Why do fans root for TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS? Main Lead/ Second Lead Debate

Yesss these Viki live comments have me genuinely worried sometimes hahaha.

With these love stories, I truly believe life imitates art. Or vice versa. Either way, I know some people are probably out here living these dramas in the streets :joy::joy::joy:

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It’s so sad how these females commenters say that bc of the pretty boy face, they are willing to take any kind of cheating or abuse. They must have such low self esteem not to love themselves enough to accept that suffering in a relationship that will be so detrimental in their life.

How can they be such poor role models to other girls and even their own children in the future? if they get used to that kind of life that’s what they’ll teach their own daughters.
What’s ironic is that ‘‘this pretty cute boys’’ are all the work of a plastic surgeon and their beauty is plastic; Nothing is real in that handsome face.

Do they really think these vain and fake handsome face want to have walking along with them a woman/girl that doesn’t stand to their own standards of beauty? I have very good looking male family members and the comments they say make me want to jump them and beat the crap out of them. One time my cousin and my brother was flirting with this girl just to be JERKS, and she asked them Am I pretty? They both said Yes, pretty ****** ugly. I slapped both of them, and had to go after the girl to console her. I told her good looking guys are nasty bc they know they can have any girl they want so I told her to find someone who would really love her and that real beauty is not what’s on the outside, but the beauty inside of them.

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can’t believe the lengths some people go to just for a pretty face :roll_eyes: see them in twenty years

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If you watch the older actors now, they look really hurt; due to all the surgery they did in their younger years. J S for example, they have to be putting these tapes and pounds of make up in all his face, but my huge screen TV shows all his imperfections, and sadly you see this tapes on his forehead, 2 on each side of his chin (he did the chiseled chin surgery obviously), and under the corner of his eyes, it was so obvious it was sad to watch.

There’s another male actor, that ruined his eyes, and is hard to watch this actor with those badly done surgery in his eyes. Females are luckier than man but when you see those cheeks in a circle and the mouth like the shape of a clown you know they overdid surgery in their face.

My mother’s aunt (RIP) that her vain soul caused her to die after her third face plastic surgery (she suffered a cardiac arrest and was in a coma and never recovered). She was already 63, and I feel that we women should learn to age beautifully ‘‘al natural.’’ There’s nothing wrong with growing old. What’s definitely wrong not loving yourself just the way you are. After all, that fake beauty will start sagging pretty bad.

I advocate surgery for medical reasons like broken nose, terrible car accidents etc…

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Im sorry to hear about your aunt.

For me, I am not particularly against cosmetic surgery. Body contouring isn’t horrible (I would do it if I could lol), but facial structure changes are a bit iffy. I think it all depends on the situation. If you have the means and you are trying to enhance and not completely transform, I think it is fine. Everything in moderation. Some people do become obsessed with it, and that is a bit tragic.

In terms of toxic relationships, I think men get away with toxicity attached to a nice face way more than women do. And it really does play out in real life when male celebrities get away with bad behavior and keep their following in a way the female celebrities do not. Even in dramas, I’ve seen female characters receive backlash in a way that male characters who do the same thing do not. It’s really interesting.

I am looking forward to more writers enhancing these on screen relationships, helping young consumers daydream about guys who are actually good lol

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@sa11
Thank you.

I always said/wrote that if I had money i would do a new ME but I was just trying to be ‘‘funny’’ bc I did my nose to fix the many times my abusive husband broke it, and it was the most HORRIBLE experience I’ve ever had. I couldn’t breath and my whole face, my eyes were swollen shut, and I was black and blue all over. I would wake up gasping for air bc they put this things called ‘‘mecha’’ and you can’t breath through the nose, and any little covering/shock in my mouth (strong wind for example) would leave me gasping for breath. For 3 days you have to leave those things in the nose until you go back to remove them (which is another painful experience to go through). Imagine the nose only i wonder body lipo and such yikes!

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Cheese in the Trap is the one that just made me actively angry. I kept hoping against hope that she’d get back together with the piano guy, who had his own issues but was kinder, more understandable, more attractive IMO, etc. Aisssshhh.

One of the reasons I love the dramas I love so much is that the male leads aren’t super jealous or toxic. Ri Jeong Hyeok in CLOY (there’s a little bit of stupid jealousy plotline but it’s not too bad), Xiao Nai in Love O2O (the hacking stuff is over the top and many people are quick to point that out… I don’t disagree with them, but I think in general their relationship is very trusting without silly misunderstandings, and I’d love to see more of that).

