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

[allisnow]

Because, yeah, I was around for the wank post-Half-Blood Prince in the "Harry Potter" fandom. And that wank alone damages that argument nearly beyond repair.

*snort* I can only imagine from the little bit I've seen in passing. JKR is the devil, and so on.

And I do agree. Although the reason I didn't like Sam/Pete had a lot to do with Pete being a putz ;)

[ravenclaw_devi]

Well, there's nothing wrong with having love, even *gaspshockhorror* heterosexual love be an important part of a character's life and motivations. I think what people object to when they object to "love interests" is to have female characters have no motivations, no character arc, no reason for being outside of being, well, the love interest

[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

[tielan]

I think what people object to when they object to "love interests" is to have female characters have no motivations, no character arc, no reason for being outside of being, well, the love interest.

Which is a reasonable objection. It just seems to be consistently levelled at female characters who aren't "mere love interest".

To take at least one examples saeva listed before: Cordelia was both continuity from Buffy, occasional damsel in distress, snark and clueless humour, and the human contact for Angel to stop him from going all Mistah Broody through all Season One - before there was any hint of romance between her and Angel.

So she certainly wasn't a "mere love interest" and (as I understand saeva to be saying) still got the treatment from fans.

And, in the end, isn't attributing more to a character than canon implies what fans do? We fill in the chinks that TPTB don't mortar up properly - and sometimes completely re-do the entire canon just to get our jollies - it's what we're known for

[ravenclaw_devi]

I know, and those are valid points.

[lasultrix]

wrt Half-Blood Prince, I'm guessing you're talking about the H/G Chestmonster Wank That Ate Fandom, but it's the Remus/Tonks thing that actually struck me first when you mentioned OotP. Everybody complained that Tonks hadn't had a chance to develop a character of her own in OotP before she was shunted into nothing but a love interest in HBP. I see where they're coming from to a certain extent, but after all, Remus didn't do much in HBP except be the object of Tonks' affection.

The prejudice against love interests in general is, I think, overactive feminism rather than internalised misogyny. People don't trust a show's writers to give a new female character a fleshed-out personality. If the writers have been told "OK, she's a love interest" viewers fear the writers won't bother with anything else. Including why she's attractive and well-suited enough to be that love interest.

It does extend to not giving new female characters a chance, though.

[saeva]

To be honest, I think that the second you start positioning a character dynamic as the new female character must be worthy of the pre-existing male character you've hit internalized misogyny on the head. You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

It isn't feminist, it isn't wanting the female characters to be well-written -- either the show you like is well-written or it's not, and that's going to be across the board regardless of the gender of the characters. People don't trust writers to write female characters they'll like and that's all about having higher standards for female characters than for male characters. It's all about proving the female characters's worths.

And if anyone tries to sell me that as a feminist position, let alone an overreactive feminist position, I think I can legitimately reserve the right to giggle to myself.

- Andrea.

[ravenclaw_devi]

You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

I was going to say, "But wasn't there lots of debate about whether Angel or Spike deserves to be with Buffy?" and then I remembered how much of the debate was in terms of whether Buffy was worthy of being with Spike. In other words, what you said.

Well, maybe in the SG-1 fandom, there's the sentiment of, "Pete doesn't deserve Sam, she should be with Jack!" (I'm a S/J shipper myself, but that's beside the point), but otherwise, most if not all shipping debates in whatever fandom are about which woman is "the real love of [male character]," aren't they? It's usually not what makes him worthy of either of the potential love interests that's the subject of debate, and yes, that does make you think, from a feminist perspective.

[agnes_bean]

You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

Ooo! It totally happened om Gilmreo Girls with both Jess and Logan...a lot of people thought they weren't good enough for Rory! And most people thought Chris wasn't good enough for Lorelai, too. (Still I think your point is a good one in general. I was just proad of myself for having and example).

thinky thoughts

[twistingflame]

I have to say that my initial reaction is that I don't generally like characters that are brought in solely as love interests. But your post made me think about it on a more subsurface level and try to determine why that's the case. I think it boils down to how it all fits in the grand scheme of the show in question: timing, theme, ensemble vs huge cast, etc. All of these kind of interweave with each other, so this isn't the most coherent comment ever, but bear with me. (disclaimer: I never watched Charmed, so I can't speak with any authority on that bit at all

[agnes_bean]

For the most part it's okay for male characters to be love interests on "female" shows whereas the reverse isn't true. Female love interests on "male" shows get destroyed, nitpicked, and dismissed as "nothing more than love interests."

Word. I was totally thinking of Gilmore Girls during ataniell93's post, as it, too, is a show where there are male characters who exist basically souly as love interests for the girls. And while Dean/Jess/Logan certainly got bashed a lot, I still never saw anyone complaining that they were "nothing but a love interest." If anything, the complaint was they weren't the right love interest (that would come from someone who shipped a different boy with Rory) or weren't good enough to be the love interest (Dean is too over controlling, Jess will bring her down, Logan is too much of a thoughtless rich-boy, etc.)

So, if that's true -- and I find it difficult to argue it's not -- then why would love interests in fictional, but still human-based, canons not be interested in finding love interests and why wouldn't

[saeva]

"If anything, the complaint was they weren't the right love interest (that would come from someone who shipped a different boy with Rory) or weren't good enough to be the love interest (Dean is too over controlling, Jess will bring her down, Logan is too much of a thoughtless rich-boy, etc.)"And even then I hesitate to call that an example -- not that you were calling it an example of this, but some people have -- of the male characters being judged more critically than the female ones. Because, yes, there was a lot of debate as to who was worthy of Rory but when Rory chose the "wrong" one in a viewer or group's eyes she was the one that was insulted, torn apart, and demonized. You see this a lot with the Literati (Rory/Jess) people when she actively chose Logan over Jess

[agnes_bean]

Good point about Gilmore Girls (I tend to forget how much the girls were torn apart later, actually, since by the time Logan showed up I was driffting towords the Alias fandom).

To be quite honest, the people who tend to say that female characters -- especially established female characters -- who become "love interests" are bad characters are the sort of people looking for an excuse to dislike female characters in the first place. Or, at the very least, looking for an excuse to dislike a character that gets in the way of their OTP. See here for a textbook example of this. Oh yeah, I agree. And the thing is, in many (not all, but many) cases, if the complaint is that the famale character is being worped by the romance (esp. in the established-characters-get-together plot), that normally means that either a)the watcher/reader is being oversensive or b)the writer(s) really aren't that good. Either way, that often means BOTH characters really should be critisized (if someone thinks Hermione suddenly becomes all about romance in HBP,

[agnes_bean]

Often *only* the female, that is...