The Tedium of Sexuality and Emoting in Narrative Art

I was watching a series on one of the streaming services which it seemed would be amusing, in an absurd and fantastic way, and which proved to be amusing, when something happened.  Certain of the characters began to display feelings for each other, by which I mean romantic and sexual feelings.  The times being what they are, the characters are gay, or are in the process of "discovering" they're gay, or bisexual, or whatever the appropriate description may be.  As would be the case for me even if the characters and relationships were irretrievably straight instead of gay, my amusement and interest diminished.  Now, alas, what was amusing and fantastic in the show will become secondary, no matter what effort is made to make the romance or sexuality exotic or, I suppose I must say it, inclusive; or, as I suppose I might say it more accurately, didactic in the manner of today's creators of narratives .

There must be something which makes the creators of narrative art, but especially the film and media arts, include at least one sexual relationship in the story being told.  That relation comes to dominate the story if only by virtue of the fact it's displayed in one way or another on many occasions as the story plays out, regardless of context.  No doubt sex is of great importance to us all and very much part of our lives, but it's as a consequence very commonplace.  Now and then a sexual relationship may be uncommon, and even extraordinary, but that's the case only rarely.  It strikes me that sexuality and sexual/romantic relations are therefore not subjects of great art and shouldn't be.

Think of great films.  Which of them centered on a sexual/romantic relationship?  Which of them involved such a relationship or relationships not in passing, noting or referencing them infrequently, but primarily? Casablanca, perhaps.  Dr. Zhivago?    I don't know; there was quite a bit else going on, like the Russian Revolution.  I find it hard to think of anything else.  Gone with the Wind?  I'm not sure it's great, frankly.

Then, consider those that weren't.  2001: A Space Odyssey, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange to give Kubrick his due.  The Godfather and Godfather II; Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, The Manchurian Candidate, The French Connection, The Bridge on the River Kwai; etc., etc.

There is Psycho, however.  Perhaps it's possible for great film art to be based on the depiction of a sexual obsession or sickness.  

Sexual relationships and romance being exceedingly mundane for the most part, however, there's not much interesting which can be done with them.  They take away from the story.  How is it, then, that they're omnipresent in film and series, TV and otherwise?  Is there an expectation on the part of creators and consumers that one will intrude necessarily?  There shouldn't be, and I claim that good and memorable works of art don't involve them to any significant extent.  

I think it takes a real effort to insert sexuality in any interesting narrative, but we see those efforts being made and their results all the time.  Even when sex isn't involved the characters are given opportunities to display emotions and weaknesses.  When watching an absorbing mystery or fantasy or drama, it's difficult to care whether the characters have feelings for one another which they must express together with various insecurities and attributes which it appears the writers, directors and producers think should be pointed out for reasons unrelated to what's taking place.  What's taking place must, in fact, be interrupted while the characters emote.  Past failures and traumas are revealed and discussed while war and murder and social conflicts rage.  

Perhaps it's hoped the viewer will come to sympathize with the characters, or see themselves in them.  But the self-pity and conceit indulged in on screen is just as mundane as the sex and romance.  People don't watch to see and hear what they may see and hear everyday, everywhere.  They wish to escape from it.  I think they wish most of all not to be lectured about it.

The Missionary Media

Self-righteousness is one of our more annoying characteristics.  It's also one of the most common of them.  Through it we assure ourselves of our own goodness, and are inclined to berate, or preach to, those lacking enlightenment. 

Among us, missionaries must be most convinced they possess the truth; that they know it, the way and the light.  How else explain their propensity to travel throughout the world, sometimes at great trouble, teaching those who aren't like them that they should--indeed must--think like them, act like them and be like them.  I confess I'm not fond of missionaries.

Missionaries are manipulators in the sense that they strive to convince or control others.  They may be well-intentioned manipulators, but they manipulate nonetheless.  We've long known that the various media excel at manipulation for a variety of purposes, some of them considerably less than benign.

I wonder if there are those who, like me, have noticed a certain tendency of those who manufacture commercials, TV shows, movies and other entertainments for us, to teach us that certain people, certain ways of living, are good or at least should considered and treated as well as, and are as good as other people, other ways of life.  These efforts certainly seem well-intentioned, and I have no quarrel with them or what they convey beyond the fact that they seem heavy-handed and are in some sense presumptuous, and appear to arise from a missionary impulse.  In my imagination I picture a gathering of righteous writers, directors, producers, actors, their leader proclaiming "Let us go among them, the unknowing and ignorant, and teach them the Way, oh my brothers and sisters or whatever you think yourselves to be."  Perhaps my imagination is unfair.

The world as portrayed by the Missionary Media is one in which different races, people disabled and not disabled, blissfully and peacefully interact, marry and have children, in which gay men and women smooch and have sex just like straight people and interact with straight people peacefully, marry and have children, and everyone gets along well and are shown to be just the same deep-down as everyone else, no reason to be upset about other folks different from us and what they do or want to do.  The members of the Missionary Media in my perhaps unfair imagination say:  "See?  We're showing that to you on that screen you're gazing at, the same one you gaze at all the time.  You'll get used to it, you'll learn, because we've put it on the screen."

In the case of this particular missionary impulse the effort to make the desired point can be rather blunt.  Subtlety isn't employed.   For example, in a particular scene one person is white, one is black, one is latino, one is apparently of mixed race; some are men, an equal number are women, but all are cops, or lawyers, or  doctors--all are the same, not different.   Two men may suddenly kiss each other.  We may learn suddenly two characters are lesbian.  The children of a lesbian or gay couple are introduced.  Some character is revealed as blind or deaf although there was no guessing that was the case earlier, as they are ostensibly the same as everyone else up to that point.  It's clear due to the lack of subtlety in development and the resultant feeling of surprise that a point is being made that is the purpose of the scene.  

I feel compelled to say, again, that the world being portrayed by the Missionary Media is one that would be fine with me, one in which I'd be happy to live.  But it clearly doesn't exist at this time, any more than the world of Father Knows Best or My Three Sons or Leave it to Beaver existed at the time those shows were popular.  This may change, however.  More significant and more disturbing to me, though, is the fact that the Missionary Media is being missionary.  I don't think it should be.

Members of the Missionary Media include not only those who provide us with commercials and entertainments, but the ubiquitous pundits that infest our society and, most obviously of course, evangelists.  I wish they would all go away.  It isn't their business to tell us their opinions, to convert us, to use entertainments to teach us what they think we should think and do, even when there is nothing objectionable about that or when thinking or doing or acting consistent with their manipulation is good, even admirable.  Why do I complain of this, then, if it would be appropriate for the world to become like that which the media portrays?

Because manipulation is manipulation, and I think the powerful influence of the media shouldn't be employed in manipulation.