By: Ava Rogha
You may not have thought about this before, but some of your favorite drama movies end with the tragic death of the main characters.
In famous romantic dramas like: The Fault in Our Stars, Midnight Sun and A Walk to Remember, the audience has been anticipating and almost expecting the tragic death of the main character without having second thoughts about how the movie will end.
Romanticizing illnesses on TV might be a successful marketing strategy as it may result in the audience getting more emotionally attached to the characters, but it doesn’t spread a hopeful message to all the young people who are actually suffering from painful diseases.
In Midnight Sun, the main character, Katie Price (Bella Thorne) is pitied by the audience from the moment we learn about her life-threatening illness called Xeroderma Pigmentosum. XP is rare and is characterized by sensitivity to Ultraviolet Rays from sunlight. This illness is incurable and the best way to protect yourself from it is by avoiding direct sunlight.
"Even though our time together was short, the stars have been burning for every moment of it."
17 year old Katie has been raised by her dad who’s made it extremely clear to Katie that she should avoid contact with direct sunlight. That changes when she meets and falls in love with Charlie (Patrick Schwarzenegger), a skater she's been admiring from a distance until now. Her infatuation for the boy leads to her risking her own health and wellbeing to spend time with “the love of her life”.
I’ve heard that we aren’t defined by a disease or an illness, but dramas like these make that hard to believe. When Katie’s condition is introduced at the very beginning of the movie, the audience can already understand what the movie’s focus will be: a combination of Katie’s illness and the road to finding love for the first and last time in her short-lived life.
In a personal favorite of mine: The Fault in Our Stars, the main character Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) – a 17 year old girl who has cancer, is motivated by her mother to attend a cancer patients’ support group, where she meets her first love — Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a cancer patient in remission.
"I fell in love the way you fall asleep; slowly and then all at once."
Augustus used to have Osteosarcoma: A bone cancer that starts in the cells, which form bones. Osteosarcoma is often found in our legs and sometimes the arms. This illness is common amongst teenagers, but it can also develop in children and adults.
Hazel and Augustus spend the little time they have together exploring and enjoying each-other’s company in Amsterdam. They bond over their passion for literature and even visit Anne Frank’s house together. Overall, it is a beautiful tale that tells the love story of two young lovers. So, why is it that they are torn apart at the end of the movie?
Throughout the movie, we pity Hazel and her situation as a stage four thyroid cancer patient. And most of the time, she is portrayed as the dying cancer patient who has little hope for herself. Therefore, it’s triggering that, though in remission, Augustus passes away at the end of the movie — which really makes us feel that there is no hope left for either of them.
Finally, in A Walk to Remember, the main characters (and polar opposites) Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore) and Landon Carter (Shane West) are forced to work together for drama club, which is how their love story begins. Despite Landon’s resistance at the start, the lovebirds fall in love as they spend time together learning and memorizing the play.
"The doctor said I should live life normally, as best I could. I didn't want anybody to be weird around me. Especially you!"
It is not until Jamie and Landon share a kiss that the movie’s plot twist is presented. It turns out, Jamie has cancer.
When Jamie’s secret is unveiled, the couple spend time together to the point of getting married. However, their “new start” doesn’t last longer than a summer, as Jamie’s cancer gets worse and she passes away.
The movie, as you can tell, almost had a happy ending — until it didn’t. It seems like tears need to be shed at the end of all these movies for them to leave a mark within us. But, wouldn’t a happy ending, once in a while, help people who are really coping with a severe illness?
Although these movies inform and educate us on some life-threatening illnesses, they are also romanticized to create an unforgettable tragic love story. But, wouldn’t the perfect love story that we’ve been yearning to see, be the one where the main characters recover to live their happily ever after?
"I told you not to fall in love with me."
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