- REFUSING TO
ACCEPT REJECTION
Refusing to take no for an answer is one of the more subtle
abuses commonly fed to us as romantic. In 10 Things I
Hate About you, Patrick (Heath Ledger) refuses to admit
defeat when pursuing Julia Stiles and tries to convince
her she is crazy when she dares to questions his dubious
motives. Simultaneously, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
sets his sights on Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) and, when she
doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, he screams at her about
how selfish she is in his car until she relents. Ten years later
in (500) Days of Summer Gordon Levitt‘s Tom refused to
accept that Zooey Deschanel’s Summer does not want to
be in a serious relationship with him despite her holding
firm to this from the very beginning.
Stubbornly refusing to accept that a relationship is over
is often framed as being symptomatic of a couple being
“meant to be” rather than an indication that one of the
pair is deeply disturbed. The Notebook swoons over Ryan
Gosling sending his ex-girlfriend letters for 365 days in
a row that go unanswered, and in the years that follow,
makes no friends and decides that the single thing he
should do with his life is restore a house “for her”. John
Cusack’s most famous roles in Say Anything and High
Fidelity both involve his refusal to stay broken up with,
and his propensity for showing up unannounced, at ex-girlfriends’ homes. In both cases they stay steadfast in their
commitment to stay away from him until tragic paternal
circumstances leave them vulnerable to his charms.
One of the more ill-considered recent examples of this
was in autobiographical rom com The Big Sick. In real life
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon were in a committed
relationship when she fell into a coma, but the film has
them break up just beforehand and has her ask him to stay
away from her. His constant presence during her coma as
an unwanted ex-boyfriend is a very different proposition
to a beloved partner staying by your side.- SPYING
It’s dispiriting that, in 2012, spying on your ex was
considered an acceptable use of super powers, but this
seems to be the message of The Amazing Spider-Man.
Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) stalks Emma Stone’s Gwen
Stacy. He swings from skyscraper to skyscraper to keep a
fastidious eye on her. Ineffectual ’80s rom coms such as
The Rachel Papers, St Elmo’s Fire and Can’t Buy Me Love
employ this spying behaviour to indicate to the audience
that their male protagonists are vulnerable love-sick puppy
dogs without any appreciation of the disturbing dynamic it
creates. Fifty Shades of Grey seems particularly enamoured
of spying as an expression of devotion, with thinly drawn
billionaire Chistian Grey using his considerable means
to show up uninvited at his target’s work, social events
and home.- HIRING A
PROFESSIONAL
This practice normally takes the form of a private
investigator like in There’s Something About Mary where
a hapless Ted (Ben Stiller) is desperate to track down his
exceedingly stalkable teenage sweetheart, Mary (Cameron
Diaz). In Billy Wilder’s 1957 film, Love In The Afternoon,
Gary Cooper’s playboy Frank hires the father of Audrey
Hepburn’s Ariane to look into her sexual history to decide
whether or not she is a suitable candidate for a fling. As
troubling as this may be it is, at least, framed as being
troubling behaviour in those films; albeit a justifiable
means to a romantic end. The 2005 Will Smith vehicle
Hitch, meanwhile, frames this as a harmless and useful
tool when it comes to winning over a romantic target.
Kevin James`s character hires Smith‘s Hitch to put together
a detailed strategy on how to seduce a woman who he is032 The Promising Young Woman Issue