance. Even to this day, despite my love of good romance, there are
still some tropes I hate or certain types of romance for certain types of
characters that enrage me.
But there are undoubtedly things that I love in romance, things
that draw me into a story or a relationship dynamic, even as an aromantic. For instance,
I love when a romantic couple works because they perfectly understand one
another, or when they share an absolute trust that serves as the backbone of
everything they do. Probably not surprising given my intense advocacy for good
consent in relationships of all kinds, there’s nothing more romantic to me than
seeing how a couple comes to respect and value each other as people, and how
their love blossoms organically through this shared closeness. Throw in a few
of my favorite tropes such as everlasting bonds and couples for whom it’s the
two of them against the rest of the world, and I’m absolutely going to fangirl.
However, it should be noted that many of these tropes or elements don’t
have to be inherently romantic, and in fact some of my other favorite dynamics
between characters are purely platonic versions of some of the things listed
above. So what’s the difference for me between shipping characters or hoping
they remain friends? How do I walk the line between loving a concept when I see
it in the romantic sense, but then also liking many of these concepts in a more
platonic sense?
To be honest, it can be a thin line at times, even for me, and I
think a large part of it does boil down to the act of making romance opt in.
Just like I mentioned in the last section, we need to let people – and characters
– be free to make the choice as to whether they want romance or not. I know I’m
starting to sound like a broken record, but it is imperative to normalize the
idea that some people want romance and that’s okay, and some people don’t want
romance and that’s also okay.
The fact that I’m able to conceive of a world where some characters
and their interactions fit well within the framework of a romance and other
characters don’t is extremely important to how I relate to romantic media. Because
of my identity, my thinking is not constrained by the limits of only seeing
romance and, although I admit it’s very self-serving of me to say so, I think
our culture would be vastly aided if more people could likewise free their
thinking.
Again, there is nothing wrong with shipping characters or loving
romance or seeing things through a more romantic lens. But it isn’t the only
lens – a truth that I think many fandoms tend to forget, as I discussed extensively
in this post’s original iteration. The sad reality is, because romance,
shipping, and romantic media don’t exist in a vacuum, the over-reliance on
romance and making everything romantic can easily become toxic. There is a
distressing amount of people, even within queer spaces, who believe aspec
people - aromantic people in particular - are not valid, and those attitudes have
to come from somewhere. Is perhaps our media obsession with romance
at least partially to blame? While I can’t be certain, I do think an over-emphasis
on romance helps no one.
This is why I desperately want to redefine romance and why I
dearly hope people will make the effort to free their thinking. Shipping is
optional. Romance isn’t necessary. We’re allowed to pick and choose what we see
when we consume a piece of media, and we don’t have to reward one at the
detriment of the other. Even better, romance and friendship are allowed to
exist side-by-side, and I find that the best pieces of media tend to be ones
that allow for both of these things to flourish. I also think some of the best
media allows for dynamics that might otherwise be seen as romantic to exist in
a platonic sense, something I was discussing earlier, and which I think can
even be taken a step farther.
 |
| Image description: Cassandra and Cullen, one of my favorite friendship duos, from Dragon Age: Inquisition. While of course there are those who ship these two characters, I've always valued the way the game allows them to be seen as friends and allies during their interactions. Their bond is just one example of how the game allows both great friendships and platonic bonds to exist alongside romances. |
One element of freeing our thinking, I believe, has to do with examining the words we use to discuss certain concepts. I have never liked trying to be the language police around certain aspec concepts. Other than a few words I wouldn’t mind seeing disappear from the conversation (like the eternally-damaging “prude”), I don’t see there being a lot of value in saying “this” word or “that” word shouldn’t be used anymore. However, I think there are some words that could stand to be freed from their traditional definitions and associations, especially when it comes to things that are traditionally seen as “romance only.”
For instance, in my previous “Redefining Romance” post, I
mentioned the concept of soulmates and how I’d like to see that acknowledged as
something that doesn’t have to be romantic. But this notion doesn’t just stop
with that one term. Rather, there are a great deal of words, concepts, and
ideas that I’d like to see reframed – or, dare I say, redefined – so that they
can exist in a non-romantic context too. One of the biggest examples of this
would just be the word “love” itself, as well as other related concepts
surrounding it.
