Romance Media - Tumblr Posts
So I can't abide your sparse media offerings. ~BaCk In My DaY~ I was the resident consang media librarian, so let me supplement ❤️:
Starting with #1 is Billy & Billie. (I know they're "step" siblings, but it still applies, and SPOILERS their status gets complicated.) Sad it lost its actors after the first season and had to end, but that 1 season is the best rep out there. No competition. Like genuinely, really funny, really normalizing, and teasing in ways that are still sympathetic. It's like a Seinfeld romcom between siblings.
Byron is a 2-part film on George Gordon, Lord Byron, famous poet, focusing primarily on his relationship with his half-sister Augusta. It's really good, and very sympathetic, if sad. Also it's good to see historical rep. (Still waiting on an Anais Nin biopic, especially one that has the guts to cover her relationship with her dad!)
The Unspeakable Act is a kind of realistic, slice of life, hipster drama with a very dry sense of humor, following a girl madly in love with her brother, dealing with him getting a girlfriend and going to college. It's not a positive portrayal, but it's not negative either. There's an annoying joke about Freudian stuff and narcissism, but otherwise it has a lot of empathy for its main character. (Speaking to the realism, I 100% knew a guy who looked and talked and acted EXACTLY like her brother.)
From Beginning to End is a Brazilian film about two brothers slowly falling in love over the course of their lives, and eventually having to grapple with how to manage such an intense relationship as adults when things like careers get in the way. I have mixed feelings, because the beginning is pretty corny IMO (they try to make the "love at first sight" thing work with a toddler and a baby), but what's interesting is that it implicitly assumes a world where people accept this as something that happens sometimes. People are awkward about it, but aside from one guy early on, everyone's supportive. (They just kind of talk around the subject lol)
Marguerite & Julien is a historical film (with a 1950s aesthetic for some reason) about an actual sibling couple who fled their family and lived in Paris before being captured and executed. It was a really contentious trial at the time, but Marguerite was married so the king felt his hand was forced. Tragic, but real.
Candy Boy is a slice of life anime miniseries about two sisters attending art school. It's sweet and funny, and pretty minimal on drama.
Shameless is a Polish movie about an estranged brother and sister reconnecting briefly. It's sympathetic, though the situation is complicated and intersects with modern racial politics in Poland--and his sister maybe doesn't deserve the pedestal he puts her on. The director is on record saying that he made the movie because he wanted to portray the reality of life in Poland, and this is part of life.
Outside of sibling relationships the pickings get extremely thin. These movies are, as far as I know, all made by exos, so what movies get made depends on the culture's attitudes toward a relationship. Some people can imagine a healthy sibling romance from the outside, but few can extend the same empathy to any other kind. Tabu is a short about a guy connecting with a woman he finds out to be his long lost mother, and it has some Freudian visual gags, but otherwise is very sympathetic. (If anyone knows any other sympathetic movies covering parent-offspring relationships, I'd be interested.)
hahahha, well, I appreciate the contributions to introduction to consang media :), I'll atart watching the entries ASAP!
