Fansided, a very
popular media website, has a team that reviews movies on Netflix. This year,
they made a list of the “50 Best Romantic Movies on Netflix: Valentine’s Day”.
The introduction to the list promises that, “With 50 selections, we made sure
to include something that everyone will enjoy. The films in the ranking range
from romantic comedies, romantic period films, indie romances, romantic
thrillers, classic romances, foreign languages romantic movies, and more. Every
sub-genre of romance is well represented in the list!” As I sat across from my
girlfriend in the library, I bet her $100 that the promise was racially and
heteronormatively biased and that every film on the list would be about
straight white people. Needless to say, I won the bet. There was ONE lesbian
film on the list, Blue is the Warmest
Color, which was a French film. This list featured stereotypical white,
straight, American rom-com films, and Blue
is the Warmest Color felt so out of place on the list I could tell it was
an afterthought by the editors trying to clean up author Bryce Olin’s poorly
written, shallow list. There was only ONE film with black stars on the list,
and it was the comedy film Coming to America, which most people don’t even
consider to be a romance film at all. There was not a single film on the list
that featured black love in a serious light.
Hitch was also on the list, which just rubs salt in the wound because
Will Smith portrays the stereotypical “black friend/black sidekick/black
wingman” character. He’s helping the white guy get it together and get the
girl.
There were 50 films on this list, and
only these 3 could be considered to be anything other than completely white and
straight. There were no films with gay love interests, no films with Asian,
middle eastern, latino, European, African, or any color or race other than
white, straight americans. Also, all the love interests in the 50 films chosen
were between the ages of 15 and 30. There were no older couples depicted on the
list.
Shame on Fansided, the Netflix team at Fansided, and author Bryce Olin for
making this list. Not only did they make a completely young, white, and
straight list, they insulted those they excluded by promising a list that will
quote “include something that everyone
will enjoy.” I guess people who are Asian, black, European, latino,
austrailian, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or middle aged doesn’t fit into their
definition of “everyone”.
It may
sound extreme, but I would relate this list to one of the pillars of heteropatriarchy,
the genocide/colonialism pillar. The principles of this pillar states that
minority groups but disappear and always be disappearing to make way for the
superior majority group. Racial minorities and sexual orientation minorities
are the “present absence” on this list, which provides false justification that
the white, straight couples in these films are both superior and the norm.
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