#jackie thomas

It happens almost all the time when you have a male and a female lead. Take out the instances where they’re blood related like Gravity Falls’ Mabel and Dipper for obivous reasons, and you’re left with opposite gender protagonists that eventually get into a romantic relationship/have romantic feelings towards each other.

This has gotten so systematic that I can’t root for them all that much anymore. It reinforces the idea that boys and girls (or men and women) can’t be close friends wihout it growing romantic over time. I’ve had a few friends in my life, some of which were boys. I would have helped them hide a body. Listened to them late in the night when they had problems. Had parties, sleepovers, pillow fights, amazing days out at amusement parks, dinners, you name it -and it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to date them. Same goes for the gay people I know: they have close friends of the same gender and didn’t consider dating them, nor did they fall in love with them. That you would do all this for someone doesn’t have to mean you’re interested in them that way, yet seeing it everywhere, especially on kids shows, forces this concept into everyone’s heads. Boys and girls can be friends (and gays boys can have boy friends, and gay girls can have girl friends, and bisexuals can have friends, I assure you).

Another thing it does that bothers me to no end (pretty big deal in Svtfoe) is that it depicts romantic feelings as somehow superior to friendly ones. As if, when getting super close to someone, of course you’d fall in love, because romantic love is the “next step” of affection. I actually see romance as one of the many facets of an infinity dice called love, that is no way superior or inferior to family love, friendship, etc. It’s different, not stronger. It’s another way you can walk, not the obligatory continuation of the Friendship one. I would have liked to see more characters being absolute friends or soulmates without romantic subtext. I don’t want to see them throwing their friends away for their One Lovetm. 

I guess that’s mostly why I wanted Marco to stay with Jackie, and maybe work on how he could make time for both his girlfriend and bestfriend. Or having Star with Tom, and showing that no, being close to Marco wouldn’t have meant she had to be in love with him.