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I love the heathy relationships, I started a collection a while back (Good Communication, Healthy Relationships) but it’s only got 5 dramas in it so far, lol *sigh. I’m sure there are more, I haven’t been actively working on my collections lately.

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There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s not much of those healthy relationships bc Asian dramas tend to be geared at suffering during the romantic relationship. They always begin fine, and start the relationship, kiss, and half an episode later, they are breaking up! These regularly break up in k drama can last from a year to three years bc of a misunderstanding or a SFL getting in the way. If you find more healthy dramas please, let me know bc Chinese dramas are copying the same pattern as Korean dramas so it’s getting ridiculous at this point.

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I had started one too: https://www.viki.com/collections/3375563l-healthy-refreshing-relationships
Still wondering whether to take Oh My Venus off the list because their relationship was wonderful except for the time he didn’t allow her to be with him through his recuperation after his accident
It’s really hard! :flushed: @worthyromance helped me with some suggestions to take two dramas off the list; I’d love your suggestions too!

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If my hubby would bug me about my weight for the ending of the drama, I would say, “That’s grounds for divorce.” Not that I would divorce my hubby, but it’s considered very unloving to try to change another person. If it’s her request that he help her lose weight, like at the beginning, that’s different. I don’t know if you get what I mean.

If the couples started both emotionally healthy, unconditionally loving and accepting, where would we find the “drama” in the “drama”? Have you ever noticed that once a couple gets together and everything runs smoothly, that viewers say the show became boring? A couple either have challenges that they must face and overcome together or they simply have a regular, normal existence like the rest of us.

Psychological experts have shown that we always attract or are attracted to someone of the same self esteem level as we are. On the surface it may not be evident, but once the person starts to show one’s true colors, it becomes clear if we are not living in denial of what we see, hear and sense. For example, a person with a superiority complex actually possesses an inferiority complex. A person with genuine self confidence doesn’t need to project superiority and feels comfortable just being oneself.

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You are not kidding! My brother-in-law was very handsome back when we were in our 20’s and he knew it. He was very conceited about his GQ looks. Lol. Recently I saw a picture of him and asked my son.What the hell happened to your uncle! He looks so old! My son said that’s what happens when you do meth. i was thinking Damn! I’m 2 months older than him… I hope I don’t look like that! Yikes!

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Overall I agree with what youre saying. What I love watching is people causing the drama who are outside of the relationship. A nice evil jealous ex-lover wreaking havoc and causing misunderstandings really sets the mood. Love seeing the couples overcome that lol.

I guess I’m okay with toxic around the relationship but not in it! Love to see it actually ha!

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@porkypine90_261
You don’t have to worry about that if you don’t do meth lmao. I know you don’t. No worries.

Have you seen the Youtube video of people who do meth? They get disfigured no matter how gorgeous they were before meth (I would post here but ‘‘mrs. nosy/my stalker,’’ might flag my post). People on meth lose their teeths and get horrible acne condition.

We women age better than man although we work harder, come home from work to clean and cook, help kids with HW and we NEVER complain. They (men/hubby) get sick, we have to tend to them like slaves. We get sick they definitely won’t bring tea for us. Let me clarify that; SOME GUYS not All Guys are like that.

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I’ve watched BOF and heirs and I didn’t like both dramas not for the leads I just didn’t, actually I’m someone who is mostly always with the main lead, but there are two dramas I broke my stereotype in
1, She was pretty
2. School 2015
In she was pretty the main guy was sooo rude when the second was the best of the best
In school 2015 (Yes still mad about it) the whole drama was basically her with the AMAZING second lead who supported her every second, but then last episode she chooses the first. tbh I would have preferred if the main ended with her twin sister which is originally his friend and the main girl ended with the second.
Other than that I mostly like many main leads, they aren’t all toxic, but I think at some point if they do only one mistake that’s actually reality, like in reality a person isn’t perfect they do mistakes, so why can’t people in dramas? Like Suho in true beauty, he did one mistake of telling her not to meet seojun (Which after that he let her btw) and everyone was so mad and calling him toxic. no that’s not toxic, that’s learning from your mistakes, she didn’t let him have the end word so she also stood up for herself and showed him how wrong he is, THAT IS REALITY, and not being perfect

I have my share of grief with School 2015 too. I just couldn’t believe how dumb anyone could be to reject a guy who helped you during your hardest of times. Anyway, we can’t do anything, they won’t make a remake and the actors are now enjoying their popularity School 2015 gave to them.

