I'd love to see you guys do a version of this video, but with the guy twist from Romantic comedies. There are plenty of guy-based (cough Deadpool or most every Judd Apatow movie) romantic comedies now and they use similar tropes, but are skewed towards guys. Heck, there was even a movie in the 90s where a guy was a handyman for a sorority house (I think?) and one of them was basically Miss Right, and he spends the whole movie with a treasure trove of tropes, before figuring it out for himself (and eventually realizing NONE of the girls are the standard tropes, but a subversion of them). Just a thought.
I like that Bridget Jones is kinda an exception where the "wrong guy" is the charming rogue bad boy (who often ends up being the guy who wins the lead over in other movies), while the genuinely kind person who accepts her as she is is the right one :)
Bridget Jones is loosely based on Pride & Prejudice and the point there is slightly different: Mr Darcy isn’t initially the nice kind guy - he’s actually stuck up and snooty and he looks down on the heroine’s trashy family, so she hates him. By contrast, she likes Willoughby (the bad boy) because he seems charming and impressive. But in the end Willoughby turns out to be a liar who ruins her sister for money and Darcy turns out to be very noble and decent, although “prejudiced” by his class assumptions. So it’s all about how first appearances can be deceiving, and you have to look below the surface to find your true match.
@@prenticeclark1454 Very true! I think the same point can still be applied to Bridget Jones actually, even if it's presented slightly differently; now that I think about it, while Colin Firth's Darcy IS the kind guy, he also initially comes off as a bit snooty and terse to Bridget! He's still an unexpected romantic lead because we're meant to find him, well...a bit boring and less charming when compared to Hugh Grant's character. While Hugh Grant is, as you put it, charming and impressive. He wears his douchiness a bit more on his sleeve than Willoughby (which in other movies would set him up to be "reformed"...in reality, he's just a douche!) In the end, both underline the idea that you shouldn't be fooled by charm!
The "Perfect on Paper" guy is usually depicted as genuinely nice and caring, and attentive to the female lead. But then, almost out of nowhere, he'll become hyper controlling or possessive out of the blue, all to free her to end up with her True Love.
@@tam9856 Sometimes but other times turning the perfect guy into a jerk is just a cheat code for the writer to get the audience to prefer the main guy.
I honestly kind of disagree with John Ambrose being considered the perfect on paper guy. He wasn’t boring or playing a part. And a spark actually was there. The problem was the timing. Lara Jean simply met Peter first and already invested in time and effort in order to make their relationship work. It’s not always that there is a *better* option. Sometimes people and relationships are genuine missed opportunities. And that’s okay.
I have to be honest, I always really liked the idea of Lara Jean and John Ambrose (books and movie). Love Peter, he is great, sweet, and romantic, but John Ambrose always made me swoon.
Sometimes, the "Wrong Guy" seems to be so much better for our Leading Lady than her "Real" love interest. Both Lon and John Ambrose seemed to be better catches for Allie and Lara Jean respectively, and graciously accepted that their loves didn't fully reciprocate their feelings. ♥️
I wish there was a better explanation of Lara choosing Peter beyond "he is the one" because what does that even mean? it feels like it was done on sake of just not breaking up the couple from the first movie
@@Missmagazinebura but so did John and a lot of guys she would find along the way, i mean something that explains why her conection with Peter is unique
I don't know. I have a bone to pick with films depicting a much healthier relationship as the one with "the wrong guy", and push back the protagonist to "the one" who is toxic af, and explain it with the je ne sais quoi magic bullshit. Relationships might be complicated, but in real life, if someone talks about stuff like "I can't explain it" or "we have this something" or "you wouldn't understand", it's usually an indicator of some super toxic dynamics.
I always hate that the nice guy, not “nice” guy, but the good guy has to suffer (bad choice of words, bear with me), because the writer wants the end game to be the bad one. I don’t get why it romanticizes the idea of toxic relationships by saying this guy is the one. I do love how Bridget Jones Diary subverted this by showing the good guy is a match that most women look for.
