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S2.E9 - Forced Proximity
184 Plays1 year ago
Making two characters who would never otherwise spend time together is always a great recipe for conflict and intrigue, but there is a pretty intense dark-side to this one.
- Naomi Gibson, author of Every Line of You, Game Over Girl
- Melissa Welliver, author of The Undying Tower, My Love Life and the Apocalypse
- Jamie Greenwood, creator & host of the Write and Wrong Podcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Favorite and Disliked Tropes
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the chosen ones and other tropes where I ask two published authors about their favourite tropes and the ones that make them want to cry. Um, you know the Hunger Games? And now... I do know the Hunger Games. I've heard about it. Yeah, you do know them, yeah. Essentially what the Duzzies do to them is not parenting, it's child abuse. Yeah. Beautiful. Man's playing a G-nanny. It's fine. It might be familiar to you.
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay.
What is the Forced Proximity Trope?
00:00:43
Speaker
Forced proximity, otherwise known as making two characters spend time together whether they like it or not. For me, I think it's all about the fun ways in which the writer does this.
00:00:47
Speaker
It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it?
00:00:59
Speaker
Because it feels weird for me to call this a trope, and I know what people are talking about when they say the trope, but force proximity is just that, what I just said. A way to jam two characters together who wouldn't normally cross paths. The most extreme form of this, I don't know if you guys would agree or not, but it's probably the only one bed trope.
00:01:22
Speaker
because it doesn't get cozier than that. I mean, there's no more proximity than that. You said extreme, but cozier is better. Yeah, extreme, maybe that was not the right word to describe it. Intense. Okay, let's throw this one over to Naomi. What do you think?
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, I really like this trope. I think it's got scope because like you were just saying, it can be like a number of different things. And when I first thought about it, I did think about the one bed thing, actually diving into it. There are just so many different ways to force two people together. And I think that's why you
00:02:01
Speaker
I think we've talked before about some tropes of kind of recipes for books. And I think
Scenarios for Forced Proximity
00:02:06
Speaker
this one fits into that category. So you can just like force two people
00:02:12
Speaker
together on Desert Island or they'll get, they get snowed in, you know, or it could be like a work scenario and they have to work together, like a buddy cop type movie. So as well, it's not always romantic. It's just, just two people pushed together. And so yeah, I quite enjoy it. I think it's good. It's a good way of putting two characters, usually with a common goal together.
00:02:37
Speaker
It's, um, yeah, you're right. It's very much a recipe and there's the, I mean, I guess the variations of it are in sort of broad strokes is two people are put together for like a specific reason that they need to achieve something or people have put them together or they're put together like because of a geographical restriction, like being snowed in or I was thinking like the Titanic is kind of this. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
Even though the ship was massive. Yeah, it's like they can't really go any like they will cross paths. And whereas out in the world, they probably never would have crossed paths. What do you think Melissa?
00:03:19
Speaker
I like it. I like it for romance angle as well, like quite specifically. I think it's quite fun. I like, um, I know when it was the pandemic after lockdown, a few agents put some threads on Twitter about how they got a lot of, um, lockdown romance books. And I remember reading loads of articles about people like, Oh, we met on a dating app and then they were going to do lockdown. So we did lockdown together in somebody's flat. And it's like the most intense dating experience of all time.
00:03:43
Speaker
But it sounds quite fun. Like I would totally read that book as she sounds quite interesting. I don't know if enough time has passed in publishing. See it's not for me. I don't want to read anything to do with that. Not been enough time yet. Not over it.
00:03:57
Speaker
I've been forced into proximity with the pandemic for too long. No, I really like it though. I think it's a fun way to get to really pull opposite opinions together and have some really good dialogue.
Forced Proximity in Media Examples
00:04:10
Speaker
I think it produces like some of the best dialogue because usually like one of my favourite false proximity
00:04:16
Speaker
In a way, I don't know if this massively falls in, but be interested you guys think, but is any post-apocalyptic scenario where you have a survival team, so they're forced together because there's zombies or, you know, they have to get, they have a common goal, like they were saying, like some sort of common goal. And I do find it quite interesting people that would never be put together.
00:04:33
Speaker
I was somebody that watched a lot of Big Brother and I loved Big Brother. I'm a huge Big Brother fan. I watched every single season from when I was about 11 and way too young to watch it. I wanted to bid on the Big Brother chair when they were... I absolutely loved it. It was my favorite, Charlie Brooker's Dead Set, which was the Big Brother zombie. Oh God, that was my favorite TV show. I've rewatched it like 60 times.
