For some context, my sister and I were watching reruns of old 80s action shows like A-Team, Knight Rider, Magnum PI, and MacGyver on Peacock and Netflix about a few months ago. In every episode, the protagonist(s) would encounter a young woman who wants to save her endangered community/family or is in need of assistance in some important mission of hers. Throughout the course of the episode, the (or one of the) protagonist(s) will develop a flirty relationship with her. Usually it will climax in the protagonist(s) sharing a kiss with the woman at the end of the episode. Only for the woman to be forgotten about and never addressed again once the episode ends, as the protagonist(s) moves on with the next episode's "flame." Rinse and repeat. My sister found the "girl of the week" trope to be utterly abhorrent. I can't recall exactly what her exact arguments where. However, her opinions were on the lines that it made the protagonists look like lecherous sleaze bags who treat women as prizes for their heroic accomplishments. Additionally (loosely paraphrased, as I'm having a difficult time remembering her precise viewpoints), she thought those shows trivialized relationships as "pleasurable games" for the protagonist(s)' benefit. Personally though, I was rather indifferent to the whole trope. The most that I could say is that the shallowness of it gave me a little chuckle. Other than that, it didn't bother me at all. What are your thoughts on the "girl of the week" trope?
It's no different from hospital shows like ER or House or General Hospital having a different set of patients every episode, or a police procedural having a different murder with a new set of suspects every show. Boy meets Girl is pretty standard stuff, in stories and movies as well as in real life. It might be abhorrent if they used them, made fun of them behind their backs, and then deliberately left them, gave each other high fives, and paid up their bets at the end of every episode. But I don't think that's what was happening. Ask her how she feels about the same trope, only reversed, on Sex in the City? Does she believe dating is abhorrent unless the couple remain together long term? People often meet, grow fond of each other, and then go their separate ways.
To answer your question, my family comes from a religion that frowns on casual sexual relationships and puts a heavy emphasis on marriage. Dating in search of forming full term relationships is what is preferred. As such, she doesn’t like one night stands at all.
I can see where she's coming from, though personally it doesn't bother me. There's certain sexist tropes in fiction that bother me more than others. I say let her live and let her dislike what she dislikes. Keep enjoying what you enjoy. Most fiction is problematic in some way. She doesn't have to be wrong in order for you to keep enjoying what you enjoy. It reminds me of shows I watched when I was a kid, like Rurouni Kenshin. I think what made Rurouni Kenshin work for me was that Kenshin was genuinely a very sweet guy who just wanted to do right by everyone-- man, woman, or child. He'd show up, save the day, and then move on. If he saved a girl that episode, she'd fall in love with him-- because, I mean, damn, who doesn't want a man like that? If the women were treated like things he was "winning," it probably wouldn't have worked for me.
I think that overall love & sex are such universal emotional rollercoasters that make everything interesting, or at least entertaining. I do think they are overused in movies and TV shows, often limiting the development of a script. People naturally flirt, and some people do it all the time, it is natural that some TV shows develop characters whose flirting is part of who they are. Flirty doesn't necessarily mean being superficial. But I must admit that being flirty is often overused--when the audience doesn't learn anything new about the character or relevant to the story. It can even stall the story. But often TV shows are formulaic and based on reassuring repetitions. The 80s to me seems a time when things were stereotypically easy--never worry about the politics of anything. And for how wrong that is, I did enjoyed some of it.
This is a symptom of a series that implies growth but there is none; series that adhere to a rigid formula that because of it keeps their characters the same. The written example of this is Sweet Valley High. The core characters don't change and whomever they interact with becomes someone merely to help and disappear. Rather like an Archie comic. It keeps the viewer able to click on anytime and be assured that the show is the same regardless how many episodes they missed. It's less a conspiracy to treat women like playthings and more a formula problem. To have them start a relationship would have a domino effect - bigger cast, change in storylines, formula broken. Little House on the Prairie went the kinda bizarre route - they would introduce a character promising change - pastor takes a wife - and then snap back to formula because you'd never see her again.
My go-to example is Gilligan's Island. You always know, no matter what happens, at the end they're still going to be stranded. It's a hard reset at the end of every episode. And at the end of a lot of the 70's shows there was always the little moment at the end, the tension-breaker where the whole group is together, somebody tells a dumb joke, and everybody chuckles.