I never stereotype choosing ML or SML and because even I am in my own dilemma of who I should choose. Should I choose the guy with poor relations with his family for FL or should I choose the guy who is with FL all along the drama? I tend to choose the guy without considering whether he is the ML or SML.

As for toxic relationships, I often come across lots of dramas where MLs are toxic. Take True Beauty for example, the ML became more of a stalker rather than a boyfriend in the middle of the series (I dropped this drama).

For the first time in a while, I came across a drama where the FL was toxic for the relationship and not ML. Search WWW was unique in this aspect and I still don’t understand the depth of their relationship and why they broke up after every two episodes.

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Yea, my hubby was a sweetheart but he really didn’t know how to take care of a sick person. He meant well, but he didn’t automatically know what to do. He was not a mother hen type. One time I had acute salmonella and was so terribly sick. I had to wait for him to come in to see me then tell him what I needed. which was fluids. He didn’t come in that much because he wanted me to rest. He just didn’t know what or how to take care of sick people.

The kids could burn the house down playing with matches because it couldn’t occur to him to go see what the little terrors were up to if they were quiet. lol My mom was ALWAYS suspicious if we were quiet. :rofl: (smart woman)

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Wow. Just finished Ashes of Love, and I’m really so concerned for so many of the viewers. The TCs showcased toxic relationship fans at their FINEST (Here, the SML-FL relationship was terribly toxic, not the ML-FL one).
The SML repeatedly invaded her privacy, did things to her without her consent, holds her hostage, manipulates her using his sad past, guilt-trips her and is completely obsessed with her. Yet, so many fans kept cheering for him because he had a traumatic past. Is the way entertainment has conditioned us? Just because he has a pretty face and sad past, we pity him and say things like “Awww she should love him back, look how much he’s suffered” and “What is wrong with her? She should at least kiss/hug him”

The ML genuinely loved and respected her. But he was considered “privileged” because he was a legitimate son. Therefore, in the eyes of these fans, “ML got everything so SML deserves at least the girl”. The FL very obviously liked ML, but wasn’t able to express it because she had been given a pill to prevent her from loving.
The same people who call her a useless/weak woman because she doesn’t fight much treat her like an object a man “deserves” or doesn’t deserve. The amount of objectification and justification of the SML these fans do is horribly astounding. No matter what stupid, evil things he did, they justify him just because of his bad past. How anyone could have SLS is BEYOND me.

I think we’ve had way too many dramas/movies(Hollywood is also not exempt from this), especially ones aimed at the teen audience, where the FL “fixes” a man. A tragic past excuses terrible, manipulative behavior. “He’ll get better because of love”. It’s total BS. I’m glad the drama specifically tried to address this toxicity, but I don’t think those viewers even listened. The ML says once: “First of all, you didn’t ‘lose’ because you miscalculated your relationship with Jin Mi. It’s that I didn’t calculate in the first place.”

The other irony is that the SFL was just as obsessed but obviously, absolutely no mercy was shown to her. She was called names and hated on and received such a bad ending. And everyone rejoiced over it. It’s sick.

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Agreed! LOVE DOES NOT CONQUER ALL hahaha. Love just isn’t enough to sustain a relationship.

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This is a topic that is incredibly fascinating to me personally because I am someone who almost always roots for the ‘bad boy’ in literary/cinematic works. In real life, I would never go near relationships or people like some of these characters, so why am I drawn to them in fictional worlds? The best answer I can come up with is that I enjoy the process of character development, and usually these bad boys end up finding their inner good guy. And if a second lead is involved, I find that they are usually fully formed good guys from the start, and there isn’t necessarily anywhere for them to go/grow as characters, so from a storytelling standpoint they would be considered ‘boring’. I’m fully aware that love does NOT conquer all in reality, but maybe I want it to be true so badly that I live that concept vicariously through fiction. My love of a good ‘fixer upper’ has its limits, though, and I have definitely come across some truly horrendous and toxic relationships, and sadly I find that they are often shows specifically geared towards the younger audience. As the parent of a teenager myself, it is very worrisome to read some of the timed comments and reviews/ratings of viewers putting relationships like that up on a pedestal.

I will say, however, that even though bad boy stories appeal to me, I also really love a good story with a strong, mature, healthy relationship and wish we saw that more in dramas. I have, in fact, come across some good ones recently.

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