00:04:57
Speaker
And it has so many cameos in the Big Brother lot because Charlie Brooker was a Big Big Brother fan. And that is ultimate folks proximity. So maybe that's where it comes from. But I love watching two people who should never ever have met having been forced to have a conversation. Just my favorite thing. I love it. Yeah. I mean, there's so much crossover with this and a bunch of other tropes like opposites attract. Opposites attract. Enemies to lovers. Yeah. Obviously speaking in the romance phase. But I didn't think you were heading towards Big Brother there. I thought you were heading towards Walking Dead.
00:05:26
Speaker
And then I mix them together. It's fine. We did set. Yeah. These people would not necessarily have been friends. Yeah. And now they have to survive. Like they have to rely on each other. So I do like that as an extreme. That's what I was thinking. Extreme example. And then you said one bedroom and I was like, that's a cute example. That's not like a scary example. I just meant in terms of size. Yeah. Doesn't get smaller than the bed. That's true. That's true. You want really false proximity.
00:05:54
Speaker
Another one that does it really well is Red Dwarf, like what you were just saying, like they're surviving four characters who don't really like each other, stuck on a spaceship. Yeah, spaceships are really good, actually, aren't they? Because I was thinking of Passengers as well, you know, of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. That's a really good one. Yeah, that is a problematic movie.
00:06:14
Speaker
Another time. Yeah, the debate being whether he murdered her or not. But, yes, spaceships 100% because Sunshine as well. That's because they're like a team that are sent off to like, go fix the sun or whatever. Yeah. That's such an interesting little... Like a sci-fi pocket, like Ex Machina I'm thinking of as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's really forced proximity. Yeah. I guess he's not forced to be there in Ex Machina, is he?
00:06:44
Speaker
But he's kept that. He is eventually, yeah. He doesn't think he's being forced to be there but they kind of tricked him there and then he's kind of... I like it though because it builds some really great relationships really fast and I find, especially writing romance and also when you're writing sci-fi stuff, it gives you scenarios where you can make everybody have their place in the group very quickly as opposed to having to build a really long-winded relationship that would sometimes take years, months,
00:07:11
Speaker
weeks to build, but it has to be built quickly because they're in some sort of false proximity and forced is the optimal word there, right? So it's either like a life or death situation or and then everybody has to fall in line and there's no wasted space in the book and that's why I really like it.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, survival stuff's really interesting for that reason, whether it's like in a spaceship, they will have their job to do or like I've been watching Yellow Jackets recently, which is like Lord of the Flies with teenage girls. But they very quickly, like you said, each of them sort of very quickly identifies that a skill that they either want to do for the group or like are very good at doing for the group. And then they all kind of identified and that's their role now within the group. Yeah.
00:07:51
Speaker
So that's interesting. I love it. What do
Forced Proximity in Classical Literature
00:07:54
Speaker
you guys think about Beauty and the Beast for this? You mean kidnap? To be fair, what even is his motive for kidnapping her?
00:08:10
Speaker
He has her father and she says, take me instead of him. So he does. I don't know what she was going to do with that. He was going to do with the dad to be fair. Yeah. What? Yeah. He was ill and he was poor, wasn't he? So Belle wanted to rescue him. Yeah. She was selfless. That's fair enough on Belle. But the Beast generally, I think, just wanted misery loves company, right? He just wanted someone to pay. But then he didn't seem to want to spend time with her.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, he's very contrary. He did want to spend time with her, because he was aware of the curse, but he did want to spend time with her and he made her come to dinner with him. Oh yeah. And he threw three fits when she didn't come. Yeah, that's true. What a nice guy. He's lovely.
00:09:00
Speaker
It's kind of a weird one. So the Heymore Gaston. Such choices. Everyone is forced to be there as well, aren't they? There are children that have been transformed in that castle that are forced to be there. It is dark. It's really dark. Yikes. No wonder there's so many retellings.
00:09:20
Speaker
I feel like there's some more classical literature which has this trope, but it leans really heavily into... We're kind of defining it, feeling out the edges of this trope here. Stuff like... I was thinking Pride and Prejudice is usually my go-to because it seems to have a lot of tropes in it.
00:09:38
Speaker
But Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy almost exclusively come across each other through social conventions and their interactions are often based around class-based events and things. Does that count? Yeah, because you have to dance together at these things. Yeah. So you have to talk to each other at some point.
00:10:03
Speaker
So yeah, there's maybe like little pockets of forced proximity. Yeah, I think societal forced proximity is definitely still a thing. Still makes their world quite small and they have to revolve around each other, right? Yeah. And I guess Bridgerton is then the same thing, right? Lots of people are pushed together whether like because of their class and also because other people, sometimes other people are like, oh, this would be a good match. Like the families should come together, etc, etc.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, everyone knows each other. It's that small town mentality that Stephen King uses a lot in his horror, isn't it? Like under the dome, for instance. So his small town, for some reason, everyone there's awful and everyone has to stay there. And he just comes up with the reason why, like they're all being killed by a clown or there's a giant alien dome. No one can leave and everyone hates each other and everyone voted for different political parties. Go. And they're all in on it as well. Like weirdly, they're all kind of in on it and they're like, yeah, it's just life, I guess.
