I just have a hard time letting go of the way toxic relationships and toxic love is portrayed as the norm in every romantic plot and subplot and then I get grumpy and say "see!! see that!! that's why you're all dysfunctional!!!"
It is a pretty weird habit of writers.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a very silly movie about a talking blue super hedgehog from space, and I was nevertheless impressed by the positive marriage between the two human leads. Because it's such a rarity. Why do writers have this fetish for making relationships into some kind of fight, or have them starts on a really awful foundation?
I think it's because writers are trained to need their dialogue to have CONFLICT always. But what I'm more horrified by is just the completely inappropriate behavior that romance plots just act like is the way things *should* be, or absurd expectations people have of each other in romance plots.
Idk I think the way we're socialized to think of love is pretty psychotic. Pop music: "Will you pay my bills? Will you pay my credit card bills? Cuz maybe then we can chill." by Destiny's Child. Or 50 Cent's gems like "Tired of using technology" about a stalker rapist I presume or his line "Have a baby with me, baby, be a millionaire."
Mrs. Doubtfire is a cute comedy about a man who's wife needed space so he basically stalks her in a horrific violating way.
There's this "do anything for love" sort of thing that hero-izes utterly psychotic behavior. Then you get people irl that have the expectation of both men "doing anything for love" to show their commitment, which also equates to "ignoring signals and disrespecting boundaries" to make that plucky against-the-odds romantic plot happen! It's nightmarish if you sit down and think about it.
And that's just one aspect. Don't get me started on *who* is chosen to the the object of affection--usually the worst person ever. Or the "which-guy-do-i-choose"? which is inevitably the dark scarred toxic guy that doesn't want her over the obviously great guy. Or the idea that these relationships are almost always completely unearned, usually with one partner chasing after the other for no reason other than she's the female lead. All of these examples are gendered and hetero but making the romance lesbian or reversing the gender roles doesn't make it any better.
Another reason I loved the Haunting of Bly Manor-- the romance between the cook and the housekeeper was so sweet and you totally understood what it was and where it came from and how it worked, as was the romance between the gardener and the au pair, The toxic romance between Jezel and Quint was show for what it was: utterly toxic. I feel like 99% of romantic plots are between people like Quint and Jezel (jealous, shitty, needy, repugnant assholes) but instead of the narrator recognizing their toxicity, they celebrate that kind of dysfunction and make the assholes protagonists you're supposed to relate with and root for and not think are horrid people.
