This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I actually just wrote a post yesterday touching on some similar points.
One of my theories is that modern relationships and friendships have been so hollowed out that writers just don’t have material from their own lives to work with when it comes to deep romances. It’s something you have to actually live in order to recreate in your characters.
Sadly modern connection has been extremely flattened for a variety of reasons, and it reflects in our art.
Hollywood writers come from hyper-liberal blue tribe backgrounds, yes? I don’t know what courtship norms look like in those bubbles, not really, but if they’re assuming apps and hookups turn into a relationship, there’s some obvious reasons that’s less on the screens- both that it’s harder to introduce and possible ratings issues.
Most of publishing is different sub genres of bdsm werewolf erotica, so I don’t think ‘entertainment industry thinks relationships are a dead end’ is the explanation.
As I said in another comment, it's not that they are dead ends. It is that treating romantic partners as disposable leads to a more shallow exploration of emotional depths you can reach via deep connection in relationships.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And yet Korea, the place with possibly the worst gender relations on earth, accompanied by the lowest TFR by a mile somehow manages to be the world leading producer of romance dramas.
I don't think your theory holds up and this has more to do with what people producing movies and TV shows think people want and whats "in" in their social circles.
There is a massive market for romance out there and a shitton is being produced in America, just not necessarily in film. Romance is the biggest written fiction category by far and accounts for some 25-30% of books sold.
I think American dramas have another big problem, which is that it’s almost impossible to portray a romantic relationship, especially one that develops from a friendship, in a realistic way without tripping over a thousand versions of problematic. Korean and Chinese dramas really don’t have the same culture wars around relationships that Americans do, so they’re free to make a real romantic relationship between the leads where modern western stories cannot. If a Korean story were remade by an American company, it would be seen as extremely sexist.
... what? I think that's the most common trope in the last few decades, friends-to-lovers.
Anecdotally, online and offline, it also seems that at least in the Anglosphere (maybe exclusively?) a lot of women express preference for starting as friends, which may then develop into a romantic relationship.
Stated versus revealed, etc. In real life it's extraordinarily rare for a friendship to 'blossom' into a romantic relationship without at least a long period of separation in-between.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think you are right, but also I don't think hollywood wants to portray healthy, heterosexual relationships. That thing is basically culture war poison for them. And they would probably love to sneak homosexual and trans things into everything, but you still have to have a product that sells, and that stuff just does not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Korean romance dramas aren't exactly realistic romances. If you watch just a few of them you can start to see the formula: Episode 1 introduces high-status guy and average girl who hates everything he stands for, Episode 2 we meet their friends, Episode 3 she befriends his best friend who has a crush on her, Episode 4 high-status guy has physical contact with main character in a plausibly deniable way, ... Episode 10 they kiss, Episode 11 something happens to estrange them, ... Episode 16 they marry and live happily ever after. I'm sure the writers and producers spend enough time watching dramas that they know the tropes, know the formula, and have an instinct for the progression of a good drama.
Also, I'm sure that there is a selection bias. We hear about every Marvel and Disney production even when it sucks because there is a large marketing budget targeted at English speakers; we only hear about the Korean dramas when they are actually good. (Counterexample which demonstrates the rule: Squid Game 2 sucked and had a large marketing budget, and I heard about it "organically" before it came out).
But they're still romances. Entertainment exists as wish fulfillment, not as an accurate reflection of reality, that story sounds excruciating but also like something women would lap up.
More options
Context Copy link
Which sounds exactly like the romance novel formula (at least as it was back when I was reading them as a teenager). So that's probably why they work: guys are likely not going to be watching romance movies/shows, women are, this is the successful formula for women's romance novels.
More options
Context Copy link
So? People like formulaic fiction. My point is that lack of romance in western writers personal lives (if that is true in the first place) most likely matters little, given the abundance of evidence the places even worse than the west are producing popular stuff and the west still produces a shitton of written romance that is as popular as it's ever been.
Romance dramas are more often than not not prestige dramas. They are relatively low budget affairs promoted to their intended demographic. Nowadays that is done by streaming companies by recommendation, not by billboards. Whether we hear about them or not doesn't really matter, they're watched in massive amounts just like romance fiction is quietly the most read literature genre and we almost never hear about that either. The Koreans were able to enter the market for live action romance because it was grossly underserved in the west.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, but how much of that 25-30% is literal smut ("romantasly"?) or a Sci-Fi with added romance to it?
Does 50 Shades belong in the romance category?
A lot of modern RPGs in the last 15-20 years have an optional romance tacked in, but it cannot be said that Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate or Skyrim are romance games. Yes, romance videogames are rare and hard to make/market.
I guess the underlying principle to follow would be "Does the protagonist save the world and gets a girlfriend after" or "He saves the world either together with her or for her". It's hard to describe broadly, without giving examples. I guess The Witcher (books) is closer to a romance despite not being labelled as one then most "romantasy" books, even though the relationship is not the forefront, it's easily seen to be vital to both characters.
...Yes?
The romance genre is just the female version of pornography. Much like purpose of porn is to stimulate male reproductive instincts, the purpose of romance movies is to stimulate female reproductive instincts.
The difference is that men and women are attracted to different things, so instead of men watching an endless stream of videos depicting naked girls who moan a lot, women consume an endless stream of stories about billionaire athlete demon pirates kings who declare their undying love for the audience surrogate.
A romance novel is is nine hundred pages of the male love interest demonstrating how aloof and alpha he is, a hundred pages where he breaks down, gets weepy, and shows his soft inner core of twu luving betaness, and one page where he tears the lady’s clothes off with his teeth and the couple finally at long last get some action.
