marcusseldon:

Here’s a common plot line in tv shows: the main character is introduced to a one off character who has an unusual lifestyle, belief system, or identity. This new character challenges the main character’s ideas about the world, makings then think their assumptions and choices were not the only legitimate ones to make. Furthermore, the new character presents strong arguments in favor of their lifestyle/belief/identity, which challenges the mostly mainstream audience to be more open minded and accepting. The new character seems happy and well adjusted, perhaps more so than our drama-surrounded main character.

And then at the end there is a plot twist which edgily reveals the folly of the new character and their belief/lifestyle/identity. They’re shown to be just as dysfunctional, if not more dysfunctional, than the main character as a result of their weirdness. No counter argument is presented, they are just shown to have been naive.

One example I recently saw (in a good show I genuinely love) involved a one off polyamorous character, who presented strong reasonable arguments about the virtues and legitimacy of poly. This was a challenging idea for the main characater, who was cheated on and very conflicted in her romantic life. Then, at the end, there’s a twist revealing that actually the poly character’s primary committed horrible acts out of jealousy, and this makes the poly character love him more because she was feeling not truly loved deep down too.

So after introducing a mainstream audience to legitimate poly ideas, the show yanks that away and says “see? Sustainable true love is only monogamous love, everybody is super jealous, look at how edgy we are”. Now, such a plot line could be more interesting and thought provoking if there were other poly characters at other pints in the show, but of course there are no other polyamorous characters in the show after that episode.

Now, again, I love this show, and for the most part it has pretty interesting and nuanced depictions of relationships, monogamy and its challenges, and jealousy, but with this one off poly character it just decided to be cyncial about it, which is just less interesting.