Many books have certain ‘problematic’ parts to them, whether the author intended to include those things or not. These can include; racism, ableism, sexiam, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, ect. as well as harmful caricatures. On top of that, some themes encourage and romanticise things that definitely should not be encouraged or romantisised, which is also very toxic.
Here is a list of some common themes that are problematic:
The woman who heals the (male) love interest.
This one is quite easy to explain. Women (and anyone really) are not rehabilitation centres for damaged people. They are not there to ‘fix’ someone, and romantisising it encourages vulnerable people to believe that it is their responsibility to shoulder their partner’s burdens, and to heal them all by themselves. Some people do this to a healthy extent out of love, but it should not be expected by anyone. There’s a difference between not giving a d-mn and actively encouraging your partner to seek other forms of therapy for your own mental wellbeing.
This trope is quite common in teenage romance novels, as well as the famed episode stories
Any kind of racial or religious caricature
Need I say more? Seriously?
Gay best friends
Another thing I don’t really need to expand, but I will anyway because I have more experience with them. A queer character should not serve solely as the main character’s slightly toxic bestie. Their personality traits should not solely consist of high pitched squealing, misused aave and atrocious fashion senses. They do not have to be borderline p3rv3rted, white, and over-the-top™. Stereotypes are fine when used properly and with class, but a character should not be completely made out of one very harmful stereotype.
Abusive love interests
It’s not cute. It’s not fun. It’s brainwashing vulnerable people and putting innocent kids in avoidable danger. They see these things romanticised in the media and think that it’ll be great. That that is how romance should be. Little kids are getting hurt because of these.
Romanticisng mental disorders.
Things like “He kissed her scars” and “She was (insert measure for how skinny she was here) and she was beautiful for it.” (why is it always girls in these cases? smh) “He had anger/trust issues and loved no one, until them”
All of these are weird and gross. That’s all I have to say
@/Bookworms:
Have you guys found any other harmful tropes that you would like to share?
Are there any themes you didn’t realise were as harmful as they are?
That trope where the MC is a “bad*ss” and beats up the most popular girl or the bully of the story and gets into fights with people to assert their dominance. There’s nothing wrong with saying that an MC defended themselves when being presented with such situation but describing such a violent MC glamourising it, never showing any kind of consequence and constantly justifying it, shows that the author probably has some real life issues they need to work out or they just really don’t understand that being in a situation where you need to use violence is not a good thing.
Especially in episode stories, I don’t want to see the MC doing the sassy animations then a description of how they beat the poop out of someone who insulted them. Then everyone being like “Ooo they’re so cool”
Exactlyyy
Like if you beat someone up irl, you could get sued, arrested, suspended/expelled/fired, and so many other things. When fights happen, there’s no ‘‘omg they’re so cool’’ moments. The fight gets videoed and gossiped about by everyone nearby. At most people will back you up and say the other person deserved it. There’s no ‘cool dude’. It’s just as likely that they’ll be labelled as an @sshole too.
Yupppp
In general any theme or situation people do when they’re trying to be edgy examples:
Kidnapping, abuse, gangs etc
That doesn’t show the negative consequence is toxic and problematic.
Also with the mental health thing I’ve read a few stories that tried to make mutism (I hope I spelled that right or am refering to the right thing) seem cute
I’ve read many where it was done well
But also so many where it wasn’t
Sl#t-shaming MCs: They go to a party as usual and shame the girls who wear skimpy outfits and flirt around (and it makes me even more angry when the said MC says afterwards that she is actually a feminist).
MCs who are rude to people for no reason: And they actually wear it as an aesthetic of some sorts throughout the whole story. I never got how being mean and a horrible person would get people to like you back.
Rich “brats” being held on a pedestal: You might have come around some stories where the MC or other characters (who are ridiculously filthy rich) always get their way out just because they are rich and have higher reach to do all sorts of things. For instance, alcohol consumption before age of 25, belittling people of lower income that their own, etc. And it’s worse when these kind of people are made the protagonists or the “good” people and put on high pedestals by glamourizing their lifestyle and personalities. I am sorry but no matter how hot or the number of black credit cards your attractive LI has, I wouldn’t support them if they are a rich brat with such kind of issues.
The cheating MC portrayed as the “good” character: Is it even needed to talk about this trope? She made her bed, she better lie on it. No need to pull off the “I wasn’t interested in my partner anymore and was bored outta my mind and needed some excitement boo-hoo ” like dude have you ever heard of communication? You guys could talk out your problems? And it’s even more problematic when the MC ends up having his/her happy ending while the ex remains miserable. Like dude, teens reads such stories on episode. What garbage are these authors infusing in their minds? That you can get away with cheating?
Student-teacher relationships: Riverdale anyone? Or maybe The Teacher by Mette M Peleikis…
Step-family relationships: I wonder what stuff the authors take while writing such “intimate” things and even glorifying it to a whole new level.