Worse sometimes the Good guy is just rebound guy. Just to show how she is in love with Th e bad guy! But wait they make she forgive everything. Cause poor thing has relationship problems but in the end is Good guy and Will change for her bcause she is different! And this creates a ilusional think on woman that are abuse but think is their Faust
@@BreakCards which is also wrong and I agree with that too. With each of these scenarios, it depends on the situation and also if the relationship progresses or not. But do agree that it is wrong to endorse these type of behaviors as romantic. Adding to the Bridget Jones part, I also liked how you see mainly in the third film how they had to separate and grow individually before coming back together. She managed to have what she wanted with Mark, a home, marriage, and a family. They were both flawed, but still perfect for each other. He also remained a good person throughout. Same with her.
@@BreakCards Right😏, like what happen with Aidan in Sexandthe City, he was genuinely a good man and Carrie used him like toilet paper and threw him away the moment she was done and instead went back to the toxic relationship, it portrays perfectly how women keep gravitating towards men who treat them badly because they get the idea from movies that they can change these guys, and it will magically turn them into their perfect dream guy that will never leave them or hurt them again😮💨as if. People (specially if they are toxic or abusive in any form) dont change for others, if they ever decide to (which is a miracle in itself) they do it for themselves, because why would you change for someone who doesnt even like the current you in the first place🤨 This brainwashing is why women stay in abusive relationships, instead of building their happy ending on their own, and maybe sharing that with someone who is actively working on their own
I was looking for this comment. I feel like those situations are "we accept the love we think we deserve" moments. I think the protagonist could use some therapy to up their self-worth instead of sticking with a bad guy who's comfy, so they think he's the one. 🤷🏾♀️ But that's just my opinion
I’m so happy to see Hugh Grant featured on the thumbnail because the joke is he plays mumbling British men in Rom-Coms but I’d like to think that he has played a wide range of characters from Rom-Com Underdogs to Douchebags.
One of my favorite rom coms is Hugh’s About a Boy, where we see him grow from the charming, rich, bad boy to learn how to care about others. The twist is that instead of a woman being the catalyst for the immature man, it’s a boy who’s going through his own journey. By the end of the movie I can accept that he’s ready for love whereas so many of these where the woman ends up with the sexy hero who’s probably not all that good for her leave me so unsatisfied (Sex in the City, McDreamy….).
Idk about the Monica one. She still wasn't interested in Pete, esp after the 20k check. She only went out w/ him because he was nice. Yes, she points out that she should like him because he's rich, I don't think it's the reason why she (continued to) gave him a chance. It's because he was nice and genuine. After a few dates w/ no chemistry, she friendzones him. She only ever gives him a shot after he kisses her. It's a hilarious reason to finally date someone, but I do think that's the reason she gave Pete a chance. It wasnt about the money for Mon.
Exactly. If it was about the money, she would have dated him immediately! Instead it took him a lot of convincing. I honestly hate how they wrote him off the show tbh
Dean from Gilmore girls wasn't nice when he broke up with Rory for not saying, "I love you" to him after 2 months...as a new to dating 17-year-old girl. That was controlling and manipulative. Threatening to break up with someone if they don't do or say something is controlling. He wasn't nice when he yelled at Rory and broke up with her in front of their entire town. He wasn't nice when he regularly showed a scary amount of jealously toward Rory and Jess and Tristian. He wasn't nice when Rory explained rigid gender roles to him and he dismissed her well-studied interpretations. He wasn't nice when he started dating Lindsay immediately after he dumped Rory, knowing full well he still had issues. He wasn't nice when he married Lindsay, knowing full well they weren't ready for marriage, that he was still a mess and that he still had Rory issues. He wasn't nice when he cheated on simple Lindsay with Rory or let Rory go on thinking that they did nothing wrong. Dean occasionally demonstrated his manipulative, objectifying, emotionally abusive, possessive side way too much to be considered anything but a walking red flag for teenage girls.
@@AB-sm1qf that's certainly a reason, but I think another reason is that he showed behaviour that's stereotypically seen as typical for a man and therefore manly. The majority of the main love interests in romance have anger issues and it's a pretty toxic trope.
