Stalking, Time Machines and Romance

Hi there! And if you're a normal person reading this title, you may be a little confused about what we're going to be talking about today. But let me try to explain. The topic for today's discussion is as usual about films and their tropes. Specifically, regarding the 'stalker romance' trope and it's devious forms in media. 

If you're not aware of the stalker romance, fear not! I'll clue you in. It's basically a trope found in romance movies and other genres, where the main lead stalks or 'wears down' his romantic interest over a period of time and eventually gains his/her love. He/she does this through following them, keeping tabs on them and using many other predatory methods to learn more about them, which is played off by the movie as a cute 'gesture'. However, it is still stalking.

The difference here is that compared to real life scenarios where the same behavior is emulated, in the movies that you'd see this trope, it isn't vilified or treated as gross as it clearly is. Instead, the main lead is rewarded with love as a gift for their perseverance and commitment to 'get the girl'. 

This leads actual people to mimic the same actions to attain the person of their dreams ignoring boundaries and privacy in the name of love. 

But me being me, wanted to take this information and apply it. Take it one step further, if you will. I wanted to see just how many movies use this trope but romanticize it instead of show the actual horrors of such actions. And the result was overwhelmingly massive. And scary to say the least.

Let me take the example of a movie I loved watching as a kid. Bedazzled. It was an early 2000's Brendan Fraser movie where the main guy (Elliot) makes a deal with the devil and gets seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Now, our guy Elliot here really likes his co-worker, Allison, and decides to use the wishes to be her dream guy and 'get' her. You can see where this is going.

He essentially finds out her ideal type, reads her diary and does all kinds of creepy things just to be her boyfriend. He end up using five of his seven wishes to essentially attain this weird, perverted dream of his. And though in the end he realizes he can't force love onto another person, most of the movie was him doing exactly that. He doesn't end up with Allison, but instead, a carbon-copy of her, who matches him better. Even though he objectively sucked and was selfish with his wishes, the devil lets him free for making one good last wish. He even ends up with another girl as some weird consolation prize. 

What would you, as an objective viewer learn from this lesson? 

Me, personally? Doing something bad is fine as long as you take it back in the end. You get the same girl in a different font as a reward.

At least in this example, Elliot learns something of a lesson. In other movies, this isn't the case. The stalking, if the other person even is aware of it, is considered a manifestation of their inability to stay away. (Or maybe their inability to be a normal person).

 A good example of this kind of stalking can be seen in many movies and TV shows like Groundhog Day, Stranger Things (Max and Lucas), Twilight, Down with Love, The Amazing Spider-Man movies, 50 First Dates and so on. Running out of examples is clearly not the problem here. It's the constant recurrence of this behavior that is unhealthy and dangerous. It's not cute, it's an issue many people face in society that does not need to be rose-colored. 

Moving on to the time machines. Remember Groundhog Day? Well, what if I told there was an entire sub-category of movies and shows that have a time-traveler romance? I would hope you're not surprised at this point honestly. The best example I could give you here is the movie 'About Time'. This is a movie about a guy who learns that he has time-travelling powers, something he inherited from his father, that conveniently only the men of the family have. But, essentially, like all stalker romance movies, he uses his powers to date the girl he is interested in, multiple times, eventually succeeding. He uses her interests, knowledge about her and the fact that he can time travel to manipulate their relationship into happening. 

Here's the difference from Bedazzled. He ends having 3 kids with this woman. He doesn't learn his lesson about forcing something that should be natural and the only bad thing that happens is that his dad dies. And he can't stop it. The women in his life never find out about his abilities and faces basically no consequences for his messed up, loser actions. Because that's what the men (the perpetrators are usually men, like in real life) in these movies are, losers. Losers who can't find a girl because of their glaring flaws. And rather than change or accept those flaws, they misuse the system to benefit their needs. It's a sick and twisted form of wish fulfillment. Something you wouldn't find romantic without all the music and chemistry and the lens the movie uses to portray it. Because it's criminal activity.

A (not-so) fun activity to do: Re-watch or watch movies with romantic elements are try to find out how many felonies or crimes the main character commits in their attempt to find love. You'll come up with a couple, I bet. 

Something I need to stress on is the fact that the women never, ever find out about the stalking. Because, guess what? They probably wouldn't be interested or flattered and the main guy knows this. He's aware of this fact and chooses to do it and also chooses to withhold said information from their now partner. Meaning this person has no free will in the relationship. There is already a power imbalance due to the main character's vile intentions. So, do you think if they had a fight and they broke up, that a person with such tendencies would respect their wishes? They didn't in the first scenario, so why would they learn decency now? They wouldn't. And hence, the idea of such a relationship is the definition of a nightmare. 

This is just in Hollywood movies. If we take most South Asian movies to try this with...well, let's just say they have different ideas of what 'romance' is. Meaning, toxicity is so normalized no one would bat an eye at my ramblings. The Indian perception of romance is so messed up that it would traumatize you just by talking about it. There has been some positive examples but the bad outweighs the good. Mostly because the bad is around the size of the population of the country. (Geography joke!) 

As a result of this, there are many people who, impressionably, think that this is a way of showing interest in someone in a normal way since the people on TV do it. And the people on the receiving end may not realize how dangerous and unsafe it is because it's been normalized and just put up with it. It starts to affect people's perception of what is considered too much and warps the rules of reality. Which is harmful and as such needs to be prevented.

The point here is not to shame people's favorite movies or claim they are devious for existing (though I did say that). It is just to point out the inconsistency of real world values and film glorification. As someone who enjoys watching romance and uses it as a guideline for the real world, as many other do, it's scary to think how many people might think such behavior to be 'sweet' and end up in abusive and toxic situations. It is our job to as viewers to stand up for better writing. Like dude, common, there are cuter things for us to be obsessed about. (Cough, the Darcy hand flex, Cough)

Hopefully, this will open some eyes and make us be more wary of the content we consume and consider 'goals'. 

🐄