love triangles poll!

[kindkit]

I've been thinking about that ever-so-common plot device, the love triangle, and wondering if I'm especially weird in how much I hate them. So, a poll! It asks only about the "two men in love with and competing for the same woman" kind of triangle, because that's by far the most frequent kind and the kind that especially puts me off.

Everyone is welcome to vote--you don't have to know me or subscribe to my journal or whatever. And if you'd like to elaborate on your responses in the comments, that's great.

ETA: The second question is meant to be pretty flippant and silly, so don't feel like you're answering it "wrong"!

Poll #15018

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 79

View Respondents

1) You learn that a book/film/TV show features a love triangle of the "classic" sort: two men who both love the same woman. Are you:

View Answers

More interested in reading/watching than you were before
0 (0.0%)

Less interested in reading/watching than you were before
60 (75.9%)

Neither more nor less interested in reading/watching
19 (24.1%)

2) Love triangles can be resolved by:

View Answers

Duels
8 (10.5%)

Fistfights
4 (5.3%)

Flipping a coin
5 (6.6%)

Heroic renunciation on someone's part
15 (19.7%)

Kidnapping
2 (2.6%)

Plot-convenient death
11 (14.5%)

Polyamory
64 (84.2%)

The two competitors behaving as though the love object's own feelings mattered
67 (88.2%)

The vertex/love object declaring "a pox on both your houses" and running away
62 (81.6%)

The two competitors realizing they're actually triangulating their forbidden love for each other
55 (72.4%)

Comments

[lilliburlero]

I strongly dislike the two-men-compete-for-a-woman love triangle--for similar reasons to given by other commenters--but I do end up writing rather a lot of 'two men and a woman' triangulations, and at the moment a 'two women and a man' (unfinished). Usually the dynamic is that one of them feels only same-sex desire, one only other-sex, and the third's bisexual. There's sometimes a polyamorous arrangement. All of them are set between 1387 and 1416. I don't really know either, except Shakespeare histories fandom.

(Excuse my flippancy about flipping a coin--couldn't resist.)

[kindkit]

The last question was meant to be flippant, so no problem there. *grins*

I certainly don't think all triangular scenarios are bad; done well there's a lot of room for interesting emotional exploration. I'm just heartily sick of "two men compete for a woman," and it's everywhere, because Hollywood in particular seems to think it's an excellent way to add romance to a basically action-y formula. The idea, I suspect, is that women are only interested in romance, so tacking on a triangle will bring in the women viewers, while at the same time not alienating men because the focus is still on the men. I hate it, but as a queer man I'm not the target demographic for it at all, so I wanted to get more opinions. I'm gratified that so far no one, including straight women, has said that it appeals to them.

[lilliburlero]

Somebody must like those sort of triangles in action movies, I suppose, even if it's only the Hollywood producers who commission them! But I've never come across anyone who does, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or artistic taste. They always seem to elicit sighs, though for different reasons broadly dependent on the above variables...

[kindkit]

even if it's only the Hollywood producers who commission them

I don't think it's liking, just the mental laziness that likes relying on clichés. "Here's some romance! The girls will like that! But it's not all soppy and sweet and girly, oh no! It's got rivalry and tension! It's manly romance, but not in a gay way!"