Starcrossed Cliché

As a writer I may be committing a bit of blasphemy here but William Shakespeare kind of screwed us all when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. Essentially he insured that one of the most popular romantic tropes is to have our young lovers be from opposing groups of individuals. Not just opposing, but actively warring. The more they are supposed to despise each other, the greater their tragic love affair. And so we have seen copy after copy of this classic love story told in ever expanding varieties and flavors.

A smart person (smarter than me at least) said there are only four different types of stories. That of course is true if you boil stories down to their simplest parts but I like to think we can still create new and innovating tales by mixing and matching the available parts. But it seems like the concept of “Starcrossed lovers” is a part that is here to stay. With the popularity of films like Twilight and its many copies, bringing together two individuals who should never be together in a romantic relationship will be a trend that will not go away any time soon.

A while back I saw the movie Warm Bodies (see entry here) and before the film I saw no less than three trailers for films that perfectly fit the type of description I gave above. Now there is nothing new about romantic fantasy tales. I remember Legend as a child and certainly all the Disney fairy tale films had an element of romance to them, but these films did not completely revolve around a romantic relationship. The main characters were not making googly eyes at each other constantly throughout the film.

Not so with our current crop of romantic fantasy. What began with Twilight, progenitor of the current trend, has now culminated with Beautiful Creatures. Beautiful Creatures revolves around a family of wizards (“Casters” as they prefer to be called) who are in a war between light and dark. Lena, a caster who is young and in love, is on the cusp between the light and the dark. She falls in love with a fellow student and there is a fear that this relationship will tempt her towards the dark. So many plotlines are shared between this and other such films. The forbidden love, the concept of good and bad paranormal creatures, not to mention the internal fighting among the “families” of the supernatural being.

While these films are trying to follow a formula which they believe is needed for a fantasy film, there is proof you can do fantasy without necessarily romance. Once Upon A Time is a successful show on ABC and it is based in a fantasy concept. But despite a love story between Snow White and Prince Charming, there is very little romance in this show. But there is lots of fantasy. Same with the recently released film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Despite one love scene (no, not between the title characters, they’re siblings, that’s gross) the film has almost no romance in it.

Part of me understands the appeal. Forbidden fruit is usually the sweetest, so depicting a forbidden relationship certainly can be quite appealing to an audience. But if the only reasons these two characters are being brought together is because they are on opposite sides of each other, the story will not carry the interests of the audience. Conflict breeds drama, and drama is entertaining.