Romance Movies and Its Turbulent Relationship With Consent

Romance Movies and Its Turbulent Relationship With Consent

Romance movies have been around since the 1890s, its presence as a genre is both well known and influencing. Along with its popularity as a genre, it is a popular point of discussion when it comes to conversations about consent. Often, Hollywood romance movies tend to romanticize sexual harassment. A problem that has been pointed out in the mainstream most frequently over the last ten years.

And these topics of conversation are important and should be continued. However, it feels as though a deeper conversation needs to be had, about how to display consent properly in movies.

The sticky situation when it comes to romance movies is that asking consent isn't a courtesy. What I mean, is that asking for consent, with the sole expectation that someone is going to say yes, isn't asking for consent, it's humoring someone, and that isn't what consent is.

What this means for romance movies, is that you watch them with the expectation that two characters end up together. In most cases, anyway. A character asking for consent should still most definitely be displayed for an audience, but the option of saying no is a large factor of consent and should be normalized. Which isn't easy to do in a genre such as romance on large scales without it being redundant.

So, while the main character saying no to dating the perceived love interest, simply "just because", is a completely valid reason in real life, but in movies, there is an expected situational change for them to get together.

Because of this, even when a person in a movie says no, the no becomes irrelevant because writers need a reason for them to get together. This seems like the main way that consent is disregarded and how you need a reason to not get together with someone beyond the valid one of I don't want to in romance movie writing, and it's also something that could be easily fixed.

I'll be the last to say that romance as a genre shouldn't be appreciated and I'll be even farther down the line to say romance movies are the only way that people learn about consent, or that it's the only factor that impacts whether or not someone will consent, but it being an everyday part of media, especially when a younger teenager is watching it, could open up important conversations that are related to media that is enjoyable, and shows an example that is easy to understand.

I think that consent can be shown quite easily, the same way it is practiced in real life, communication. It's an incredibly important factor in relationships, and once you have communicated with your partner, consent becomes a lot less of a taboo thing in the relationship and instead becomes the norm. The consent shown in romance movies doesn't even have to be fundamental to the movie's plot, just simple things, from kissing with a stranger to discussions about how to move forward in a relationship in the future.

Actual healthy relationships that have couples talking to each other about minor things that would normally be talked about in a relationship, would also eliminate the overused plot of couples breaking up simply because of something that could be explained in two minutes, even as that thing was happening.

Writing-wise, it's a win on both ends. An opportunity to have smarter, more realistic relationships displayed, and consent that can be discussed and talked about without a level of argument that may come from fiction media not portraying consent, therefore connecting it to not being a priority.

At the end of the day, it's simply food for thought, but even a small conversation is one that could impact a larger picture in how we consume romance as a genre.