No no no, you're forgetting the very vital sub-plot of the Former Love Interest showing back up! The ex-fiancée, the old flame, the childhood sweetheart - the threat who is hot and sexy and successful and a tigress and everything the main female character is not, and the male love interest either diverts his attention to her and it looks like they'll get back together, or the old flame does all she can to break up male love interest and female love interest.
That leads to the satisfying set-up where male love interest shows up, demonstrates his scorn for old flame because she has shown herself to be untrustworthy/only trying to use him for status and wealth/he was only trying to make female love interest jealous, and reaffirms that he has chosen female love interest over hot successful tigress, and then the ripping off clothes with his teeth scene follows 😁
The sub-sub-plot to that one is the distaff version of new/former love interest showing up for the female love interest. A nice guy (and I don't mean that ironically); someone supportive, different to the male love interest in not being dismissive and curt to her, a guy who is handsome and successful and desirable in his own right (but still not quite the equal of the alpha hot guy), someone who genuinely cares about her. Alas, he is destined to be friendzoned because he just doesn't have that spark, but he is understanding and bows out courteously because he realises that she and alpha guy are destined to be together. This is comforting reading for the consumer of such novels, because it demonstrates that the female love interest (who is the vicarious stand-in for the reader) has options, she's not just doomed to be dumped by the hot guy, she don't need him after all she can always get another guy who truly wants her for who she is.
Writing a romance novel, even a formulaic one, is a lot tougher than you think - way back I was part of an online group that tried doing the traditional tropes in an ironic way and we didn't get very far because writing is indeed hard. I'm given to understand there's a lot more sex in modern romance novels because times indeed change, and waiting for the wedding bells ending isn't enough, so the female and male love interests can get it on a lot earlier and indeed more frequently (while still going through the 'will they, won't they/he loves me, he loves me not' travails until the happy ending).
More options
Context Copy link
My point is that there is a separation between "romance" books that are m/f coded, namely harem/vampire type of stuff, and romance like the sitcom/TV show "will they/won't they" stuff that permeated across genres. Think Ross/Rachel or Mulder/Scully. Those stories are not really about the couple, but it becomes a, if not the, driving force the more you go through it. Which mirrors life, since you wouldn't ditch your plans with your friends at the needs of a 2 week relationship at 20, but if you're 30 and in a long-term relationship for some time, it's a different (expected) response.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
In Korea? Not much. In the West? I think mainstream romance (which may include a little bit of steaminess but generally ends in a conventional HEA between a monogamous couple) still outsells smut/romantasy by a significant amount.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hollowed writers is definitely part of it. More broadly, I remember a relatively recent Lindyman post about how people/artists used to have much more interesting and varied lifestyles. Going through their wikipedia seems like their lives just upend at random, back and forth from rags to riches across varied types of work.
Today, people focus on a career pretty early, due to increased access to education, credentialism, safetyism and general structural rigidness of life. Yes, I guess a software dev can just quit, move out of Sillicon Valley to Idaho and be a writer while working some odd jobs, but that's unfeasible unless he saved up a lot or just made millions. But more likely he either got burned out, did FIRE or usually fried himself up with psychadelics.
Even so, there's more romantic relationships now than ever. Maybe it's so common audiences lost interest in seeing them on the big screen. Maybe there is such a discrepancy of expectation from growing up with ideas about romance, that when confronted with the reality personally, people are just not interested. Seeing so many divorces, breakups, cheating or other such behaviors while growing up on "Love conquers all" is cognitively dissonant.
Maybe past works were so interesting because most people didn't marry out of love, but ended up loving their partner nonetheless? So a story of pure genuine desire had a different impact.
Maybe over the last few decades, as fiction became more popular and more media genres portrayed, reached a peak of "people believing romance to be possible and desireable" and "people did find romance" and we're slowly coming off that peak?
I think that's what happened to hookups and hookup culture. Popular sitcoms (and other movies) in the 2000s made it super desirable and popular, out of what experiences, personal or witnessed, writers had from being young in the 1980s and 1990s. As hookup culture gained traction, it reached a peak (probably 1-2 years after Tinder was invented) and now we're here, with the (male) loneliness epidemic.
I'd say that since romance that was previously pretty achievable becomes more "impossible", then we should see more impossible romances and relationships in media. I am thinking of monsters, aliens, robots etc but that would be difficult to disentangle from the lifting of (intimate) taboos.
Isn’t paranormal romance the best selling genre out there? Werewolf porn hitting it big is consonant with your predictions.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes there are "more" romantic relationships in that people date serially. My point is that these relationships aren't as deep in terms of depth of emotion and connection than they were in the past.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
They also don't have direct lived experience of giant green mutants, alien invasions, Infinity Stones, and so on and so forth; and yet they're still able to write stories about these things in a manner that people find appealing.
Those are all much easier to imagine and less complex than deep human relationships.
I... have to nitpick on this. A lot of comics (and especially their movies) leave giant plot holes. I mean the medium is built on 80 or so years of publishing tens of titles yearly across hundreds of writers. Which means inconclusive answers to a lot of questions regarding power scaling and such.
But the movies have a bigger problem, namely since their stories usually involve origin stories for their villains, they kind of just pop up one after another. Which begs the question why after the Avengers, they don't just all show up to fight the 1-2 villains each solo hero fights in his own movie. I mean yeah it's always explained that everyone else is busy, but in the comics that's sort of assumed since there's dozens of villains per hero (plus, there aren't any pesky IP rights or contracts to have them show up whenever).
So um, besides having literally thousands of pages of lore to just pluck up for the romantic subplots or have the writer(s) insert their cleaned-up bad/great relationships/fantasies, everything is just... hollowed out. Like there's foundations there as I described them in the OP, since I guess Hollywood blockbuster script-writing is more of a science than art, but it's just hollow.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link