These things do not have to be inherently romantic and the fact
that they’re often framed as such is not only very isolating for aspec people,
especially those on the aromantic spectrums, but I believe it also devalues the
concept itself. As I said in my first “Redefining Romance” post, other forms of
love are not a guarantee, but rather a privilege. Not everyone may experience
other forms of love like those that may come from friends, family, pets,
passion projects, etc., nor should they be made to feel bad for it. While
romance may sometimes have to do the work of covering these other types of
love, that doesn’t always have to be the case with what we see portrayed.
It's perfectly okay to enshrine romance as important, but not all
love can or should be interpreted this way, and I believe it’s a mistake to
always assume love as a concept is always inherently romantic or that it has to
be. My favorite band BTS and their music is a great example of how love
language can be used to express feelings that are not inherently romantic, and
yet people often assume they must be because they’re attached to the idea of
the language only being used for romance. In a similar vein, the idea that “loving”
something needs to have a romantic and/or sexual component is a huge
frustration in my own life, and I believe it limits a great deal of creative
expression and suppresses a lot of relationships that don’t have to be
suppressed.
 |
| Image description: V (left) and Jimin (right) of the band BTS. While the entire band fits the theme of this post exceptionally well, I chose to showcase V and Jimin here because they do an excellent job of un-romanticizing the concept of "soulmates" |
In general, it’s apparent that audiences have come to expect romance and/or sex from certain character interactions, and I believe it’s also just as apparent that many fandoms – or specific elements of fandom like fanfiction and fan art – have been forged to focus heavily on these things. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, nor is it inherently an aphobic thing; after all, there are plenty of aspec people who are okay with things like smut fanfic or Not Safe For Work fan art, and there are plenty more aspec people who, like me, enjoy shipping characters or writing/reading romance. However, what it does end up doing is making it difficult for aspec interpretations to be respected because romance is so heavily accepted as gospel.
Returning to my earlier point about things I do love in romance
but that don’t have to be inherently romantic, another example of a concept I’d
love to see freed from inherent romantic association is the idea of being
understood. To unpack this notion, I’d like to discuss a movie from my
childhood. Last year, during a sick day that found me off of work and lounging
on my sofa, I decided to tap into some nostalgia with a rewatch of The
Princess Diaries, a movie that does contain prominent romance plots, but
also contains many other incredible non-romantic relationships.
During the making-of featurette on the DVD, the film’s director
Garry Marshall discusses how everyone wants someone to understand them and
wants to believe they can find that person. Although Mia’s romance certainly
follows that path – in a rather adorable way, if you ask me – the idea of being
understood doesn’t only have to come in the form of romance, and can be
portrayed as coming from many sources, including one’s own self. In fact, if
you think about it, the true romance at the center of The Princess Diaries
may very well be self-love and the idea that we can grow and come into our own.
Self-love is something that has become increasingly important to
me over the years, but I’m always surprised by the hostility and suspicion that
this concept is often met with. While I don’t doubt this comes from a number of
sources for a variety of reasons (some of which are very valid), I have to
wonder if some of this suspicion comes about because of how we’ve been taught
to think about romance, self-worth, and the expected paths our lives are
supposed to take.
I can’t help but feel frustration at the idea that romance is
enforced in society to the point of absurdity while the idea of loving and
valuing one’s self is seen as egotistical and narcissistic. As such, I’d be
very glad if the idea of self-love being a bad thing could be examined and
redefined as well, freeing it from its strange negative connotations. By reclaiming
this and many of the other words I’ve mentioned here, I believe we can begin
thinking about the concept of romance, our media, and ourselves in ways we
never imagined possible.
 |
| Image description: Another image from The Princess Diaries, this one featuring Mia and her grandmother, another incredible bond of love at the heart of the film. |
Like many people, I live a life that’s surrounded by romance, but when you’re aspec and/or arospec, that isn’t always easy. While I think romance is a beautiful thing that should be treated with respect, I likewise think that people on the aromantic spectrum whose lives don’t include romance should be allowed to live their lives in peace – and I especially think that those two truths can exist together. The only way they can coexist, however, is if we’re willing to put romance under a microscope and think deeply about how it functions in our culture.
Although I am just one person, I hope my posts can be a small part
of that effort. The act of redefining concepts begins by first being curious
and asking questions, by exploring what is and what could be. When I look at the
media around me, I see so much potential for better storytelling – the type of
improvements that would enhance romance and other relationships in a way I
think will benefit us all. In this season of love, I hope we can all open our
eyes to these possibilities and remember that there is no better way to express
love than to extend acceptance to others. It might not make the best Valentine’s
card, but I know it’s the message I’d personally most love to receive.
Comments
Post a Comment