Anon watches a romance movie

And also how often the movie is completely oblivious to that. For example it's been a while since I saw "Devil wears Prada" but if I remember right, the ending is:

Our main character has an argument with her boyfriend

Goes to a business trip in Paris

Sleeps with random guy

Returns home and makes up with her boyfriend

And the movie ends like nothing happened, she's happy, that's what's important

Her probably:
They break up in the end.
i wish my wife would do this so that i can stick my asshole on fire
- wat
I mean, that was bad, but I hated the movie more for turning it into feel-good drivel about the boss actually being kind and caring about her employee(s). The book ending, where the character realized her own self worth and started making her own decisions, was so much better than the american bullshit about putting up with a boss' bullshit because they're actually such good people and will throw a few dollars off the balcony for you to catch.

More troubling to me is how many romance movies have our protagonist stalk their love interest, who has already explicitly rejected them... and it works, because their obsession is framed as "love at first sight" and "not giving up on love".

Oh, and the other common trope, non-consensual voyeurism... and it works, because the woman is 'flattered' that the guy finds her attractive.

...How good is the "pop culture detective" YouTube channel?

…How good is the “pop culture detective” YouTube channel?
It's basically "Anita Sarkeesian's ex keeps doing essentially the same kind of thing she used to do", to the point that the writing is similar enough (at least at the beginning of the channel, haven't watched any of it in a long time) that I wonder if he wasn't the one doing most of the writing for her stuff during the Tropes v Women era.

There's so many songs, TV shows, movies, etc, that's all romance or love stories that contain very blatant infidelity.

What tickles me is when very monogamous, very religious people talk that stuff up.... Like it's such a good song/movie/show... Ha. You have fantasies of leaving your spouse and running off with a younger, more attractive person. You slut.

I'm not religious, but I found a partner that gets me. Guess what. I'm not fantasizing about running off with some mythical "better" or "more romantic" person. Yeah, we're living together unmarried, and we're good like that. You rushed into marriage for God knows what reasons and now you live in regret. Good job.

Are you saying you don't like piña coladas?
- Piña colada is a "you both awful and deserve each other"
for God ~~knows what reason~~
Ftfy. Skydaddy gonna be angy they fucked before marriage

Great romance requires a choice. It's difficult to find a choice that matters, ideally it is something they already have, but are giving up. That's why all the hallmark movies work because a big city girl is giving up her career to grow cucumbers or something. Making a choice to take a job somewhere else doesn't work because it's a future thing - giving up an opportunity is not the same as giving up a realized life situation. Infidelity really works because it's a former dream, and it means giving up stability, status, comfort for the unknown.

It works from a story perspective but it sends a very terrible message.
- It also doesn't help that it has some heritage from courtly romance, if youve ever wondered why Guinevere and Lancelot have a thing going on in Arthurian mythology that's why. The French were enamored with courtly romance and guess who helped forge modern romance.

And most of the time it is women cheating. I think it is because these movies are made mostly for women and it is like porn for them.

it is like porn for them.
You think that seeing other women cheat on their partners is like porn for women?
- Yes. Because everyone has thought about that one hot guy that they want to fuck (most won’t act on it).
  Same thing in porn for men is cheating porn.
  It is a turn on for a lot of people. Very few act on it.
- Completely unrelated to the discussion, wanted to thank you for the pic. Literally choking down laughter hard so as not to wake the neighbors.
You might be internalizing those movie scripts and your own lived experience. A cursory Google search indicates the opposite.
- What do you mean? I am saying what happens in the movies, the movies which mostly women watch. I didn’t say it was real.

I don't mind infidelity in media when the one being cheated on is "evil" in some ways like they're abusive or not in love. Still icky though. It's just very different when it's something like that versus "I'm cheating because you're bad at sex."

It's usually "we have gotten bad at sex" and there's no conversation about it. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Talk about and figure it out. Then leave. Don't be a fucking dipshit about it.
- I don't view "we've gotten bad at sex" as evil, though it can be a symptom of "falling out of love." It just depends on the media in question and the story. Plus I can enjoy something even if I don't agree with the protagonist's actions.
  Edit: When I say "we've gotten bad at sex" not being evil I mean on part of the person being cheated on not the cheater. Being bad at sex doesn't make you evil and "deserve" to be cheated on.
I feel like the Righteous Gemstones - for a silly, flight of fancy / action movie-inspired series - depicted it pretty well.
Damaged people compelled to seek attention and solace without thinking of the consequences. Senseless, illogical, stupid, ill-considered, badly hidden, not even really what any of the people actually involved want.
- I don't specifically remember the infidelity in that series, but I do remember the characters. It's very much a "love to hate them" type show like Always Sunny is. Sure, they have genuine moments occasionally but mostly you're just enjoying watching them suffer and get into antics.