I can kind of understand breaking up with her the first time. He was surprised and hurt that she didn’t reciprocate his feelings. But he could’ve handled it better I suppose. Some of the early problems could be chocked up to him just being kind of young, immature and flawed. But by the time he got married to Lindsay was he def an asshole. I prefer Jess because he grew into a better person while Dean got worse as he got older.
Dean also went complaining to Lorelai when he had some problem (I don't remember what) with Rory, instead of talking to Rory directly. I remember thinking... who the hell does that? In front of Lorelai he was always so polite and almost like a sycophant, which was kind of irritating behavior when you think about it.
I feel like we also need to talk about how a lot of these "more exciting" alternative matches for the female leads are often nerfed with huge character flaws because the audience and writers have already decided the female lead needs to wind up with the male lead (who is usually the "average," often mediocre "every man"/male Mary Sue).
I think that a part of many on screen romances is that often the "true love" male character is an audience/writer stand in, and the "true love" woman is a prize. So objectively nicer, smarter, more attractive etc guys have to be bad in someway or a bad fit, so the less desirable, but more relatable to male writers/audience character ends up with the girl.
The wrong love interest tends to be a dude of colour which feels more insidious than it sounds like yeah we put a black guy in our movie but it wasn't that he was black that she cut him off it was that they weren't compatible
No, but they definitely did it on purpose because John Ambrose is originally white. Also, didn't they change the actor because they wanted diversity. It's pretty dumb because how is adding one POC mean that the whole movie is diverse. But my point is the Take already talked about this. On Netflix they make the disposable black/poc love interests to say that they're not good enough against the worse options in these movies.
That's the link to it. But what I was trying to say about diversity is that diversity isn't having one black/poc person represent you. It's having a ton of black/poc with different interests, thought processes , and personalities. That's what I was trying to say. Also, I'm not knocking Jordan Fisher's performance I'm just annoyed with the current trend of disposable black/poc love interests that Netflix is doing.
Julie from Friends. The whole joke was that she was completely flawless but Rachel hated her for no reason. Charlie might have been a pointless character but at least she had a personality, and she was the one who dumped Ross
I’m so happy that this was clearly mentioned in the Straight Woman Domain because us Queer People have our own theses ready for anyone willing to listen.
4:43 My favourite part of the movie where they check out suitors and Joe asks why was Prince William featured and Charlotte said that she loves to look at him. Iconic.
The Rich Guy Red Herring still being a thing in film/tv is really interesting considering the explosion of "billionaire romances" in the books. It's an entire subgenre about the Rich Guy actually being the One. And whatever flaws there may be, rather than ruining the fantasy, it's something the overcome together so heroine can basically have it all. I find that rather intriguing. Fifty Shades of Grey is a prime example and notably was actually based on a book series first before it hit the movies. Edit: Actually, on further thought watching the video, it honestly look like every trope that TV/Film play negatively on screen is played a lot more positively in books. I mean the Bad Boy? Do you know how many love triangles those types end up winning? And a lot of the time, it's against the Nice Guy. This is so incredibly fascinating. I might need to do some research.
Concerning the Rich Guy fantasies: One explanation that stuck with me was that basically the female protagonist wants The One and also wants the luxury and prestige that comes with the money, but they usually refuse said money at first, so the audience doesn't perceive them as gold diggers/ money grabbing sugar babys. That's why many books/ movies have the protagonist "put up" with receiving gifts and surprises, then choose the Rich Guy out of love and accept his assets as "I didn't want it, but now that I have it, it's quite nice..."
50 Shades of Grey is not an example of anything good. It's a cringey and abusive story with some of the most embarrassingly bad writing I've ever seen from a full grown adult. Twilight was already similarly bad, and 50 was an even worse fan fiction offshoot from it.
@@autumnatic I didn't mean it was good. It's simply the most accurate example of how the Rich Guy is the main love interest and not a Red Herring like the other examples. That's what makes it a prime example.
