Bad Romance

In the Spring term of 2020 at community college, I took a Shakespeare course where our final essay compared his plays to modern media. While reading Romeo and Juliet, I realized many media forms echo similar themes. I compared it to the Twilight Saga, focusing on the concepts of lust at first sight and love triangles. Years later, this essay made me reflect on romance tropes in young adult media that I find the most uneasy. This overarching theme, often coupled with an irresistible pull of forbidden love, often present a suffocating, toxic idea of love. It feels as if the media has prescribed a certain kind of love, a certain kind of passion that ought to exist between two individuals. With little romantic experience myself, I found it difficult to align these idealized versions with real-life interactions. But before I get into this tangent, I have little to no experience in relationships of any kind and this is my blind and bias opinion on most of the popular books, shows and movies that I have either skimmed through or never brought myself to indulge in during my informative teen years.

As I wrote in my paper, there was this whole Team Edward/Team Jacob debate and whom Bella should be with. I could easily conclude, even without having full context from the books, that Jacob never stood a chance with Bella. Her infatuation with Edward was intense and immediate, it was as if the heroine's whole existence revolved around her love interest, and she had no identity outside of that relationship. It wasn't so much a love triangle as it was a straight line from Bella to Edward, with Jacob standing off to the side as an ever-present but ultimately unchosen option.

This theme was not just limited to Twilight. I found it in many young adult novels, films, and TV series that I have watched over the years. The Hunger Games had Katniss Everdeen torn between her childhood friend Gale and the boy she shared a traumatic experience with, Peeta. The storyline felt so underwhelming when her main conflict was surviving a dystopian society that celebrates a annual fight to the death, and her indifference towards the situation was almost disappointing. I wondered if there wasn't a way to develop her character without her being thrown in a romantic dilemma.

In the first two To All the Boys, trilogy, Lara Jean's poor communication with Peter, Josh, and John Ambrose, was so frustrating, that I would find myself in annoyance with Lara Jean; Her tendency to keep her feelings bottled up, coupled with her hesitance to speak her mind, created a tension that hung in the air. Each interaction became a tightrope walk of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, leaving both her feelings and her relationships teetering on the edge of uncertainty.

Over the years, I've noticed a recurring theme in movies and television of young girls caught in unnecessary love triangles. As a writer, this would be considered as person vs. person conflicts, adding drama but often lacking depth. My main critique is the lack of meaningful interaction with the heroine. Teen dramas during my high school days like Degrassi, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl (never watched the shows but seen enough clips to make my assumptions) suffer the same pitfall, with forced and superficial relationships driven by plot over character development. Love triangles often hinge on miscommunication, reflecting unrealistic and unhealthy narratives. They suggest that one must always choose between two options, vying for attention, which is neither realistic nor healthy.

Furthermore, the true essence of love - understanding, respect, communication, and partnership - is often overlooked in favor of the passionate, physical, and often toxicity that these stories portray as love. This distortion, I believe, sets unrealistic expectations for young consumers. It encourages them to seek out these whirlwind romances that are fast-paced and thrilling, but often neglect the actual work that goes into maintaining a healthy relationship. Not to say that young people don’t want a healthy relationship (again, this is my bias opinion), but here’s the thing: As much as I critique these tropes, I understand their appeal. They provide a form of escapism and offer a sense of adventure that daily life often lacks. It's exciting and exhilarating, filled with passion and secrecy that adds a layer of thrill to the story. Who wouldn't be drawn to that kind of drama? However, I sometimes question the implications of these narratives that are so recurrent in young adult media. Is it because they're seen as exciting, or perhaps it's simply an attempt to hook consumers with their dramatic, high-stakes storylines? Do the writers themselves recognize the toxicity of these relationships, or have they too been influenced by the media that they grew up with? Or do adults actually think that this is what teenagers actually go through?

Overall, this just doesn’t appeal to me. I can appreciate other simple romance tropes like friends to lovers/childhood sweethearts, second chances, or fake relationships and contract marriage. But forbidden romance and having affairs? That either has to involve an interracial relationship (if I can withstand the ignorance) or a boss/employee, teacher/student (both of which are consenting adults; College stories), or perhaps a social class divide situation like Jack and Rose in Titanic (which would be considered a tragedy but reasonable since it’s based on a actual event). These variations of love stories can provide more depth, focus on character growth, and establish healthier dynamics. They also present a diverse range of experiences that better mirror the reality of romance for readers of all backgrounds, but it’s not to say that even these tropes have their issues.

For instance, Childhood sweetheart stories like Love, Rosie can emphasize the importance of companions hip, trust, and mutual understanding in a relationship. In these narratives, the characters already have an established bond, there's mutual respect and understanding, and conflict arises when these friendships evolve into something more. Now, in some scenarios, this trope irritates me because, in older films, the best friend side character who has a crush often feels hurt when the main character crush likes someone else, instead of simply being upfront about their feelings (a nod to Lara Jean), but I get the hesitation…sometimes. This progression is far more organic and relatable than the instant infatuation that often characterizes 'lust at first sight' stories.

Second chance romances like anything written by Nicholas Sparks: A Walk to Remember, The Lucky One and, The Best of Me, portray love as a journey of growth and self-discovery. These stories often revolve around the main characters who have loved and lost, while either experiencing of gone through a series of trials and tribulations. The characters have matured, learned from their past mistakes, and are willing to give life and love another shot. This trope is particularly appealing because it offers hope and redemption. Now, granted, somebody ends up dead *Spoiler alert* but it provides a sense of reality to the narrative, reinforcing the concept that life is fleeting and love, however profound, cannot always overcome the inevitable. It's a sobering reminder that love does not always conquer all, but it also carries the message that it's worth taking a chance on.

Yet, it wasn’t just the love triangles and the dramatic toxicities of relationships that bother me. It was also the lack of diversity in these stories. By large, the characters were overwhelmingly heterosexual, white leads. Characters of color or even LGBTQIA represented, if present at all, are often downgraded to supporting roles with very little depth into their own romantic interests.

Remember that I’m only pointing out the books that were popular during my teenage years. If I wanted to read about African American romances, they were mostly interracial and adult urban fiction. Just to point out, where I was living at the time was predominantly white so there weren’t a lot of books written by Black authors were available; Sharon M. Draper and Walter Dean Myer were the only Black YA authors appropriate to in the local libraries and most of their stories did contain mature and serious themes, such as race, death, grief, and abuse as a portrayal to realities of young black people in the 1990’s. They were compelling but the themes get discouraging after a while, so I had to search online for other stories; Not a lot of them were appropriate for a middle schooler, but what could worst than what I had previously read about the stereotypical tropes of death and drug abuse within African Americans community? Sex?

I’m not saying that all young adult media should depict real-life romance exactly as it is. Fiction is intended to offer a degree of escapism, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a heart-throbbing love story. However, there needs to be room for more realistic and diverse portrayals of love as well. This way, young consumers can gain a broader perspective on what love can look like, rather than being fed a singular narrative that may not resonate with them. By the time I had graduated high school, Black YA began becoming more mainstream in genres like fantasy and sci-fi. Even though I have access to them, sometimes I feel like I missed out on something that could have been more meaningful to me when I was living in rural Upstate New York.