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In this sense, it’s insidious — Bella offers a blank slate on which the audience can project itself
Ironically, as crap as Twilight is, making Bella a blank slate is quite an ingenius idea (it doesn’t work for the movies so much) but for the books (which fortunately I’ve never had the desire to read) it’s quite clever. By making Bella so blank, the young female reader would subconsciously insert themselves into that role and thus would care about Bella that much more and be invested in the success of that relationship. The problem comes in that Twilight’s readership have likely never been in a romantic relationship themselves and therefore their perception of what a relationship should be like is influenced by the media they consume such as books, television, films and magazines, not to mention real life situations eg a child growing up in a family whose parents have a healthy and loving marriage/relationship are likely to hold that as the standard on what a good relationship should be like.
Media influences people for better or for worse. That’s not to say that all media should be sanitised into a wholesome cookie-cutter image because it is actually through the “safe” exposure to dangerous situations (through media depicting violent/abusive scenarios, and real life experiences such as children climbing trees/jumping off things and falling down, that people learn what to do to protect themselves from such dangers in the future or what to do if they find themselves in such a situation. Most shows that depict a woman in an abusive relationship would do their best to show why she should get out the relationship and how she can do that.
The dangerousness of Once, Twilight and 50 shades of Grey is that they are showing an abusive relationship, but rather than depicting why the woman needs to get out of it, they are showing that she is enjoying it and that it should be idealised. For young impressionable viewers/readers this is their first exposure to a romantic scenario and thus their impression of what a relationship should be like.
Re- actor’s hotness. What’s funny about this is that I think there are other components in the mix here. For example, with something like 50 Shades of Gray, even if the male lead weren’t actually attractive, the story would still have its fans (say, if Christian Gray were played by James Spader). However, if he weren’t super wealthy, it would be immediately denounced as abusive and creepy. Imagine Christian Gray as an unsuccessful bum living in his mother’s basement. I suspect the story would lose much of its alleged hotness factor, and get a whole lot of ewwws!
I disagree. I think that as long as a guy is hot, people will still ship him with somebody. Even if he is an absolute arsehole, the female protagonist will be shipped with him because he’s misunderstood, he can change for the better with love, he just needs someone to care about him, etc etc. It’s a well known trope called “Draco in leather pants” and often goes hand in hand with “Ron the deatheater” ie the bad boy is woobified into “just needs love” whilst the more heroic character is vilified.
Tv tropes has more detail
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RonTheDeathEater
With OUAT and Colin, the hot honorable pirate trope is of course nothing new. Actually, it’s a classic — think Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood series (for which I admittedly have a very soft spot). I mean, that was written in the 1920s, if I’m not mistaken. But as others have mentioned here already, that sort of “pirate with a heart of gold” is not in fact how Hook is written. He’s every bit not the thing he claims to be, yet all the other characters seem to be taking his self-centering activities and efforts at face value. To reprise the Jessica Jones analogy, he’s a Killgrave type who is successful at spinning his view of the story.
The problem with Hook is that the character hasn’t transitioned gradually from villain to hero like Regina but has just suddenly been switched. We’ve not seen him repent for his past misdeeds, and in current day he’s still spiteful toward Rumple just because he can (see 4A), we’re TOLD he’s redeemed himself but we’ve not been SHOWN it. Hook giving in to the dark side is supposed to be this tragic heartbreaking moment but it rings hollow because he’s not shown any genuine progress, DarkOne Hook is the real Hook coming out to play after having been forced to play nice for Emma.
Hook is always motivated by what he gets out of doing something, he wants Emma therefore he’ll do what it takes to get her affections. Notice how when he turns on her because she displeased him, he went for personal attacks. Emma has a hard time opening up to people, she let down her walls to Hook (and he likes her having walls so he can break them down, ie he likes having her emotionally depend on him and make her feel good about herself because he’s the only one she should allow to do that. Her family won’t understand like he does etc) and Hook uses that to keep her emotionally dependent on him.
Once is presenting CS as a good relationship that should be idealised and it’s not.
All magic comes with a price!
Keeper of Felix