BlackHeart Biohazards

blackheartbiohazards:

Hi anon! Thank you for asking this question. I’m going to answer it in a kind of grumpy tone, but I promise I am not grumpy at you!

is it okay to depict unhealthy relationships in fiction (ie minor/adult) when it comes to stuff like big tv shows?

I feel like when people ask this question, they forget that we already have tv shows and movies like this.

There are already famous, popular, well known, highly marketed, widely-enjoyed books, movies and television shows with these kinds of elements.

Should these things be in the media that children watch?

My friend– that is what ratings systems are for, in tv and movies. To make sure that children are not watching stuff with content that their parents don’t approve of.

When you ask “is it okay”– society at large has already answered resoundingly “YES” for thousands and thousands of years, and society has yet to fall into disrepair and depravity.

When people propose that media with dark themes (including media with minor x adult relationships) should not exist and should not be written, they are advocating a widespread form of censorship that we have not practiced in our species history.

When people propose that media with dark themes (including media with minor x adult relationships) should not exist and should not be written they are proposing that adults with a firm sense of morality should be told what they are and are not ‘allowed’ to watch. Like children.

Culled from TV tropes

• “The Count of Monte Cristo”, Edmond Dantes is already an adult, and a crazy rich count when he purchases Haydee Tebelin, the daughter of Ali Tebelin, the former Pasha of Yanina. Haydee is between 9-10 years old at the time. It is hinted afterward that he had already developed feelings. By the end of the story when she declares her love for him and he finally acknowledges his feelings for her, she is 19-20 years old, and Edmond is already in his forties.
• Part of Holly Golightly’s backstory in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Holly married Doc Golightly when she was thirteen, with the implication that young Holly was a rural Street Urchin and it was simpler for him to marry her than adopt her.
• All in the Family: A Season 9 episode of “Family” saw Archie’s brother, Fred (who is in his mid-50s), marry an 18-year-old girl.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Walder Frey’s current wife, Joyeuse Erenford, is 64 years his junior, and married him when she was 16 and he was 90.
• V. C. Andrews has several examples in her novels, but probably the most notable one is in Garden of Shadows, where Garland Foxworth (in his 70s) married 16-year-old Alicia, who was genuinely in love with him and was more than a decade younger than his son Malcolm.
• In Charite, 17-year-old actress Hedwig Freiberg intially only seems to be interested in Professor Robert Koch, 30 years her senior, because he’s a prestigious Meal Ticket. But when she also stands up against his wife to get him help when he’s ill, has his back during the scandal that destroys most of his career, and marries him after his fame has paled somewhat, it becomes increasingly clear that she really loves him.
• Repeat It Today With Tears by Anne Peile details the romance between 16-year-old Susie and her long-lost father, who is in his mid to late 50s. She lies about her age and pretends to be 19, but he still frequently comments on the age difference between them.
• Time Enough for Love: Lazarus, an immortal, married his adopted daughter Dora Brandon whom he has raised since childhood, and is quite distraught when she dies after “only” 70 or 80-odd years, and remains celibate for 100 years after that before he finally decides to get on with living.
• The 1973 film Breezy has 19-year-old Breezy fall in love with the bitter 54-year-old Frank Harmon.
• Prime Cut: A 50-year-old mobster (Lee Marvin) falls for a barely legal hooker (Sissy Spacek).
• Verfolgt (Hounded / Punish Me). A 16-year-old boy and a 50-year-old woman. She is a probation officer. He’s one of her cases. It’s a BDSM relationship, she’s dominant and he’s submissive.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Rentarou is a first-year in high school. Yaku, his sixteenth girlfriend, is 89 years old despite looking like an 8-year-old. It’s Less Disturbing in Context.
• In Chrono Crusade, 16-year-old Rosette is sweet on her Parental Substitute Father Remington, who publicly claims to be 27, and is actually at least 72.
• Nancy and Hartigan in Sin City. He doesn’t go so far as to actually sleep with her, since he thinks he’s way too old (around 65 at the end of the story) to enter a relationship with a 19-year old, but they do share several very passionate kisses, and he describes her as “the love of my life” in his internal monologue.