00:10:58
Speaker
That's like the Poirot death on the Orient Express, that everyone's kind of forced into that, aren't they? That's a good one. Like everyone's in it together, forced on the train, yeah. Well, aren't they all there to spoilers for Motor on the Orient Express? Aren't they all there to kill that one person? Yeah. Because they all do it, right? Or like Poirot is forced. Poirot, yeah, Poirot is forced to be there. He kind of lubed him in.
00:11:28
Speaker
Oh no, you know what's even more forced is the glass onion, the second knives out movie. No, I haven't seen that one or we've seen the first one. Actually, no, he goes willingly. No, you find out later that he is there out of choice, isn't it? Don't you? Is it as good as the first one, the second one?
00:11:46
Speaker
I didn't think so. Most people agree it's not. It's trying to make many more satirical comments about the world than the first one was. The first one was just kind of a silly detective show. Only
The One Bed Trope: Tension Without Romance
00:12:00
Speaker
One Bird. I don't really think there's much to say about Only One Bird. I usually don't have a problem with it.
00:12:08
Speaker
because I think if the characters choose to, bear in mind the bed is usually in a room, right? So if the characters choose to share it, then there is presumably some subconscious within there that they are both, or at least one of them is
00:12:25
Speaker
they're kind of comfortable with it. Like if they both choose to share it, they're like, even if they're like doing the stubborn thing where it's like, huh, well, I'm not giving up the bed. Well, I'm not either. And then it's like, you're clearly both comfortable enough to be in the bed together. Like if not, one of you would sleep on the floor or on a chair or something. Did you guys see the OC and where Ryan and Marissa have to share a bed? They wake up spooning. It's so cute.
00:12:49
Speaker
I think that's where my love for it comes from. I do love it. There's one of the best vampire diaries, not mentioned that in ages actually. Let's do that. Vampire Diaries has a really good one bed situation where it's involved in a love triangle situation and they're searching for Stefan and it's the first kiss between Damon and Elena.
00:13:10
Speaker
And he says, I won't stay in the bed, there's a grumpiness aspect. And then he lies down on the bed, like pretending to, I don't know, read or something. I don't know if he can read. And she like holds his hand and there's like all these like near brushes and near touches. And I think that's why it's really good in romance because one bed trope does not work if it ends up in a really steamy erotic sex scene, I don't think. I think it has to be like, it's so close yet so far type one bed or else it just doesn't work.
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like if it ends in a very erotic scene, then it's almost like wasted. Like you wasted the tension.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's more to tease, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think it's fine. Of course, this trope is absolutely memed on in love, actually. When Colin goes over to the US and finds like a house of supermodels and they can't afford pajamas and they all sleep in the same bed. That's brilliant. That's so true. It's like the best part of that movie. The writers were like, hey, let's take this trope and just do something done with it.
00:14:19
Speaker
I don't know what was going on there. We talked about it earlier, but platonically, obviously it's associated with romance, but by no means something that happens exclusively in romance. Like Naomi said, buddy cop movies are basically all this.
00:14:39
Speaker
Most of the comedy and character moments in those is derived from the fact that either one or both of them doesn't want to work with the other. Sometimes it is just one, which can be funny where one of them is like really keen and the other one's sort of like, please leave me alone, you're annoying.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think it ties in really well with Grumpy and Sunshine as well. Yeah, Grumpy and Sunshine. Anything where they're opposites and being forced together. Exactly. And it can create good. So going back to The Walking Dead, they do that in that obviously. So it opens with Rick is a sheriff and his partner is Shane.
00:15:14
Speaker
And then of course you find out later, Shane is having an affair with his wife and they all have to live together in a little group during the zombie apocalypse and it's very awkward. And they still have to sort of be friends, but obviously they don't really want to be friends. That's false proximity. Yeah, that is very false proximity. That's intense. That's not cosy. That is not cosy.
00:15:37
Speaker
They didn't necessarily have to be opposites though. I thought a good example recently was one of the MCU's TV series, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Okay, I've not seen it. That's a good idea. So that's It's Bucky Barnes and I've forgotten his name, The Falcon, who's now Captain America.
00:15:59
Speaker
They really don't like each other, but they're forced to work together basically to kind of protect the legacy of Steve Rogers, because they both very much admired, loved, and respected. So it's an interesting way to bring two characters together, but I think what they realize is that they're actually very similar, and they have very similar attitudes, and there's a reason that Steve was very good friends with both of them.
