The Legitimacy of "Love Interests" In Plot

[saeva]

Over here ataniell93 talks about love interests, canon, and female characters. The post has spoilers for potential plot developments in Supernatural, to warn anyone who might want to click, but you really don't need to read the post to understand what I'm objecting to. About one third in ataniell93 says this and this about says it all: "New female character? Awesome.

Comments

[saeva]

"However, most adults also have parts of their lives that aren't solely centred around being a wife or a husband or a lover."

However, most shows are about a particular character or set of characters and from the perspective of that character/those characters. And, like with people, you tend to only see the side of any given person that's important to the one telling the story. (I.e. if a woman in RL is talking about her husband, he might very well be a ton of other things besides her husband but she's going to talk about him as her husband and not as a person -- usually). From a storytelling POV, everyone in a canonical universe is important only in their roles as they apply to the main character(s) unless they are one of the main characters.

I.e. Wallace Fennel in "Veronica Mars" is important as Veronica's sidekick and best friend. He's also a son, which we don't see much of (unless Veronica's involved), has a girlfriend who we don't see much of (unless Veronica's involved), is on the basketball team, which we don't see much of (unless Veronica's involved), etc. That has nothing to do with him being the love interest, because he's not. It has to do with him not being the main character. He's the sidekick.

So, why should only love interests be deconstructed as not enough motivation when there are a ton of other roles that feature the same sort of canonical distortion?

Regarding your last paragraph, the truth is that there's some valid critique there. But if it's a valid critique, it's so because we have too many shows with male protagonists/main male protagonists. Shows with female protagonists/main female protagonists reflect the exact same sort of position, e.g. "Charmed," "Buffy," "Veronica Mars," etc. The fact is that male protagonists are still considered "neutral" and the norm, and thus while you see the exact same thing in either type of show you're going to see a lot more examples of male protagonists/female love interests.

That's a problem with what's being produced, however, and not with what is being actually put on the shows once they're on the air. It's the problem of the male perspective being seen as neutral and thus produced more commonly. But once something's on air, regardless of the gender of the protagonist, it's usually just a logical approach to storytelling. You can only tell so many people's stories at once and many roles, well beyond just the love interest, are designed to be all about the main character's story.

And, actually, for a final point. Is it really fair to throw out realism and defensible storytelling because something reflects a bias within a culture itself? I can see how one would want to make a point of it, perhaps, if they could. But to avoid doing it completely solves nothing either; it just means that women are going to be even less present/visible in shows with male protagonists. And how is that better?

(Yes, ideally, women would be both present and have their own stories but in a canon like Supernatural that makes little sense, just as in a canon like Charmed it makes little sense for the men to be both present and have their own stories.)

- Andrea.