9:41 Or as Kate Winslet playing Marianne Dashwood in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ said something along the lines of ‘Can the soul be pleased by such polite affections’ while assessing Edward Ferrars, the Nice Guy.
Can we talk how toxic how some of "The Right Guys" are kind of toxic? Like Mark Darcy, he's so toxic from start to finish (insulting and neglecting Bridget, I think he can't bear to be single which is why he replaces women with another one as he married a woman he didn't love after ge and Bridget split, also that the story and fandom blame the women)
Precisely, and Noah from "The Notebook" threatened to commit suicide if Allie rejected him, despite her already being with someone else, and making it clear that she wasn't interested at the time. That would have scarred her for life.
@@jessicavictoriacarrillo7254 True, I was always salty that Mark stormed off after reading Bridget's diary, in which she insults him, leading to her to have to chase him in the snow. Granted, he was only going to buy her a new diary, but a little heads up would have been nice.
I am so annoyed by stories that start out with the heroine being in a relationship with a genuinely lovely guy, but then has a spark with some rando, where you just know they will end up breaking up or getting divorced quite soon after the sexytime hormones have ceased for a bit. Also, in real life, if you know both the people in a couple well, you can pinpoint exactly why they fell for each other and continue to work, if they do. In movies, you often can't.
May I respectfully suggest that bad boys, handsome men, nice guys (fake or real), the on paper perfect dude and even rich people are not just stepping stones in someone elses personal developent towards the right partner. Flawed as the may be, they're also real people with feelings, romantic aspirations and hearts that can be broken.
To add a little cynicism, the red herring love interest is often a man or woman of color if the heroine (or hero) is white. That way the main character gets points for being racially open minded, even though we all know she won't end up with him (see, for example, Blair Underwood in Sex and the City). The Take's "Disposable Black Love Interest" video talks about this.
Is there a difference between "A Red Herring Love Interest" and "The 3rd Leg Of A Love Triangle" ? Other than that the Red-Herring Love-Interest is introduced before the main love-interest, whereas the 3rd leg of the love-triangle, is introduced AFTER the main love-interest (sometimes)
As a 30 Rock Superfan, my thanks for mentioning Drew, who not only is The Hot Guy, but The Hot Stupid Guy (cue the reason he lost his hands) 🤣 Funnily, Liz also dated the Charming British Guy (Wesley), the Bad Boy (Dennis), the Perfect on Paper Guy (Carol) and the Nice Guy (Floyd) 🙃
ooof, I was with my red herring for 8 years... 6 months after leaving him, I found my BFF. we got married and are excited to be starting a family soon. we met in 2019
I never saw Dean as a genuine good guy, tho. More as a negative nice guy. Because Dean only was nice as long as things went his way. But whenever this was not the cause (for example when he told Rory he loved her and she wasn't ready to say it back) he showed a pretty bad temper. Especially how he treated his poor wife Lindsay was pretty bad, not just that he cheated on her, but also the way he gaslighted and shamed her when she got suspicious. That's why so many are still Team Jess. Jess started as the bad boy but the more he grew up, the more decent he became, when with Dean it was the other way around. And Logan just never grew up. I still think Rory would never have fallen for him if he wasn't rich. She always had an appetite for luxury which became blatantly obvious when she entered Yale. It's no surpirse many people started to dislike her then.
WHEN ARE YOU MAKING A HEARTSTOPPER VIDEO!!?? Heartstopper takes so many tropes and subverts them. There’s so much to discuss in the show about what our expectations are as viewers vs what actually happens in the shown it was such a lovely watch being wrong about every eye roll prediction I was so sure was going to happen
We always have a rough idea of the things that will attract us and eventually make ourselves attached - to another person. Sometimes those hunches play out more right, sometimes those hunches play out more wrong. So it's only the trying out that can find always find out - in the end.
Boris Kodjoe was a great "perfect on paper" red herring for Sanaa Lathan in Brown Sugar. Harley was a sexy rich red herring for Judith in Temptation of a Marriage Counselor.
