Opposites DON'T Attract

Yes, my friends and readers, it is a fallacy that opposites attract. Sorry to burst that bubble. But, it is true. All the movies that supposedly revolve around this idea are, in fact, proving the opposite. Here are some examples I will be using: in no particular order, Beauty and the Beast, Sound of Music, Dirty Dancing, Grease, 10 Things I Hate About You, After, and The Ugly Truth.

All of them hold the same principle. The two main characters are opposites. They don't like each other at first, there is tension and animosity. Yet, they come together in the end. But have you noticed that in all these opposites attract movies it isn't the things that they differ on that bring them together. It isn't there opposites attracting them to each other, it is the things they have in common that bring them together. So, none of them are truly opposites, and the more they realize they have in common, the more they grow closer.

In Sound of Music, it is Maria's close connection with his kids that really draws the Captain to her, as well as her stubbornness. Both things they share in common. And they both clearly enjoy music and love their country, which only further drives them together.

In Dirty Dancing, Johnny doesn't like Baby at first. He doesn't even really acknowledge her. It isn't until they share a love of dancing that he even starts treating her with respect. Once they have dancing in common, they share their feelings as well. How they both kind of feel like outcasts in different ways. But her being from a rich background still drives a wedge between them. So, the things that make them opposite actually work to keep them apart.

In Beauty and the Beast, Beast saves Belle, and in this act shows that he isn't as different from her as she originally thought. She then sees him kind to animals. He gives her a library to use. He shares books with her when she reads to him. This is even more clearly laid out in the live-action, because they share their love of literature as well as how they both feel like they don't fit in and so often feel lonely.

In 10 Things I Hate About You, the two main characters are seen as dangerous and difficult. They don't really seem that different from an outsiders point of view, but together they do seem very different. But neither cares what other people think of them. Neither wants to let anyone else control them. And they both have an affinity for using sarcasm to keep people at a distance.

In all of these cases the fact they were opposites works against them, it is only through finding their similarities that they come together at all. But, the fact that they do have so many similarities, means they were never really opposites to begin with.

In Grease, we don't see their budding romance at the beach. We only see how they don't fit together as opposites. But in the end, in order for them to be together, someone had to change. Essentially saying that opposites couldn't be together. They couldn't be opposites and a couple, it just didn't work. So, Danny had to be a jock. Or Sandy had to be a Pink Lady.

In After, Tessa is painted as a "good girl" and Harden is the "bad boy". But she also cheated on her boyfriend, so wasn't that good. And the only reason her pursued her originally was a bet. So, it wasn't her being different that made him want to be with her originally, it was a bet. And through their time together they found they had things in common and she empathized with his childhood because of her own.

In The Ugly Truth, we get another example of the main leads changing to be more like the other for them to come together. They weren't brought together because of their differences, they were thrown together by circumstances and bonded through their similarities. Ending with them both changing so that they were not longer opposites. She learned to be more carefree and self-confident, he learned to be more considerate and emotionally available.

In most "Opposites Attract" movies, they fall into two categories: they either only seem like opposites but actually have more in common than they realized OR they are forced together by fate/circumstance and change each other to be more a like and that brings them together.

It is almost NEVER actually them being opposites that attract them to each other.

So, where did the idea of opposites attracting come from anyway?

Maybe it is a psychology thing. Maybe because these people seem like opposites it is an even bigger deal to find out what they have in common, so we root for them. Maybe it is a kind of taboo about the bad boy and goody two shoes ending up together. Maybe it is because we don't bother to look closer at people who seem like us because we assume we know all about them, so it is the people who we think are different that hold our attention and once they have it we're hooked. I don't know where the idea came from, but I do know that I have yet to see anything that truly supports it.