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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   27638 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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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.

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.

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