00:16:24
Speaker
Oh, that does sound nice. Yeah, it is nice. It's an okay series. It's very forgettable. It's very nice. It's not necessarily bad, but... No, it's not bad. It's not okay. It's fine. It's okay. It's not the worst thing they've ever made.
00:16:43
Speaker
Um, it happens also, I realize it happens in like, and this one flies a bit more under the radar. It happens loads in ensemble stuff, especially like adventure stuff where maybe the protagonist or like the team of protagonists needs the help of, um, someone they don't like or perhaps, or like a rival or like just a straight up villain.
00:17:00
Speaker
So Pirates of the Caribbean I thought was a good one for this, where first of all, Will has to get Jack to help him. And obviously at the beginning, William's very much like a by the book, like he won't even call Keira Knightley's character by her first name because he's very proper. Yeah, that's so true.
00:17:22
Speaker
Uh, so he's like begrudging to help, to, to ask Jack Sparrow for help. And then later on they literally like Norrington and the rest of the Navy people actually like kind of drag Jack with them to show them where the hideout is or something, I think. So that happens quite a lot. They do it in Fast and the Furious as well with Jason Statham's character who first appears as like a really intense villain and then later becomes like an anti-hero and then like basically a hero.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah. I think putting people on some sort of traveling vessel, I realize that sounds weird. Stay with me. I was just thinking about what we're saying with sci-fi and with spaceships. And then I was thinking about it as a Caribbean, obviously they're literally on a ship. And then I was thinking about Orient Express and Bullet Train and Snowpiercer and they're all train shows. Yeah. Everyone's forced into a very confined space, which is always stressful anyway. So that already adds tension, which is very useful.
00:18:18
Speaker
Mays runner. Yeah. Yeah, that works. Yeah. They are crammed into a space and it's a survival situation again, right? So you very quickly get to, how long is Thomas in that maze? It's hilarious if you count it up. I think he's there like three days and suddenly he's the leader of everyone and crying over Chuck spoilers, crying over Chuck. And it's just like, why is he being trusted with everything? Slightly on galley side when he was like, let's just kill this guy. I was like, yeah, who is he? Who does he think he is? Main character energy.
00:18:47
Speaker
Speaking of YA, Hunger Games does this. I don't think necessarily with the districts, I think the districts are big enough that that's not really considered false proximity, but Katniss and Peter, once they in quotes one, the first one, and they're forced to present as like a, it's even before they win the first one, when they're forced to present as if they are in a relationship. That's like fake relationships and it's false proximity because at that point Katniss is kind of like, get away from me.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah. That's true. Get away from me, Baker boy. Gosh, the Hunger Games has it all. The Hunger Games really does have it all. It does, yeah. Even has a train, as I was saying. It does have a train. That they're forced into. I mean, I don't think we can exclusively say any use of trains is forced into it. No, it is just trains too. It is just trains. Harry didn't want to be near that Dementor. The Dementor came into the carriage. That is so true. The Hogwarts Express.
00:19:46
Speaker
force together. A lot to answer for. But it's okay because chocolate helps.
How Sitcoms Utilize Forced Proximity
00:19:52
Speaker
TV shows do this a lot, especially long running ones like sitcoms, because what they'll do is they'll create a conflict between two characters. And sometimes they resolve this in the same episode, sometimes it'll be in later ones. But what they'll do is they'll create a conflict, two characters will fall out, usually because of miscommunication.
00:20:11
Speaker
everyone's favorite. And then what they'll do is they'll trap them together, like in a lift or they'll be stuck at the airport waiting for a taxi to pick them up or something like that, or they'll have to share a taxi. And then through that, they'll talk it out and resolve their issues. I think there was an episode of Friends that was a really good example of this where Ross and Rachel had a huge argument about how Rachel was always late and then they got locked in Monica's room. Yeah, there's a locked in the room listening.
00:20:38
Speaker
And then they had to have a heart to heart and talk about it. And then they kind of like figure it out. And then they get out. It's an easy catch for like an ongoing sitcom where they're like, what should we do this with it? Oh, let's have them fall out. But we don't want this to be an ongoing thing. It's going to be annoying for us as writers. It's great to fast forward from relationship elements. It's great. You can just completely fast forward relationships, arguments, because you're forced together
00:21:04
Speaker
And you have to work together usually to get out of the situation. Or just talk, as opposed to sitting in silence for hours. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then there's another super popular variant is the rivals. And this can happen in academic settings. It's very popular, but also work settings, like in the hating game, where there are two people who obviously don't like each other or don't want to associate with each other are forced to work on something together.
00:21:34
Speaker
And that's used romantically and platonically. I think it's really popular in like the academia romance with like dark academia, is it? Oh yes, being forced to be project partners. And in every like, you know, after school special type television show, like Saved by the Bell hit like any Hilary Duff show. They always have a thing where they're like, oh no, he's my lab partner. And he's awful or something.
