This isn’t RomCom: Toxic relationships and questionable consent in Chinese dramas
Professional Single. Don’t let that pretty face fool you! Credit: Youku
Content warning: Descriptions of questionable consent
(Spoilers)
There’s a lot we let slide in the world of make-believe that we’d never tolerate in real life: the violence and destruction in an action movie or the moral ambiguity of characters in a fantasy or political thriller, for example. Asian dramas are no different. Jealousy might be cute on screen, but it suggests a lack of trust and can quickly become tiresome in real life; having an outwardly cold and dominating boyfriend would be pretty toxic and unhealthy in most, if not all cases; family tensions, pressures, and quarrels over academics and life choices are not resolved with a pretty bow after one or two heartfelt conversations; college roommates and colleagues definitely do not always become your BFFs; and office romances involving unequal power dynamics are clearly problematic. But in this fantasy world of escapism and swoony romances, we accept these tropes with either relish or an eyeroll, and the understanding that reality is different.
But there have been several C-drama “rom coms” that crossed the line and left me yelling at my screen. First, there was the immensely popular Well-Intended Love, which saw the male “protagonist” plot to make the woman he was chasing think she had cancer and that he was her only donor match in order to coerce her into marriage! There aren’t enough red flags for that storyline.🚩🚩On China’s notoriously ruthless Douban.com, where high scores are very difficult to come by, it has a whopping viewer score of 6.6. It was so popular they made a sequel of sorts, and it significantly raised Xu Kaicheng’s profile and propelled him into leading man status.
In Begin Again, it was the female lead (a variation on the cold, domineering CEO trope “霸道总裁”) who schemed her way into the kind-hearted, unsuspecting man’s life by lying about being pregnant in order to marry him. Then when she really was pregnant, she left him in a misguided “noble sacrifice” that could have been avoided had they simply communicated (my friend calls this the “noble idiocy” trope). She disappeared from his life and for years, he had no idea he had a child! Needless to say, all was forgiven and they lived happily ever after. On MyDramaList, it has rave reviews and an inexplicable score of 8.3 from more than 7,000 viewers who clearly did not think the relationship was toxic (viewers give it a 5.9 on Douban.com).
And then there was Sweet First Love and Professional Single. Both youth dramas involve domineering male protagonists (another variation of the cold CEO) with serious communication, jealousy, and control issues. Sweet First Love has a rather generous 7.8 rating on MyDramaList, but Professional Single has an egregious score of 8.1 based on more than 6,400 users. Even on Douban.com, viewers give it a 6.1. (Sweet First Love has a 3.9 rating.) It’s been well over a year since I watched Professional Single, but even now, whenever I stumble across a comment about toxic relationships and matters of consent, it is the first drama that comes to mind. Even more vexing are the gushing comments from viewers who enthuse about how much they adore the show and how cute the male lead character is.
While the rest of this post is mostly focused on Professional Single, my issue is with how many of these troubling behaviours are common enough to be considered tropes — even in the dramas we love — and the message that sends, especially to younger viewers.
In Professional Single, it was the accumulation of little things that became extremely annoying: the way Qin Shen was always aggressively jerking and grabbing Yuan Qian’s arms — it felt like she was always tripping or stumbling around like a rag doll; the way he pulled her bangs from behind to stop her; the way he grabbed and smushed her jaw with one hand as he moved in for a kiss. (Even without the questionable consent, that may be the ugliest and worst first kiss I’ve ever witnessed in an Asian drama. It was neither sweet and romantic, nor hot and passionate.)
Usually, fractious relationships in dramas change once the main couple finally gets together, but here, it only got worse. They tried to redeem some of Qin Shen’s controlling ways with a time jump at the end and Yuan Qian, as the narrator, explaining that he eventually relaxed, but it really felt like way too little, too late.
Let me share a sample of my late night rants to my poor drama-watching friends (excuse my typos and excessive use of emojis):
[1:16 a.m., 2020-11-16] S.H.: I'm sooooo annoyed at the ML in PS. What a jerk.
[1:17 a.m., 2020-11-16] S.H.: And he has the audacity to blame her! 🤬
[1:18 a.m., 2020-11-16] S.H.: Sorry ranting about the misunderstanding with the senior classmate.