It Started With An Undergarment tropes: WHY DO THEY GLORIFY SOMEONE TAKING YOUR UNDERWEAR AND FINDING IT HOT LIKE WHAT EVEN IS SO HOT ABOUT THAT?! ITS DOWNRIGHT CREEPY AND I BET MOST OF THE PEOPLE WOULD SCREAM DOWN THE BUILDING OR BE CALLING THE NEAREST POLICE STATION
Personally, I don’t think there’s such thing as a toxic theme; only a toxic portrayal of a theme. In my eyes, no theme should be off the table. Sometimes, speaking about taboo or difficult topics can be a great way to bring awareness to them, show solidarity to the survivors of horrible events and make them feel heard. As you said, though, it’s all about whether or not you romanticise the negative aspects. Never romanticise abuse, bigotry or anything else that harms other groups of people — especially protected or vulnerable groups.
A lot of the topics that we consider “toxic” or a “bad cliche” get lumped together, though. I think that’s wrong because they all have different causes and ideas behind them. Let’s take a few of the examples you gave:
“Healing” or “fixing” a male love interest: I think this comes from two (incorrect) assumptions. The first one is the very subtle and unconscious assumption that a woman in a relationship should be doing all of the emotional labour when that’s a joint effort. If one partner is taking on all of the emotional labour and the other is just taking all of this effort without giving anything back, that’s a very unhealthy relationship, which would be very interesting to explore if the writer made it very clear that this is unhealthy and not romantic.The second is a complete misunderstanding of how mental health problems work. Someone else doesn’t fix you. They can help you, but they don’t fix your problems for you. It’s on you to work through them and get therapy, etc. However, a relationship can make you a better person. Someone who loves you and wants the best for you, but doesn’t take any of your crap and has healthy boundaries can encourage you to do better and be better. It’s just that they’re not putting their own mental health on the line to fix you like some sort of toy or machine. They’re giving you the conditions to improve yourself.
The gay best friend: there’s nothing wrong with having a best friend who’s gay. My best friend has a best friend who’s bisexual . The problem here is with poor characterisation. It’s not toxic to have a best friend who’s gay, so I think the name of the trope is misleading (completely not your fault. People have called it that for ages). The real issue is that some people really want to show solidarity and support for gay people in their work by painting them in a good light. However, they have a lot of hang-ups and unconscious biases that they don’t realise they have where they don’t treat gay people like true people. So, they get relegated to the status of a plot device. Gross, but very different from the first issue. This one can be solved by making sure that all of your characters have three things: purpose, personality and a past.
Also, make sure that every character in a scene has a motivation. Before you start writing a scene, think to yourself “ok, what do all of these characters want out of this encounter?”
Each character’s motivation should be different. The waiter who comes to serve you? Maybe they have a kid at home who just text them saying that they need homework help. They want to rush home as soon as possible. The gay best friend? Might want to tell you about this amazing thing that happened today at school.
I think this one depends heavily on the writer. If she’s ashamed of her past and he kisses them to reassure her that he loves all of her and that he’s proud of her for getting past a really dark time in her life, that could be pulled off okay depending on how it’s written.
I’ve seen things where the MC has a gay guy best friend and that’s the only guy friend she has because he isn’t interested in women so the LI doesn’t feel threatened… I think that’s toxic
I don’t see anything wrong with this trope, as long as both of them are doing the ‘healing’ and ‘saving’ really that’s how relationships work, they both influence each other to try and heal. Tell them they love them (which might influence them to want to heal) and open up. But if the man is abusive and the woman is like ‘i can heal him’ and keeps getting abused by him until the end when he finally falls in love with her then yeah it’s toxic.
Actually this is also ‘healing’ them as they are encouraging them to go to therapy and find help from someone who can actually help them (and as I said in the first one, this is healthy unlike the other part about abusive male)
I hate these three tropes with a burning passion, and I refuse to read a story where this crap is glorified. especially the last two. (Unless I’m doing a review or a read for read and can’t avoid it).
Rude MCs are one of the reasons why, when given a name option in a story, I NEVER give the MCs my name. I don’t want to see a computer-generated version of myself, with my name, treating others like trash or insulting a teacher just because the teacher asked her to pay attention in class. I still to this day feel nauseated when I remember that the “sweet, innocent” MC from a 2017 (or early 2018?) featured story called her stepmother (who was a psychologist) a third-rate glorified babysitter. I don’t care how awful a person is. YOU DON’T GET BROWNIE POINTS FOR INSULTING AN ENTIRE PROFESSION JUST BECAUSE OF ONE PERSON. I lost respect for that MC after that.
Don’t even get me started on cheating stories. One of my favorite stories was almost ruined because of a cheating subplot. At least there was a choice to reject the creep that the MC was about to cheat with her partner on, because if there hadn’t been that choice, I might have stopped reading it.
Teacher-students relationships are a big NO for me. I’ve only seen one story where the professor (who was dating an adult college student) got fired and had to face the consequences for her actions.
).
” like dude have you ever heard of communication? You guys could talk out your problems? And it’s even more problematic when the MC ends up having his/her happy ending while the ex remains miserable. Like dude, teens reads such stories on episode. What garbage are these authors infusing in their minds? That you can get away with cheating?
Or maybe The Teacher by Mette M Peleikis…