From Hannah: A long time ago in a reality that now seems far far away, we did an episode on Media Addiction that discussed hate consuming media. We thought through why, exactly, fans continue to still engage with TV/book/comics/film franchises that disappoint them (Star Wars comes to mind). I’ve wondered, in the time since we’ve done that episode, what creative choices might peeve fans … but not enough to make them quit watching whatever they’re watching (as opposed to not watching Game of Throne because its graphic content is highly upsetting). And, as anyone who has ever gotten into an argument over pop culture ever would probably tell me, preferences are highly individualized.
For example, I hate love triangles. They’re not only overused, but most of the time, they’re extremely, extremely poorly written. But millions of people still tune-in to Grey’s Anatomy, which basically perfected the love triangle on television when I was still in high school. I have family members who can’t truly enjoy a movie if they notice scientific inaccuracies, but instead of refusing to watch, they just make fun of the mistakes. The Internet has expressed collective fatigue with the trope of the teenage savior … but we’re all still excited Avatar: The Last Airbender is now on Netflix. Even the superhero genre seems tired of revisiting very sad origin stories that involve a family member tragically dying so that (insert hero here) will follow their destiny, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still revisit THAT plot line in the future.
And pretty much anything about a creative work can peeve you: a certain type of character, a common plot trope, the lack of care that has gone into research …. the list goes on and on. So for an upcoming episode we want to talk about some pop culture pet peeves. What common plot/character arc/mistake/etc. irritates you? How long are you willing to put up with your pet peeves before they become dealbreakers? And … can we stop killing dogs in media, please?
Queer baiting comes to mind…. It’s something I can sometimes put up with, depending on the quality of the show and the dimensionality of the characters involved, and also probably because hope springs eternal. Probably the most extreme example of that, for me, was Rizzoli & Isles — the queer baiting involving the two main characters got super egregious, but for a few seasons I was like, “That’s cool, bait me, it’s fine.”
Mav said I should come here and yell about slutty bisexuals HOWEVER although I am not fond of that _trope_ I feel like bisexuals are allowed to be slutty if they want. I am more concerned with two others: 1. evil bisexuals 2. people who refuse to put labels on sexuality (because biphobia)
Laura Valentine is two really a common trope? (That is I know it’s a thing. But is it a thing that appears in media as much as the evil bi?)
Chris Maverick I haven’t done the stats on it, but it’s fairly common. There’s some discussion of it here: https://filmschoolrejects.com/bisexual-representation-pop-culture-2018/ that I don’t 100% agree with (for example, I think sexual fluidity is not the same thing as bisexuality) but it’s a consistent thing that happens in media representations of people who, behaviorally, are bi or pan
DC comics editorial effing up the lead up to Doomsday Clock and shifting a narrative thread that readers were invested in and that had so much built into it. Really grinds my gears.