Each genre will have its tropes and "rules" of presentation. It's the entertainment business, and the purpose of business is to make a profit. All these tropes and rules are used because it gives the audience some relatability and familiarity. This comfortability (hopefully) will attract and hold the audience. A solid audience base means advertisers, and advertisers mean profits. TV shows have been, ever since the 1950s, an assembly line process, and the product has a definite due date to appear on the market. As businesspeople the producers are interested in making a profit, so they are risk averse when it comes to something new and radical. Take any sit-com, medical drama, police procedural or even fantasy series. Every show is essentially the same. In the late 80s and early 90s it became practice to include more "serial" aspects to the series, mostly the relationships of and/or between the regular weekly characters. "Moonlighting" with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd was a passable detective procedural, but, in some ways, the detective aspects of the dramedy series was almost overshadowed by the tense sexual relationship between David and Maddie. The series ratings started to drop once they "got together," although there were a few very funny episodes immediately after. Over the last 20/30 years series have added other continuing story lines, such as the serial killer who pops up every couple of episodes ("Bones" or "Blue Bloods," for example). I could give other specific examples, but you get the idea. A series that makes these repetitions painfully obvious - and does it intentionally - is the Disney series "Phineas and Ferb." Besides every episode having the same exact premise, almost every episode has much of the same dialog; "Whatchya doooooin?" "Ferb, I know what we're going to do today." "Hey, where's Perry?" and at least a dozen others sprinkled throughout each 10-minute episode. (My daughter loved that show when she was little, so I got to see a lot of it.)
I don't favor that either. Either in TV, movies or books, I'm always looking for that character to come back. If there's going to be flirting or 'relations,' I prefer it to be with a recurring character rather than a throwaway.
Something can be profitable and still be sexist, or annoying, or overused. I don’t think “it sells” has to do with whether or not the trope sucks.
To go to the OP, every moment of those shows was formatted. Knight Rider always had somebody messing with KITT and getting their comeuppance, the A-Team always had them McGuyvering a tank out of a piece of construction equipment, McGuyver, well, yeah... I can see being bothered by the girl of the week (or the Bond girls, been re-watching those films lately and ugh) but it's kind of like going in for a Big Mac every week and being upset because the Thousand Island dressing isn't organic.
Bo-ring. So is saving the world anew every week, getting beaten up while saving the world every week, making stupid mistakes to set up a hair-raising situation before saving the world every week, etc. Sooner or later, most series, books and shows alike, fall into the trap.
As @Catriona Grace said, it's so boring, and in 2022 so lazy. On another board I visit (not writing related) there is a question of 'what was the reason for the popularity of the 60s and beach party movies." You know those movies where teens have to have wacky adventures and party on the beach... why did they exist? My guess is simple, it was the 1960s, there was no internet and getting real porn was hard, so that's the closest thing that young boys and lonely men could do to see a bunch of sex young women they could never have. Which giving writers of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s a small benefit of the doubt, I am willing to say that was the reason for the 'girl of the week' trope too. To fulfill the male fantasy of getting to be with a different girl every week. But it's 2022, everyone has internet, between porn, instagram, tik tok and probably 8 platforms I don't even know about, every guy can look at pictures and videos of hot girls he has no shot with when ever he likes, he doesn't need a writers and tv producers to do the job for him anymore. IMO now there is no point in introducing a new love of their life if we're not going to explore the relationship at least a little bit, the ups and downs of how the plot effects their relationship, how their personalities effect each other. If you're going to put them in a relationship then it needs to be it's own arc. OR if you still want to do the girl of the week, it needs to be addressed how the character is a love them and leave them type, that could even be their main character 'flaw' (think Christian from Nip/Tuck). But what I don't want to see anymore is good guy male lead, meets attractive lady, she is captured by the monster/bad guy, hero saves the day, they kiss and fall in love, end episode. Next episode good guy male lead is single with no mention of the woman he just fell in with, he meets a new attractive lady, cycle repeats ad nauseam. My 2 cents.
Why do people only go one way with this? Beach movies also show men nearly naked, tanned and flexing. And on shows like Charlie's Angels and others with female police/detectives, protags etc (Three's Company, Police Woman, Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman etc) it seems like they often used a Man of the Week approach. It's been a long time, but I do seem to recall the Angels developing short-term affections for some of their male clientelle or informers or what-have-you. Not everything is some insidious patriarchal scheme.