You have to question the ethics of the "rich guy" because you know he didn't get his money by being a good person. That's true of all people with money
I just need to correct that, in Friends, Monica didn't date him because he was rich, she rejected him many times especially when she found out he was rich
Thanks for the vid . Attraction is stupid a lot of the time. Something is more powerful than a spark and that is burning deeply for each other and wanting to be better for them.
Wow, and imagine my surprise when my friend Kaitlyn decided to date Jake Dark-Heart, the 22-year-old shirtless-plumber-savant who recently got accepted to MIT; instead of dating Fergus Trevor Murphy, the ascot-wearing Brit whose family is worth 500 million.
4:45 Ngl I have low-key fetishised so many British guys mostly due to Pop Culture but also because of the perceived pleasant nature of the accent. Also remnants of colonialism intertwined with caste and class structures.
I’m English myself and films have always made me wish I had the posh accent and ‘british charm’, but it rarely actually exists. And if you heard my accent you might think many things but sexy would never be one of them lmao
I don’t see Jess as a guy who only wants his life the easy way or who liked to appear bad to look cooler because for me, that would be Logan and Tristan. Both his parents abandoned him and many other figures of authority constantly told him he was worthless of their time. And the two times he left were because it was all he knew and all he was taught
I loved your analysis. So compelling and specific. What about The Side Character Who Was Supposed To Be Just The Friend But The Fandom Prefers As Endgame Because Is Better Than The One? That applies to female and male protagonist...
Gossip girl, that was Dan with Blair. They made it seem like Dan was only supposed to be her friend but he was like the most healthy relationship she ever had and actually made her grow into a better version until they broke up and she reverted back to season 1 Blair 😭😭😭.
Honestly, I hated that Lelaina ended up with Troy in "Reality Bites", because he spends the entire movie being an AH, especially toward her. Michael wasn't a perfect match, but he treated her well.
I hate the “perfect on paper” excise sometimes because not every guy or girl who fits that description is perfect for you and the next guy or girl you end up with is worse. This version is not always the worst one for you. But do like seeing how there are good and bad examples in the video and showing many interpretations of the tropes we see.
Well rich guys I would say are 50/50 lol. My favorite was Logan in the original Gg series. Didn’t like how they were portrayed in the revival but the chemistry was still there and I can imagine they’ll fall in love by coparenting. Well aiden will be on Just like that so will see
Which "coparenting"? Lol. Logan is getting married, his family is involved in politics and high social circles, you think he will assume a child from an affair? He is going to marry someone he doesn't even care about (showed by the zero respect he had for her) just because he was told to. Since when Logan do responsible things? Even if Rory let him know (which I'm also not sure, Rory was never the one to be 100% honest with other people, especially with important/seriously matters), I don't see him breaking a big deal engagment which is giving him a lot and "humiliating" his family name by showing "irresponsability". If he loved Rory he wouldn't had an affair with her, he would've been with her and not use someone else for material gain. The best this baby is getting is money so Logan doesn't feel bad about himself for not being there. After all, that's the way he is known to fix his stuff, putting money on it.
It's an open ending. I just don't see Logan being an absentee Dad or Dad who just sends a check. I think he wanted to be a better Dad. It's why I hope Asp does not do another revival, I can accept Rory and Logan not together. I can even stomach Rory and Jess even though I don't like them but I cannot watch Logan as an absentee Dad and I am worried Asp will write it that way cause she wants to do a sloppy Luke , lorelai, and Christopher parallel. I prefer to live with the memories and have the ending in my head
Same thing happened to me. I've had two guys who were really rich pursue me but to me the class difference is so huge I felt very inferior next to them.
Something that would have been interesting in this one would have been adding a reference to _The Baxter,_ a movie told from the perspective of the guy who gets dumped in other movies. It's played up by having the title character played by Michael Showalter while the man of destiny is played by Justin Theroux, whose character I hated so very, very much. It is a quite amusing way of turning the genre on its head.