I saw Casablanca for the first time 2 weeks ago, and yep, checks out.

Infidelity is widespread, because it comes from human nature. Instead of vilifying it we should strive to find and normalize forms of relationships that allow for more liberty without the necessity of lying and cheating.

What’s to stop anyone today from having an open conversation with their partner about opening their relationship? In the examples above, no one is vilifying having an open relationship… it’s vilifying lying and dishonesty.
Even if we were to normalize infidelity, that doesn’t mean anyone should be beholden to accepting it in their relationship. Your argument is akin to saying “lying is widespread because it comes from human nature” so we should just normalize lying.
F that noise.
- Healthy open relationships at scale will require some pretty big changes in society.
  Communication, critical thinking, self-actualization, Maslow's Hierarchy; all those things will have to be improved both in society-at-large and within the educational system. Most of the world will not function well in polyamory without basically redoing society.
- I mean the. Catholic church, patriarchy, most Major religions come to think of it.
- I think normalizing having more partners even in a stable relationship with one partner would make it much easier to actually talk to your partner and discuss it openly, because the percentage of partners that see it as something terribly wrong would be much lower and people wouldn't feel like speaking about such things is risky. That would reduce the need for cheating, although it wouldn't make it disappear (as it's not the only cause, as someone's correctly pointed out).
Your exact same argument could be made for murder, for sex crimes, for hate crimes, etc. Just because some people might occasionally want to commit these acts, does not make them okay, because they hurt people.
Open relationships already exist. There is no limit on what kind of relationship you can define with your partner, so there is absolutely no "necessity of lying and cheating". That is just an excuse for people who don't give a shit about hurting people.
- It sounds like the point they're making is more: "we internalize and understand relationship norms through serial monogamy, and maybe more people would benefit from reconsidering if that is what they want."
  Not: "You wanna cheat on your partner? Just do it lol."
- That's just not true. Open relationships do exist (I've seen several work out nicely) but the overall opinion on them in most cultures is they're weird, doomed or plain wrong and evil. Unless it is normalized that sex is not something fatal, it's ok among consenting adults, we won't move to a really sexually tolerant society.
You are 100% right, there is such thing as ethical non monogamy, and if people want to have a loving relationship and not be exclusive then we should normalize it. The comments here saying "next you'll say murder is ok because it's human nature" is the same type of shit people said when gay marriage was allowed. "Next we'll be saying it's natural to marry animals!" 🙄 It's all the slippery slope fallacy
Edit: I'm not saying that EVERY person should be non monogomous, and I'm not saying EVERY person is non monogomous for the right reasons. I'm saying it's a real relationship style that some people do for the right reasons and everyone is consenting, and it deserves to be normalized and respected.
- I think there's a big difference between fucking consenting adults while their partners are OK with it, and fucking children.
  I shouldn't have to spell that out but here we are.

I recently heard Docket by Blondshell for the first time and favorited it right away.

Then I listened again more tuned in and noticed it was about infidelity and thought “aw man”, unfavorited and moved on.

Heard it a couple more times and realized it wasn’t glorifying cheating, lines like “my worst nightmare is me”. Back on the list! Real rollercoaster.

Bothered me significantly in the will they/won't they dynamic of The Office.

The OG premise of The Office was similar to Seinfeld. They were all supposed to be awful people. Jim and Dwight and Michael were just three different flavors of incel. Jim hitting on a soon-to-be-married woman was supposed to be off-putting and gross. The front office guys treating the back office guys like trash was supposed to be elitist and revolting.
But because the writers needed to give you someone to root for, and because Jim was the "hot one" in a show full of normal looking people (aka the writers room from a bunch of sitcoms who thought it would be funny to have a show where they play each other's characters), they had to justify Pam breaking up and getting together with Jim. And then they had to turn the Jim/Pam arc into Friends. And then they had to turn the Dwight/Angela and Michael/Jan arcs into Friends. And by the final season they were just, like, "Fuck it, this show is now the same as Friends."
Especially when he ditches Karen in NYC while she's waiting on him to meet with her friends. Even if I was Pam I'd be put off by that

Almost like it has to be interesting 🤔