00:22:02
Speaker
aren't um Bella and Edward's lab partners? Yeah and he hates her and for some reason he has to he's like oh no it's so terrible that my secret's going to be exposed well best keep going to biology class for the 70th time I'm like dude just don't go to school what's wrong with
Ron and Hermione: Friendship on the Train
00:22:17
Speaker
you? Just don't go yeah it's not that hard and if I do go I guess I'll just stare at her throughout the whole lesson.
00:22:28
Speaker
Something wrong with that guy. No. Several things. Yeah, but he acknowledges it, so it's okay. Does it anyway.
00:22:38
Speaker
Here's one that I was thinking, and I don't think this is like, people see this as this, but I was like, I think there's an argument here, so I'll see what you guys think. Harry Potter, I always had the sense through the most of the sort of first few books slash films that Ron and Hermione really didn't like each other, and it's only their friendship with Harry that makes them spend any time together.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree with that. And they were forced together on the train when I didn't have anyone else to sit. So I'm just saying that that's where it started. This is the true secret to writing this. Honestly, if it doesn't have a train, is it even forced proximity? Is it even forced proximity? It's a really good point. I don't even, I still don't, but after thinking about that, I was like, I still don't really, it's such a weird relationship to have ended up with.
00:23:30
Speaker
in Harry Potter, not the train. The train. Yeah. The train's the main character. Yeah. But JK Rowling said afterwards, she shouldn't have done that. Oh, okay. She said Harry and Hermione should have ended up together. I mean, I don't mind it. I think it's nice because if Harry and Hermione got together, everyone's a total third wheel.
00:23:56
Speaker
I mean, everyone knows it should have been Hermione and Malfoy. Yeah. The ultimate character arc for Malfoy. I mean, imagine the babies. Fan fiction as foretold. Oh, speaking of fan fiction, what about in Fifty Shades of Grey?
Problematic Forced Proximity in 'Fifty Shades'
00:24:14
Speaker
In the contract he makes, Bella, I mean Anastasia, it says that she has to live in his flat. He's like, yeah, you have to stay in his bedroom and I have a key for the room and stuff. And she's like, I don't want to live here. I want to live on my own. And he's like, don't do it then. And she's like, fine, I won't. And that's what the whole thing is. But yeah, one of the things is she has to live there.
00:24:40
Speaker
And he gets into the lift with her and he stops the lift. He does an emergency stop trapping her in there with him. Yeah. And then they do stuff. I think that's more than force proximity, guys. Force something else.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yikes. I guess that's like failed force, force proximity. Cause she's like, no problematic. Yeah. Gross. Yeah. No, she loves it. Okay. So this is a great segue into the problematic area of this. And we, we already touched on beauty and the beast, which definitely has problematic elements, but
00:25:18
Speaker
A while ago, there was a book, which was also made into a Netflix movie, called 365 Days. And it's about a math, I think he's a mafia boss. He kidnaps a woman and essentially keeps her hostage. Oh yes, I've seen this. He basically says like, you're going to stay here for 365 days so you have time to fall in love with me. So he basically kidnaps her until the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And he calls her baby girl a lot. It's very weird. They speak in English because they speak two different languages. So they're like shared languages, English, which is interesting in terms of commercialization. This is a book. It's a book on Netflix picked it up. Yeah.
00:26:03
Speaker
No, it's a YA book as well. It's a girl who gets kidnapped in an airport by this Australian guy and he takes her to an outback in Australia and basically
00:26:18
Speaker
keeps her on a ranch and makes her fall in love with him. It's really, really weird. How romantic. Yeah, but he's really good looking, so it's okay. Oh, okay. That's fine. I'm a bored now. So it was the guy in the movie, so it's fine. It's the guy in the movie, Baba Gro? Yeah, the guy in the movie. It's very strange film. This sort of forced proximity is psychotic. Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
It's more in line with what we were talking about on the last episodes talking as romance, but like to a hyper extreme insane level. Yeah, it is. And also people get like, because of those sorts of films where it's very heavily romance, it's similar like in Fifty Shades of Grey, where people are forced into like questionable illegal things. There's always this really dramatic part as well where somebody always gets hurt.
00:27:08
Speaker
And they get hurt because of the false proximity. So in 365 days, spoilers, the main girl gets shot because she gets confused as being part of this mafia and he has an identical twin that's also colorful. It is madness. Yes, spoilers. But it's like three films or something. So it's a bit, it's a bit mad. I have seen them and it is absolutely bonkers. But yeah, she gets really hurt. And also what's really creepy in those and the same with Anastasia Steele is
00:27:38
Speaker
she is very empty being with this person like she screams and tries to escape in 365. I mean he's literally kidnapped her. Yeah, she is very much kidnapped. It's awful. It is really awful. It's really spicy, isn't it? It is really spicy, yeah. Doesn't he like make her watch him do various spicy things?
