Video: Obsessive Boyfriends Are SO Romantic!
Throughout the years, men and women have frequently become trapped in dangerous situations of domestic violence and abuse at the hands of their significant other, forcing then into adjusting to different lives to please their lovers and unable to escape this situation. It is, unfortunately, a situation many people come into contact with whether as a witness or a victim and is an issue that society as a whole needs to become more aware of. As such, the Sketch I have chosen to analyse is “Obsessive Boyfriends Are SO Romantic!” by CollegeHumor, a comedy sketch addressing the issues women face in these dangerous toxic relationships using various elements of comedy to accentuate the driving message and push its themes.
The sketch shows three women, Katie, Jessica and Rehka, sitting together discussing their romantic lives with their boyfriends/ex-boyfriends, who are incredibly possessive of them. Committing actions such as demanding to know where they are at all times, stalking them and forcing them to do whatever they say while the girls consider this behaviour to be ‘romantic,’ and thus highlighting just how dangerous these relationships are. The sketch makes use of various principles through the characters use of negation, ‘offering bare truths’ (Ferguson, 2011) of how dangerous these women’s lives are while denying anything to be wrong or abnormal, such as the character Katie explaining how her ex-boyfriend has been stalking her wherever she goes while her friend Jessica exclaims “oh my god, so romantic!” It is taking these scenarios that many women frequently experience and ‘applies faulty logic’ to these ‘known absolutes (Ferguson, 2011) as explained in Tim Ferguson’s principles of comedy. The sketch uses exaggeration to combine various elements and manipulative tactics men use on women by men, demanding to know where they are and who they are with at all times, stalking, controlling who they speak to and what to do/ wear, forcing them to have sex with them whenever they want etc. While not all abusive relationships contain all these elements, it allows for a larger target audience where women that have been caught in similar experiences to see similar reflected in their own lives or in the lives of others.
I find this sketch to be an effective way of demonstrating the message that relationship based upon living in fear of your significant other and have no autonomy within the relationship is not healthy nor in any way romantic and you should seek help. It is a theme of Domestic Abuse within relationships and the toxic manipulative ways it is used to control these women in their relationships. This is even further displayed as in the description of the video, they provide a link and number to call if a victim or witness needs help. This portrayal of ‘the irrational as rational’ works as intended to ‘expose the fallacies in these accepted truths.’(Ferguson, 2011) It is a way for victims and witnesses to see how not all domestic abuse is physical and can also be mental and emotional. If a victim or witness can identify one of these behaviours in their own relationship and see how the sketch is pointing out how toxic such behaviour is. It could be used to give people strength to leave these situations or seek help. Throughout history, men have frequently been viewed as the dominant sex which is frequently show how men in the past would view that men were meant to ‘silent the female species.’ (Beard, 2017). This can be seen through the behaviour of the boyfriends in the sketch demonstrating ‘Ownership Entitlement’, where men would view their opinion as more important than that of a woman’s in a relationship and view a ‘lack of necessity to consult with women partners or reach consensus’ (Towns and Scott, 2013) upon her own decisions, effectively silencing her. This is shown through Zehka describing how she isn’t allowed to speak or even meet her boyfriend’s friends as ‘he thinks I’m stupid and doesn’t want me embarrassing him.’
Additionally, another manipulation tactic used in the sketch is ‘Identity Ownership’ where ‘boyfriends/ husbands undermine their partner’s independence and agency, questioning her judgement or her self-expression and that questioned her fidelity or sexualised her actions.’ (Towns and Scott, 2013). It can be seen in the sketch through the way the sketch again portrays Zehka’s boyfriend where she described her boyfriend as “always telling me what to wear and what to say in order for him to still like me,” but also through Jessica’s boyfriend when she describes how he “needs all the passwords to all of my accounts.” Studies show how this is a frequent manipulation tactic turning their partner into ‘an item to display at their boyfriend’s discretion.’ (Towns and Scott, 2013) Where women are left to be completely dependent upon the man and are left convinced they are nothing when not in the relationship as also demonstrated in the sketch where Jessica says “but you don’t have a boyfriend, what could be sadder?” It’s this use of verbal irony implying a woman is nothing without a man and that this type of relationship is what “real love” is. The character summarises this use of irony as she described her version of love being “work, taking time, keeping you on edge and awake at night,” all things that love should considerably not do in a relationship all while treating it as usual and an ideal relationship.
This sketch demonstrates through its humour in the negation and irony how relationships based upon such toxic behaviours are not healthy is a way for other to be able to identify these problems and help either themselves or others that can’t help themselves in these situations.
Bibliography
Ferguson, T. (2011). The cheeky monkey. Strawberry Hills, N.S.W.: Currency Press.
Beard, M. (2017). Women & power. London: Profile Books, p.4.
Towns, A. and Scott, H. (2013). ‘I couldn’t even dress the way I wanted..’ Young women talk of ‘ownership’ by boyfriends: An opportunity for the prevention of domestic violence?. Feminism & Psychology, [online] 23(4), pp.536-555. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959353513481955 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].