Phoebe's boyfriend David from Friends, maybe? They had to try reeeeeally hard to make him seem wrong for Phoebe in his last appearance, because prior to that he was a pretty great match for her. He was respectful, kind, honest, they had a ton of chemistry, he had his own passion and interests outside of their relationship (as did she), he stood up to his friends for being jerks towards Phoebe. We don't get a TON of him in the show, but when it became a triangle between David, Phoebe and Mike, like I said, they really had to try hard to make it clear that the Only choice was Mike, since David had always been so right for Phoebe.
huh, I wonder if there's gonna be a sequel to this, what would the female red herring love interests be then? Cause off the top of my head, it's either a "princess"(essentially a rich girl) a miss popularity(if the setting is in high school) or just a straight-up nag,
Could you do a video on the one after "The One" in recent reboots or like in later seasons of a show (Meredith Grey & Nick, and others). The one you pick when you know what you want in life after you've been through it.
Can you do a video on why we should call animation a medium instead of just of kids, because calling just for kids cause a huge disrespect to the animation industry. Because of WB discovery merger causing a huge cut of animation projects and the cancellation of many well loved animation shows.
My ex was almost all of them at points. He was the hot guy/nice guy as a sweet teenager. Then he was a rich guy because he came into a lot of crypto suddenly then he was the bad boy because the money inflated his ego massively and he started doing a bunch of drugs… well I hate bad boys so after that he became the ex guy. 😂
Anyone else wonder what happened to Pete Becker? Like did he die or become paralyzed in his attempt, or did he give up and was just too ashamed to contact Monica after to give it another try?
Basically, you're saying that these guys are met before meeting my the one (the title itself dictates the flow); but what if one of these "wrong ones" is the one for me. Isn't it what this video is about. Finding the one that is suited for me not because of it looks good in paper and by accord to society's view. Clicked and watched the video to somehow pacify my inner concerns with love but as I go along with it, the more I realize that the guy I am with (well technically he already dropped me basing from his actions) is the one for me. He is not perfect. I can't express my love to him wholeheartedly (LDR). But he is the one I want. I don't know how to explain it. It's also not because I am trapped or that I got used to or feared I can't find someone else. It's just him. I want him. It's like Leonard of BigBang Theory and Rachel of FRIENDS combination and I'm the result. It's like you can see from afar that we are meant but it's not working... The more I get away the more I feel that he is the one. But he is on the other hand doesn't seem to see the same way... Now, I think I'll be alone for the rest of my life... as my only fantasy is to have a life with this man and getting through the rollercoaster of life together. I can't see any other guy with that...
Ugh nothing makes me more mad than when the nice guy gets rejected! Dean from GG and Aidan in SATC were my faves and I got very upset when their hearts were broken
He was quite controlling of Carrie. He liked her vibe, loved her energy, but didn't like the way it manifested itself, so he kept trying to change her. He wanted her to be a country girl, but she was never going to be that. She was a city girl through and through. When they first met, he said he couldn't date her unless she stopped smoking. As an ex-smoker, you can't just give up smoking on someone else's say so; it has to be the right time for you. What that meant was that Carrie lied from the beginning of that relationship. It showed his controlling tendencies from the off. Carrie never seem to be fully herself with him either. Big was a cad, but she was her most authentic self with him, unlike her other bf's. Which says it all.
Dean was controlling too. Gilmore girls did NOT age well. As an adult with a better understanding of emotionally abusive relationships, consent and boundaries, I can now see GG for what it really was.
@@yaells6758 Chuck doesn’t pretend otherwise, though. For me the worst kinds of people are the bad ones who think they’re good, or at least pretend they are good. Dan genuinely thinks he’s a good person and better than all the others and he’s really not. He’s actually one of the worst. I find hypocrisy to be the single most infuriating trait in existence lol
@@AndersWatches sure I guess i just remember how a lot of fangirls loved chuck when I always found him disgusting from the start it’s been sometimes since I watched gg tho lol
Howw daré you to say Jess was the bad guy when in comparison Logan fits the stereotype more. I'll grant that Jess seems and acts like a bad guy, but he is actually more complex.