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, that is something he ties her up and she thinks they're going to have maybe a sexy time, but for some reason it's up for it, kind of. And then he's like, no, no, you're going to watch me with somebody else. I know. It's a lot. And then she's also in a way trapped in terms of Fox proximity, because there's a bit where she thinks she's pregnant.
00:28:19
Speaker
And then she thinks she sees him having sex with somebody else, but actually it was his identical twin, of course, that she didn't know about. Miscommunication. Miscommunication. It's bad enough. We don't need to throw that in there as well. Yeah, it's a lot. There is a lot of entrapment. That sounds like an absolutely dumpster fire of a movie. It's terrifying. It got a lot of backlash when it came out. I bet, yeah. But they made a sequel, right? They did. Yeah, they did. It's unreal.
00:28:48
Speaker
because loads of people watched it. It's so scary how bad people like that have massive fundraisers. Like Penn Badgley, whatever his name is, he plays Joe Goldberg, you know? Yes. I think we talked about that last time. He was a good person. Penn Badgley's a good person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, he is. But it's like... Penn seems great. I'm just saying, he has to tell people all the time, Joe Goldberg is not a good person. He does, yeah, yeah. And speaking of, this is basically Joe Goldberg. Like, Joe Goldberg forced proximity. Yeah, he kidnaps people.
00:29:17
Speaker
and puts them in a glass box. And then sometimes he's kind of like, Oh no, but you love me and I love you. And it's like, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. And he's always in people's personal space. And that's the way it's shot as well and everything. Cause it's quite well directed is he's always in, he has special boxes full of people's like personal items. He breaks into people's apartments and he makes sure he's always in their space, always up in their face. And if they don't like that, he locks them in his glass box.
00:29:45
Speaker
He's definitely in their space. So weird. But this is a show, obviously, we talked about this a lot on a few episodes, I think. But this is a show which presents him as a villain, as a bad person. It's all very deliberate and calculated, which is why I think it's fine in that show. But in 365 days, it's not okay.
00:30:04
Speaker
No, no, there's no real reason. So I did watch it and there is no real reason when she switches to liking him. It's very random and very sudden when she goes from really frightened of him, like genuinely terrified. And there's paintings of her up in his house because he thinks he's dreamt about her and she's really scared, which he would be. She's like, oh my God, I have to get out of here. And then just really suddenly having sex with him.
00:30:26
Speaker
Like, uh, you know what? He is pretty fit and he is super rich. So what am I doing? I'm so dumb. And then obviously there's the staying on the sort of kidnapping trend. There's like we mentioned earlier, there's obviously the Disney kids version of this, which is beauty and the beast. Do you think it's a retail loan?
00:30:53
Speaker
Oh my god, 365 days is actually Beauty and the Beast fanfic. It's just a spicy retirement. Oh my god, it's the 50 shades of Beauty and the Beast. Oh no, please.
00:31:10
Speaker
Get me out, where's the agenda? Abort, abort. But I did think this was an interesting trend, so I did a little bit more research into like, because obviously that these are extreme, we're talking about full kidnapping. Yeah. And
Ethics of Forced Proximity in 'Passengers'
00:31:26
Speaker
then I was like, well, what happens if there's like less overtly terrifying ones, which are actually similar sort of forced proximity posed as romantic, but it's actually something's like a bit off about it. And I thought Shadow and Bone kind of does this.
00:31:39
Speaker
where the Darkling at one point tries to keep Alina hostage whilst there is like a romantic thing going on between them. Yes, stops her letters and things. Yeah, exactly. That does play out pretty quickly how you would hope and expect it does, though. So it doesn't linger, but it's... And like we said before, he's called the Darkling. I mean, you're fooling yourself if you think he's the hero of this town.
00:32:06
Speaker
You didn't expect good things, do you? That's why we like him, Naomi. Passengers then, like what we said before, that definitely qualifies. He basically kills her and she's okay with it. And they're the only people alive for their whole lives, because spoilers. Isn't that how it finishes up, is that everyone wakes up and there's a lot of like, dear people from 70 years ago, we grew up and grew old with these farm animals.
00:32:34
Speaker
Oh my god. Made the spaceship their home grown trees and shit like. Yeah. It's pretty horrifying actually. Like where are their bodies? You know what the worst part of that is that he literally flicks through, it's the bit when he's flicking, he flicks through basically the list of all the people that are frozen. Yes, he goes on Tinder, doesn't he? He literally picks who he thinks is the most attractive person. Yeah, it's not good. So gross. No.