I find this is an interesting take. First no one is saying anything is insidious. Just when people say "sex sells" they usually men TO MEN. Products that are generally sold TO MEN even if they have nothing to do with sex, will have sexy women in the advertisements... Cars, Sports, Beer. You don't see the same level of "let's use sex to sell stuff to women" NOT SAYING IT DOESN'T EXIST, but it doesn't exist to the same level. If the "boy of the week trope" exist I think it is rarer. Even the examples used, are all from the 70s... first all of them were shows that were watched primarily by men, second my guess is the reason that was more common in the 70s was a belief that success of "Love interest of the week" was not gender specific... my guess is over time through focus groups and what not it was probably decided "love interest of the week" IS gender specific. Which is why I think it feel out of fashion and became less common in the 80s and 90s. But I admit that is just speculation. Maybe it didn't even fall out of fashion, but I personally don't see it as much. The boarder point, at least for me, is it doesn't matter, even if I were to agree "Boy of the week" is equally as common as "Girl of the week" that's not the point, the problem is in 2022 I find it is lazy writing. "Love Interest of the week" should not exist unless the protagonist causal sex attitude is directly related to the theme of the show. It appears to be a bigger problem for female characters but if you want to argue it is an equal problem for both... okay, but it's still a problem. I don't blame the insidious patriarchy, I blame lazy writing which is not gender specific.
Sorry, I got carried away. My argument isn't really with anything you said so much as a general complaint. and I don't want this to get dragged into the debate room. I'll just drop it.
No worries, no hard feeling. I think you raised an interest point worthy of analysis. But I'm new here, and I don't know the rules, so I'll drop it too.
I think it's a question of technology. Imagine if those shows in the 80s, 70s and before had had ongoing storylines (other than the two- or three-parter format). What happens if you miss an episode? You can't record it, and forget catching up online. If you saw episode 3 then episode 7, you'd be asking "who's she?" or "did they kill off that character I liked"? So if you did miss an episode, you'd be better off not watching anymore, and that's not good for the TV company. When they wanted to give you an ongoing story, it was usually a mini-series (emphasis on the "mini" so you could catch all episodes) or a soap, where you can just drop in or out of the storyline easily. That changed in the late 80s as VCRs became commonplace, though TV only seemed to catch up to that in the 90s with long-running series where the story wouldn't make sense if you missed a week. A current-day example of this approach would be syndicated cartoons. If Dilbert gets a new co-worker, do we really expect them to be around in a week?
Very good point @Storysmith . And it changed yet again with streaming services like Netflix, where you can download or stream an enitre season if you want and binge-watch. It's been like an evolution in media, and it did affect the format of the shows. Makes sense.
I dunno, I really liked how the Scooby gang always managed to run into a new villain dressed as some kind of monster every week.
I’ve been trying to resist getting into this discussion, but I’m giving in (again). I think that we should make a distinction between: (1) A main character having lots of casual relationships. (2) A main character coming in, saving the day, and “winning” the attention and affection of a convenient hottie (who is then never seen or heard from again). Repeat every few weeks. There is nothing wrong with #1. It is totally possible for a male character to have lots of casual relationships that never go anywhere without it being sexist. George Constanza’s weekly girlfriends (and his insane reasons for breaking up with them) are hilarious, imo. I would argue that #2 is a weak trope, regardless of gender, because it’s awkward and unrealistic to have a bunch of hot (and conveniently young and single) side characters hanging around just so they can be “awarded” to the main character once the MC saves the day. It’s awkward to treat human characters like trophies, and I’d argue it’s bad writing, because that’s not really how people work— and people don’t enjoy it as much nowadays, so it’s gotten old and outdated. TL;DR: Having many casual relationships isn’t sexist. A broader pattern that treats characters like trophies is bad writing, regardless of the genders involved. Weekly/episodic writing can be fun and some people enjoy it.
The way I see it, even the most formulaic shows should only depend on a handful of formulas. If a show is about a person meeting a new girl every episode and flirting with her, I don't mind. But if it's the same type of subplot repeated in every episode of a show that has a completely different premise, it's lazy writing at best. I don't mind that every episode of scooby doo has the gang face off against someone in a monster costume - that's the show's premise. But if every episode also had a subplot where daphe meets a new hot surfer boyfriend, I would stop watching the show entirely. Especially if the outcome would always be the same.
