A problematic trope

[sasha_feather]

I tried to watch the film "RED" the other day but turned it off just a few minutes in. The protagonist Frank, played by Bruce Willis, is shown to be a super-capable ex-CIA agent. He has a flirtatious relationship with Sarah, whom he talks to on the phone, played by Mary-Louise Parker, and he makes vague plans to meet her in Kansas City. Killers invade Frank's home one night, and he has no problem deftly dispatching them.


Next we see Sarah leaving a date behind and entering her apartment. Frank appears in her apartment-- he's been waiting for her, unannounced. She yells at him and tells him to get out, while he tries to calm her down and explain the circumstances. People are trying to kill him, you see, and kill her too, because they've been listening on the phone. This does not reassure her.

Next we see Frank driving in his car and monologuing. With my heart sinking, I knew what came next: the camera panned to the back seat, where Sarah sat with duct tape over her mouth and her hands tied. She yelled through the tape in protest. Frank monologues about his hopes for their relationship moving forward or some bullshit. This seemed to be played for laughs, or at least in a lighthearted way, as Frank asked what food she wanted and she said "Pizza" through the tape. This film was billed as an action/comedy.

At this point, I turned the movie off and watched something else.

This trope is sadly common. Although not always as extreme as this example, many story lines expect and forgive such bad behavior from men towards their romantic interests. Men seem to be expected to violate boundaries and bodily autonomy, and women seem expected to forgive such behavior.

In "Labor Day", starring Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet, the entire premise of the romance is that Frank (again Frank!), an ex-convict, forces a young mother and her son to give him a ride. But oh, it turns out he's not so bad! Just desperate! Despite the fact that he held you at gun point or whatever. (nb I've only seen the preview for this film.)


Does anyone know if this trope has a name? It is super gross and annoying. It is hard enough having boundaries in life and saying no, and telling people to buzz off, etc, without stories like these which present positive portrayals of abusive situations.

Contrast to Mad Max:



When Max and Furiosa meet, they fight for their lives. Max wins the fight, and briefly steals the war rig. He wants to be in control and in possession of all the guns. At first glance, this seemed to me to be a repeat of the above trope, but there was a difference: Furiosa may briefly lose the fight, but she is more in control of her faculties. She is planning and thinking much further ahead. She has allies and knows how to get more: she uses negotiation and de-escalation to gain Max's trust. In the above situations, the men must try to gain the women's trust because they have the power. Furiosa sees Max as a wounded animal and she quite deftly gains the upper hand.

Then too, this is not a romance and it never tries to be. They are both fighters and so it is in some way appropriate that Max and Furiosa meet physically fighting each other. I like the separation here: this is an action movie, not a romance. It is so simply amazing and refreshing to see Max and Furiosa treated as equal fighters, as people.



comments welcome

Comments

[owlectomy]

A Match Made in Stockholm, I think!

I feel like I've seen a lot of this in manga/anime, where it's often a dude who's aggressive and cold but actually very romantic and protective and who's just doing what he does "for the heroine's own good." And I think it sometimes works as a metaphor for "falling in love is scary, your emotions feel out of control, but love means embracing that fear," but walking all over someone else's agency is probably not a solid foundation for a healthy relationship?

[sasha_feather]

Well, if writers are trying for that metaphor, that seems generous-- it seems to me that what they are endorsing is abuse.

[bluemeridian]

I wouldn't have even called it a "flirtatious relationship"! He has her trapped in the initial conversations, too, as she's a customer service rep (or the equivalent rather) and he's always calling and requesting her. He keeps concocting reasons to call just to talk to her, and she's not surprisingly polite because it's her job, but I distinctly remember looking for and not getting any sense of it being a two way street. I had SO MANY issues with the first part of this movie. Maybe with the rest of it, too, but I finally turned it off. I made it further than you did, but what I watched didn't magically improve. I'd heard good things re: Helen Mirren beforehand and I was completely blindsided by how horrible the whole "relationship" set-up was.

[meganbmoore]

My family likes these movies so I've watched both RED and the sequel a couple time. They have enjoyable parts (largely anything to do with Helen Mirren's character, Victoria, and then Lee Byung Hun's in the second movie, and both movies have some nice Sarah/Victoria bits) but the romantic parts are so awful.

The romantic subplot of the second movie has Frank spending most of it trying to isolate Sarah from everything to "keep her safe," and Sarah being jealous over Frank's Exotic Foreign Ex (who, naturally, dies for the crime of having romantic interest in Frank when he's in love with someone else), and a gross subplot where the group plays a con that involves Frank "having' to hit Sarah in public, and the entire focus is on how incredibly hard it is for Frank to hit her and how everyone (including Sarah) has to emotionally support him over it. Because they couldn't have stage a public breakup that made her the sympathetic one without his slapping her in the face.

And you're right that that type of "meet cute" needing to die out already. CW's The Messengers has a pairing that I'd actually really like and find cute, except that their first meeting involves him getting into her car and pulling a gun on her and her daughter to get a ride to the town they were already going to. And he makes it clear in that first scene that he has no intentions of hurting any of them, but between that and their checking each other out in the store beforehand, I knew they were going to be paired romantically, and I hate that that kind of scene actually IS an intimator of as canon-supported pairing.

[davidgillon]

I was trying to figure out why I didn't remember most of this, finally went and checked the synopses and realised that is because I watched RED2, not RED. But fair comments I think. Possibly creepiest for this (and worse for being supposedly a romantic comedy) is Overboard where Kurt Russell convinces an amnesiac Goldie Hawn she's his wife and she lives the role for several months. It's a long time since I've seen it, so I don't recall how they handle the specifics, but euuuwww...

[amadi]

Ah yes, the "romantic comedy" Overboard. The only redeeming thing about it, and I do mean that literally, is that he stops short of adding rape to kidnapping, slavery and grand larceny on his list of crimes.

[davidgillon]

Thank heavens for small mercies - I genuinely couldn't remember if he did or not. (And I'm really creeped out that they filmed that while also an off-screen couple)

[sasha_feather]

Thanks for the warning-- I haven't seen that one and will avoid it!

[jesse_the_k]

"Shut up I love you"?

Grotesque and way too common. I get that there are people who don't think like I do, but I just can't imagine finding a kidnapping the right way to start a romance.

[sasha_feather]

owlectomy says it's called "A Match Made in Stockholm" (link to tv tropes is above).

I find it so creepy. After someone pointed out that Disney's Beauty and the Beast is like this, it was hard to see it the same way ever again; although at least Belle stands up for herself.