animatedamerican:

lierdumoa:

obstinatecondolement:

You know how the conventional wisdom is that when a male and a female character have chemistry that the absolutely worst thing you can do is get them together, because the audience’s enjoyment of them is based on anticipation and it’s not interesting anymore once they’re together? 

Well I think what the problem actually is is that once they’re a couple all the (very, very boring) heteronormative tropes and cliches about relationships between men and women come into effect, which ruins the dynamic between the characters that was originally fun and interesting. 

Established relationships can be just as compelling viewing as will-they-won’t-they if they’re treated as two individuals in love as opposed to two gender essentialist stereotypes writ large who kind of hate each other. 

I think this is why buddy action comedies are so successful. They’re stories that revolve around a functional long term relationship between two fleshed out characters who respect each other.

It’s funny – I was in this scriptwriting panel at a tiny film festival last month we were doing a table read of a script featuring a happy married couple and someone from the audience actually suggested it would be more “interesting” if they were fighting. So I pointed out that I actually find the unhappy married couples trope overused and extremely tedious and got the reply, “Well it doesn’t have to be anything serious, they can just be arguing about something silly and trivial like how the husband always forgets to do the dishes.”

Like.

Okay buddy, you keep on thinking that recurring fights over the unequal distribution of household labor in your marriage are “silly and trivial” and 5 years from now you can tell me all about how your wife wants a divorce and you just have *no idea* how this could be happening.

I mean I’ve digressed a little but my point is that I think (this is like half speculation, but hear me out) the reason we almost never see healthy heterosexual marriages on tv is because most screenwriters are straight, and most straight people don’t know how to have healthy romantic relationships, let alone write them. Statistically about half of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, and that’s not even counting all people who stay married in spite of their profound unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

The average hollywood screenwriter is a straight man, who wants to think of himself as a good husband/boyfriend, even if statistically speaking, he isn’t.

He’s going to want to think of his personal romantic life as normal and healthy, even if it statistaclly speaking, it isn’t. 

When he’s asked to write a “normal romantic relationship” he’s going to take his own experiences and try to pass all the bickering and power struggles as normal aspects of a normal healthy marriage, instead of recognizing these “relationship quirks” for what they truly are – red flags.

This is the next elevator pitch.  “It’s a buddy action comedy, but the buddies are a heterosexual couple.”