00:33:04
Speaker
I don't know how, like, there's a quick rewrite, but it kind of ruins most of the tension of that movie. Like the rewrite is just that they both accidentally wake up. Because he wakes up by mistake, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's no getting out of the fact that he woke her up.
00:33:19
Speaker
No, no, no. I don't think that's the rewrite, right? You know, he figures out a way to put her back to sleep and she chooses not to. That's what I was thinking. That would be the point where she would say yes. Either she chooses not to or they end it where they find a way to go back to sleep and then wake up with everyone else and they maybe know things about the ship that nobody else knows or... Yeah. It was a good thing they woke up because... They go back to sleep together. Yeah, exactly. That would be... Or... Anything would be better, really.
00:33:43
Speaker
Or how about this take, it plays the same for the first like two thirds and then it turns out that it's actually a horror movie and he's the third. Well he is kind of a villain. And then it ends with her killing him
00:34:01
Speaker
Yes. And then it's her... Marrying the robot. Then it's her really bored for a bit on the ship and then she goes and it ends with her flicking through the thing. Oh, she picked someone. Oh, that really would be a thrillery ending. Like a mirror. Oh my gosh, yes. That is the Black Mirror episode of Passengers.
00:34:18
Speaker
We fixed it. Amazing. Yay, we fixed it. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, I was trying to talk about lighter ones. That was a good one though. I also had here, and I'm sorry to do it to you Melissa. Oh no. This is what, this is the proposal. Oh yeah, no, it is a proposal. No, I agree. She absolutely is like, you have to come with me and pretend to marry me otherwise you're getting fired.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah. The fake dating falls into this quite a lot, surely. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't think that's... But it's not forced, right? They're choosing fake dating a lot of the time. Not in the proposal. Yeah. The proposal is forced by somebody as well, more so because they're on an island in the middle of the Alaska River. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get stranded together. But yeah, I think he chooses it to a degree. To a degree. I wish someone would force me to be married to Sandra Bullock.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, if I must. I volunteer as tribute, guys. But he's forced to... I mean, the choice is that it's either that or he loses his job, right? And doesn't she... Does she threaten to blacklist him? Yeah, she really lays it on thick because she's desperate. Yeah, because she lays it on really thick. Yeah, yeah, it's really, really bad. So she's like, I protect myself before, you know, hoes before bros. That's her entire... But she does the right thing in the end.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah, I guess by the end, we're supposed to reflect on her. Well, I guess you can argue like, yeah, she just said that because she was panicked and she actually never would have done any of that. That's true, yeah. She fell in love with him properly and did the right thing and then she got him anyway and that's the moral of the story. Yeah, the moral of the story is as long as you fall in love, it's fine. Okay, if you fall in love along the way.
00:36:09
Speaker
If you kidnap someone and they fall in love you within 365 days, it's okay. As long as it's within that time period and no one finds out. She does this a lot, Sandra, but doesn't she? Their lost city with Channing Tatum is full of property. I wanna watch that so bad. It's amazing. And they end up on an island together. Is it full of property? He comes after her.
00:36:30
Speaker
He comes after her, but then they're both trapped when they get lost. Yeah, they are trapped when they get lost. And then they nearly get, there's a whole thing where they talk about the couple that are trapped in the, I don't want to put it for Naomi, but there's a couple trapped in a temple from like hundreds of years ago and they were kind of trapped together and they have to make a choice whether to stay trapped. It's not really a movie that's like spoilery.
00:36:53
Speaker
I think I know what I'm going to get. It's exactly what you think and it's the worst portrayal of publishing you'll ever see in your life. Is it not like, is it not a rehash of Romancing the Stone from like the 80s? It's similar. With Michael, what's his face?
00:37:09
Speaker
with Daniel Reitcliffe. Daniel Reitcliffe is excellent in it, as he is in everything. Yeah, and there's a lot of kidnap, and that's false proximity. He knocks them out. The forces have come to his island. Yeah, and work for him. Michael Douglas, that's his name, isn't it? Yes. The fella. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1984, that movie was. Woo! Wasn't even born yet. So young. So fresh. And now he's in that man.
00:37:39
Speaker
I think there's a consensus with the, well, the hating game is obviously forced proximity. They don't like each other. They're from like, it's when the companies merge and she's from the old company and he's from the new corporate company. And they, for some reason, someone thought, ah, we'll put their desks opposite each other. There's no one else here, just these two desks with these two people that hate each other.
00:38:03
Speaker
I've seen a lot of stuff online where people talk about there's a scene where they have to share a hotel room and people think it's problematic because he says a few things which is a bit controlling and manipulative.
