Thoughts: fictional friendships for men and women

I enjoy romance. When told well, the intense investment in the relationship between two fictional characters is one of the best thing about stories. One of the things I generally don't like about action films, is not so much the excess of action, but the lack of relationships. I used to think it was the lack of romance, but considering how irritating I find the token sexy love interest in many of these films I've decided it is more about relationships: romance, friendship, family, all of it.

Friendship is an incredible complex beautiful and diverse thing. My favourite stories are often about friendship. Thinking about my favourite stories, such as Harry Potter, a key aspect of my love for the books is the relationships between the characters. Especially Harry, Ron and Hermione. Something that frustrated me about the film versions, was that in the middle ones there was a strong hint that Hermione and Harry's relationship could be more than friendship.

It seems to me that friendships have been lost a bit in media representations of men and women. Whatever you watch, unless there is a blood relationship or significant age difference the chances of seeing two main characters of the opposite sex relate to each other entirely unromantically are near impossible. It's not that they necessarily have to actually have a relationship, but often the only way women relate to men is as a potential or past non-platonic relationship.

It is so pervasive that when there are platonic relationships such as Buffy and Giles' completely paternal relationship in BtVS or Donna and the Tenth Doctor, other characters are constantly implying their relationship is something more.

If the woman is "off-limits" because they are in a different relationship, there will still often be a implied (or explicit) relationship with the male character. Often this happens in the best guy friend who is actually in love with the girl kind of stories (one of my least favourite tropes).

Considering the lack of complex female characters in the media, I feel like this is something that maybe should be challenged. It reduces female characters to their relation to men, they become the romantic interest, the ex, the girl-next-door. Often, the relationship that is constructed is not even necessary to the narrative.

We watched The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (for me the second time) the other night, and I was struck by the complete redundancy of Caspian and Susan's romance plot line. It does not add anything to the film. In fact, as a fan of the books, it significantly retracted from the film.