If you were a teenager this summer, I’m sure you’ve heard the following question: Are you Team Jeremiah or Team Conrad?
The Summer I Turned Pretty has become the show to follow for teens everywhere. While the show is relatively new, the concept of love triangles is anything but. Fighting over which boy would be better for the main character, buying crop tops with your “team’s” name on it, and the viewers clearly knowing which boy the main character is going to choose from the start is something many avid TV viewers can relate to.
Simply put, love triangles are a romantic dynamic involving three people in which likely two of the people have affections for the same person. Love triangles have existed as long as love has. From Roman epics, to Greek myths, and even the Bible, love triangles are an effective way to captivate people into a story. It is unsurprising that at the rate of media consumption today, the world is constantly being fed love triangles in different plots.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is only one show from a lineup of a multitude of stories whose plot is based in a complicated love triangle. Netflix’s My Life With the Walter Boys also builds its plot around the burning love triangle involving two brothers and an orphan. Even Challengers builds its plot around the love triangle between two best friends and a rising tennis star.
The shows provide comfort and escapism to their viewers that is hard to replicate using another plot point. The realistic fiction aspect makes these shows seem close to real life and yet simultaneously, is irrational enough to keep the viewer engaged and entertained. Most people do not go around their lives having such intense love triangles, providing this sense of escapism for the viewer. Therefore, these shows are perfect for viewers that prefer realistic genres, such as romance, but still crave the escapism of a complex fairytale love novel. Love triangles provide an addicting and seemingly unpredictable plot that keeps the reader engaged to the end, to figure out which boy the main character will end up choosing.
While love triangles are extremely fun to watch, they unfortunately can also be very toxic. Love triangles romanticize a type of love that views people as options instead of humans. It also creates a false dichotomy, making the main character seem like must choose between two boys, as if there are not 8 billion other people on the planet. In many love triangles, the main character is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils and almost claim that they are erasing the past in The Name of Love. In Vampire Diaries, the main character is forced to choose between two brothers that are both literally a thousand years older than and, at times, treat her horribly. Many viewers may see this and believe they have to settle in life for a counterpart, like these main characters did.
Writers of love triangles are almost always forced to make their main character decide in order for the viewers to be happy and continue watching, despite it not being what’s best for the character themselves. As viewers, we must remain aware of the difference between fiction versus reality, especially when it comes to realistic fiction. Even if a love triangle doesn’t plague your future, unconsciously developing the fixed mindset that you must settle in order to achieve love may affect romantic decisions in real life.
Love is not an easy concept and often it gets complicated, just like the love triangles all throughout the media today. It is fun to indulge in drama that is not real, but that’s the important part: it’s not real. What you learn in Twilight through Bella picking Edward, probably shouldn’t be carried over into real life; Anyways, Team Jeremiah!
