Shipper tendencies

[gategrrl]

Can someone explain to me why there's such a compelling need to sexualize and Romantic-ize characters? I've been there myself, but I seem to have gone past that as a "serious" endeavor. I'll *play* with characters and their sexuality -- but the *need* to pair them up romantically just isn't a priority, and it seems so unnecessary, and somewhat Mary Sueish, especially if it's certain types of het and slash writing.

It's not so much the sexualizing -- that I get, it's fun to imagine your favorite characters whupping it up with the whipped cream and cherries, and get down and dirty and sweaty. But at the same time, what I'm puzzled more about is the need to Harlequinnize decent characters who already have complex, nonsexual relationships with each other, that get totally boring when they DO get together.

Anyone?

Comments

[purpleshrub.livejournal.com]

You mean... you don't need to be in a relationship to be happy? ....blink blink....

I guess I'd go with what some of you have been alluding to and say there's an idea a lot of us are brought up with that success alone isn't enough for contentment. How often have you heard "It's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all?" Why is that? Why is it assumed that people who never married have somehow "failed" at life even if they had a great job and friends?

I'd guess some of what drives ship is also wanting to see the romantic ideal realized. In real life, in anything as idealized as romance or let's say beauty, it's never so simple as "I love," "I love you," "Let's live happily ever after." Even if it's not blatently self-projection onto the characters, in fiction reaching what represents ideal (to you at least) is possible.

Actually the answer is I have no idea where the need to pair them off comes from, though I've recognized it too. Although the fact that I (and you apparently) tend to find those stories boring is a bit subjective, don't you think? Clearly those stories are doing something for a lot of people, or there wouldn't be so many written.
(Since I don't even know what I'm saying I'll be quiet now).

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I (and you apparently) tend to find those stories boring is a bit subjective, don't you think? Clearly those stories are doing something for a lot of people, or there wouldn't be so many written.


Of course it's subjective. Although, as Grac has pointed out, it's when characters get domesticated and hit with globs of smarm and taken out of the context of their shows (mileau) ... then, what's the point of the shipping? Although that's not exactly the metaquestion that's been bandied about.

Nialla's pointed out that the Romance Genre industry is the largest of all the published genres and mainstream fiction. Heck, I've even got a few Susan Krinards on my bookshelf (she writes incredibly hot [het werewolf] sex). So, there's no denying that it's a huge 900 pound gorilla that wears Rodney Dangerfield's sign on its chest that "I don't get no respect."

So, I don't neccessarily find them *boring* -- just, when it comes to onscreen televised episodic fiction (ie a program like Stargate) is it really necessary to shoehorn in Romance everyway it can be done, so that it's overstuffed and sticking out of the seams? That's on the production side of it.

Perhaps its the overwhelming Disneyfication with the old fairy tales of the Girl Getting her Boy, or the other way around...and, if you look at Stargate specifically, it does have a lot of fairytale parallels. (they aren't that far from mythology, after all)

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

It's just so pretictible on tv and in the movies.

I have nothing against romance at all. I am just tired of seeing on Tv and in the movies. Especially when it's not done very well.

But then again, how do we define "well" anyway?