[2:19 a.m., 2020-11-16] S.H.: also hate his stupid conditions with the 2ML, honestly kind of abusive and controlling, not cool at all ... getting just as irritated as I was with sweet first love 😳
[2:23 a.m., 2020-11-16] S.H.: at this point, I prefer the annoying 2ML
(My friend joked that Qin Shen had some good qualities.)
S.H.:
I'm starting to forget what they are! 🤣 🤣The last few episodes have been making me super annoyed, I almost want to punch him! 😅 Right now, he's totally in the same dog house as the ML in SFL! I agree he trusts her, and it's fine if he's jealous, but I really, really hate the way he expresses it -- instead of accepting it as his own issue to deal with, he totally takes it out on the FL in a way that is not cool or enjoyable for me. It just feels suffocating and abusive. I don't think she's actually changed, but I understood the 2ML's concern when he told her she's changed since they started going out. I would be too.
I also hate how he continues to be so grabby with her. 🤮
Like SFL, there are still enjoyable aspects, but I've dramatically downgraded my score in the back half 😱
Friend:
As things progress, you'll probably really hate the ML by the end of the drama 😱😬
S.H.:
I probably already passed it. I've got 1.5 episodes left
what more can he do?!😅😅😅
Nevermind you're right!
(I’m back to fixating on his grabbiness)
Seriously, all that grabbing is unacceptable! And the hotel room thing? Gross. 🤮 I probably wouldn't have noticed or minded if the lead-up behaviour wasn't so disturbing. It just makes me really annoyed because I think it just sets back expectations on men's behaviour in China, when attitudes around these things are already super messed up (Edit: In case you are a guy taking offense to my midnight private chats, obviously I don’t mean “all men”!)
Friend:
My 2 issues with PS was the first kiss and how the night at the hotel evolved (which I was waiting for Sola to rant about 🤣). The drama spun it as romantic, but consent was not given. So yes I was disturbed that in the end the FL was ok with that behaviour and gave into it. As a fluffy rom com drama, I didn't expect that to happen.
My friend was much more concise in summarizing the problem. I was too upset to be coherent, though my comments actually came across rather mild, in retrospect. So what happened, you ask?
They were booking two rooms and Qin Shen literally bribed the manager into saying there was only one room left. 🚩🚩 Oh, and the manager didn’t even blink at the implications! 🚩🚩In the room, Yuan Qian repeatedly tried to establish boundaries, which Qin Shen repeatedly ignored and kept crossing. 🚩🚩 They ended up sharing a bed, but despite the boundaries she set there as well, he again crossed them and the screen faded into the next morning. She was clearly not ready to be intimate, but he “persuaded” her, as his defenders online have argued. Sure, she seemed fine the next day, but we all know that in the real world, a lot of women pretend to be fine afterward even when they are not. In short, the entire scene was a big 🚩WTF 🚩from start to finish.
If there is any doubt as to whether young women are ever “persuaded” or coerced into sex, an anecdote relayed in this #MeToo episode of a NuVoices podcast (around the 30:30 mark) touches on this issue in China: “…female friends of mine talking about their first sexual encounters at university, of being one where they felt supremely uncomfortable, that they felt like it’s something they had to do to keep the relationship going, or because it’s something that their partner demanded, and because at the time, that they thought that’s just how it happened.” (The entire episode, while somewhat dated in terms of the events it references, is still worth listening to.)
I also came across an extremely disturbing account of domestic abuse in China around the time I was watching this scene in Professional Single, which reinforced my frustrations over portrayals of toxic relationships disguised as swoony romances and how these drama tropes feed into attitudes about acceptable behaviours, especially if the guy is good looking.
If you want examples of healthy, trusting, and supportive relationships, Imperial Coroner, To Fly With You, Forever Love, Party A Who Lives Beside Me, My Fated Boy, Lie to Love, and Fall in Love (the 2019 one with Wang Ruichang) are just a few that come to mind. (Update: Adding The Oath of Love to the list of examples. A similar hotel scene was played out completely opposite to the one in Professional Single, with Gu Wei absolutely going out of his way to respect Lin Zhi Xiao’s bounderies.)
My final takeaway? Actions matter. Don't be swayed or fooled by a pretty face if it's all toxic underneath.