00:38:17
Speaker
I mean, it's, yeah, any, like with all these tropes, anyone can be part of this trope and be controlling. I mean, if it's not necessarily the trope itself, that, um, causes that. I mean, if you're going to kidnap someone, it doesn't matter if you could kidnap someone and not be near them. It's still bad. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the, the ones we could think of were kidnapped and sometimes Stockholm syndrome.
00:38:41
Speaker
Well, or both. Yeah. So essentially what we're saying, talking about, you know, a lot of kidnap stuff that I think the biggest danger with this as a writer, when you're, if you're thinking about doing something like this is power and balance.
00:38:57
Speaker
So obviously if one character is kidnapping another character, the power imbalance is like dramatic. Um, and I think the best iterations of this is when the characters are on relatively equal footing. So that doesn't mean they have to be in exactly the same boat, but it, but the same train. Yeah. But if like, if one of them has one secret,
00:39:23
Speaker
then the other one would maybe have a different secret. You as a reader would be like, okay, they're not in perfect balance, but they both have something which is theirs. There's not an imbalance in the thing. On a similar trend, it's agency. In 365 days or any of this stuff, we've talked about where someone gets captured or kidnapped. The power imbalance is so big because one character just doesn't have any agency. They didn't choose to be there.
00:39:52
Speaker
they can't go anywhere from there. Bell has literally kept in a cage for a while in Beauty and the Beast. I think writing as a whole, if you have a character that doesn't have agency, it's just not really going to be an interesting character.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that's what we were talking about with the best ones, propel the story forward. I think all the best tropes propel the story forward as long as you're using it in order to make sure the characters have agency.
Advice for Writers on Forced Proximity
00:40:23
Speaker
If they're balanced but both seeking the same thing, then they can have agency and great dialogue and it builds a relationship at the same time. It just seems like such a slam dunk from a storytelling perspective if you do it well.
00:40:34
Speaker
Basically just don't kidnap people. It'd be nice if we stopped kidnapping people. Just while we're on the kidnapping thing, that book I was talking about, about the Australian kidnapper, it's a book called Stolen by Lucy Christopher. But yeah, it's basically about being kidnapped. But it is like a character study into someone who's not, who is obviously mentally unstable. Yeah, like Joe and you. Yeah, it's not presented as this is a great guy. Yeah, so that can work as well, I think. Yeah, exactly.
00:41:04
Speaker
The, I think there's also a softer version of the like, it's not kidnapping, but it's sort of adjacent, but in like a slightly better way is there's definitely a trend in romance stories where there's like a, like a government agent or like a bodyguard or something who is assigned to a person. And sometimes they'll have to like take a person underground, like to protect them. And it's like part of their job, but then that's also like forced proximity.
00:41:31
Speaker
Do you know what does that really well? And it's not a romantic movie. Well, yeah. But extraction with Chris Hemsworth. Oh yeah. And he's the bodyguard for a young boy. And it's obviously not romantic, but it's just, it's really good force proximity in, in something that isn't romantic. And it's always nice to have it. Yeah. There is a nice parentally bodyguard trope there, isn't there? Like walking dead video games with Lee and Clementine and Lee is like forced to look after Clementine. Cause there's a.
00:41:59
Speaker
something bad going on and she kind of saves his life, but she's a child and he's never had children. I think there's a nice parental thing going on with forced proximity as well. Again, it just sort of fast forwards being a parent, say. It's good. Quick, it gets to the point. The last of us.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's a great example of it. Yeah. They set off that there's like a specific reason that they're together. They don't want to be together. Yeah. Then they bond on the journey. I think that's also, I don't want to say it's necessary, but it feels like a lot of these stories that we're talking about, the resolution is that they start off not liking each other and they do bond and are friendly by the end.
00:42:44
Speaker
Yeah. And I think they, they learn from each other. Usually they sort of sunshine thing. It's that calming each other down, bringing a balance to each other.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah. And then that's why they're usually friendly by the end or in a romance, obviously, if it's not children, obviously. Yeah. And a lot of the time it's the character arc of one or both of the characters is that they needed the other person to like, they needed the thing that they didn't want to actually kind of reach the end of their their journey. Like, yeah, it feels a bit like fate in that way, I guess, doesn't it?
00:43:17
Speaker
which is quite nice from a romance perspective. It feels like, oh, if they'd never met each other, it would have worked out, but they never would have made each other if it wasn't for this thing that's happening. Yeah. I agree. Anything else to add? No, that's it.
00:43:34
Speaker
Thanks for putting up with our nonsense for another episode. To stay tuned to everything we're up to, you can follow the podcast on all socials at The Chosen Tropes. Follow Melissa at Melova, Naomi at Naomi G. Wright, and Jamie at Jamie X. Greenwood. Don't forget to check out Naomi and Melissa's books as well as the Right and Wrong podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next trope.