It’s the all-too-familiar story of three people in love: two people who love the same person, with that person caught in between them
Katie Brown | Contributing Writer
It is seen again and again in popular media and literature. In fact, it has been used so many times that it seems like there will never be a story without it. Even films like The Hobbit: The Desloation of Smaug that do not originally contain a love triangle in the literary form, add them when they transition to the big screen.
This is nothing new. In fact, according to Dr. John Hamilton and Dr. Mark Eaton, a film professor and an English professor, both at APU, the love triangle has been around since the beginning of literature and film. Both professors said that the first movie and literature love triangles largely dealt with infidelity in a marriage relationship.
Eaton discussed the “May-December romances” as one of the most common types of love triangles in medieval English literature. These dealt with a woman who was in the prime of her life, or her spring season, who married a man who was much older, or in his winter season. Eaton said this type of romance was “trouble” and that the young woman would often run off with a younger man who could better satisfy her physically and emotionally.
The film, The Seven Year Itch, has one of the defining love triangles of film according to Hamilton. The idea of the film is that after seven years of marriage, one person begins to feel the “itch” for someone new. Eaton said that a love triangle is often added to heighten conflict in a story and that it has been used so often that it has become a convention in storytelling.
“It probably has to do with the idea that if you have two people who are in love with each other, it creates more dramatic tension if you introduce a love triangle,” Eaton said. “So in other words, if two people are in love with the same person, then there’ s more conflict. ”
Clearly, the love triangle could be seen as the easy way out in storytelling. After all, why develop new plot devices if the old ones work just fine? However, society seems to be losing something each time it’ s used.
The Hunger Games trilogy has been praised for its strong female protagonist, Katniss Everdeen. Yet despite her virtues as a character, she still grapples with the clichéd problem of which eligible bachelor she will choose. It is an infusion of the sentimental into a post-apocalyptic fable.
Even The Walking Dead, a television series about the horrors of a zombie apocalypse, finds time between all the gore and intensity to interject a love triangle among three of the main characters.
“Literature and film are on the one hand just representing real life…and at the same time they are perhaps influencing the way people are supposed to behave. So it’s a two-way street,” Eaton said.
The consistent use of the love tri- angle has affected the way people view relationships. Eaton used the example of the television show The Bachelor to illustrate how it has normalized competition within relationships. He said the greatest competition involves the most desirable partner.
“Society influences what we think is beautiful. So, then, love triangles are part of this whole ideology of beauty, that the most beautiful woman (or man) is going to draw the attention of multiple partners,” Eaton said.
Hamilton speculated that the prevalence of these types of relationships in film reveals the nature of humanity.
“Fundamentally, it’s rooted in the perverseness of the human heart seeking variety and not caring what the law of God is or even what’s best for you personally,” Hamilton said. “Nobody wants to be with someone who is running around on them…so why do we put it forth as some kind of romantic ideal in movies?”
Hamilton pointed to modern practices of casual sex and cohabitation as possible bi-products of the normalization of extramarital relationships in film. This sort of behavior used to be seen as taboo and in mainstream media, traditional relationships were the norm, according to Hamilton.
“When I was in high school, the secular standard was abstinence, and I’m not talking about Christian circles. I’m talking about the pop music,” Hamilton said.
He referenced the Beach Boys song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” as an example. “The premise was, of course, you wouldn’t do that if you weren’t married. We’re going to sing about it, we’re going to talk about it; we’re going to anticipate it,” Hamilton said. “So the secular world I was surrounded by in high school was supportive of fidelity. It was like, ‘Gee, why would you want to spoil that gift you have for your husband or wife someday and mess it up?’”
Hamilton also said sexual relationships between single people are each like mini-marriages, except that they lack the actual commitment marriage requires.
“The secular mind has the idea that you can do anything you want when you are single, and that it’s not bad to have multiple partners before you’re married and it’s worse to do after you’re married,” Hamilton said.
Outside of the context of marriage, commitments to a single person seem unlikely or unreasonable. Hamilton said it is even more difficult in the con- text of homosexual relationships.
“People who do that [have sex with multiple partners] a lot are really sad. Homosexuals, especially gay men, are very unhappy, many of them. They’ re constantly frustrated or worried and anxious about their relationships. It’s not as joyful as the Harvey Milk movie made it look.”
Hamilton said that these mini-marriages are damaging. People tend to rationalize their behaviors with ideas that it is OK and even important to experiment before committing to some- one in marriage. “I think it’ s all hogwash. Deep down we all have built into us God’s law and we want the best for our- selves,” Hamilton said.
Dr. George Harvey, a psychology professor at APU, agreed with Hamilton in that secular society thrives and lives by what is portrayed in the movies.
“I think that the more they can portray that sex is really just a behavior and that it doesn’t mean anything deeper, then it’s OK, it’s recreational,” Harvey said.
According to Eaton, anthropologist René Girard’ s theory of mimetic desire relates to the concept of love triangles.
In an article for the Stanford Re- port, Girard said, “when we describe human relations, we lie. We describe them as normally good, peaceful and so forth, whereas in reality they are competitive, in a war-like fashion.”
This describes the real reality be- hind the love triangle, according to Eaton, that it is the common denominator of all cultures that we desire something more if someone else de- sires them as well.
“The more people want them, the more value they have. It’s basic to human nature and also civilization, ” Eaton said.
The forbidden fruit is always the most tempting of all, and that seems to be the case for many romantic relationships in literature and film. It looks as though love triangles will always be a part of our storytelling. They grab at our basic human nature, and that is why they will never disappear.