I think a lot of us forget to just enjoy dramas nowadays. In the craze for absolute political correctness, freshness, actor-scandals, different-ness, level of PDA, and the like, we forget that these dramas were made to entertain us, to inspire imagination and offer comfort. I find cliches oddly comforting. I know they’ll always be there, and they make me happy when they’re executed creatively.
4 Likes
How can an old, rehashed cliché inspire anybody’s imagination? As for me, I found those things entertaining the first ten times I saw them. After that, it was just repetitive and boring. When you know exactly what is going to happen (although you’re watching the drama for the first time), half of the fun is gone!
2 Likes
I think it all depends on the execution. When it’s done right, it works for me. I might be able to predict the start and end, but it’s interesting to watch different writers’ takes on the same topic as they focus on different aspects of the cliche. In the case of memory loss, as I said before, I haven’t found many that were actually well-executed. Most of them are terribly old or just plain boring.
A trope I love is the second-chance trope. I’ve watched quite a lot of well-produced dramas dealing with the “What happens after the happily-ever-after wedding?” question. Though I can predict easily that it’ll start out with the couple breaking up/going through a rough patch and end with them getting back together(with lots of communication problems in between), it’s the different aspects of the problem that keep me interested. For example, 18 Again dealt with the strains of marrying young without proper jobs and living with poverty/less-than-ideal conditions. Tomorrow With You deals with getting to know your partner/ two people who weren’t really ready to be married to each other. Familiar Wife focuses on the husband and how he took his wife for granted. Go Back Couple focuses on the problems that a death of a loved one brings into a marriage, handling grief, along with both partners taking each other for granted. Flower of Evil deals with lies and disappointments. All of them were powerful, beautiful stories.
100 Days My Prince - Aw D.O.zie LOVEfest 2021
