Originally posted by: CaffeineMuggle
Bold : THIS. THANK YOU ! Thank you for bringing this topic to the forefront. It's high time people have a discourse on this, be it ITV or Indian Cinema. It's so disturbing to see the castings these days man, like you pair up 18+ to 20 years old with 35+ - to 40 years old. And it's not even that it is limited to Imlie, a top show at the moment going on for the longest time did the same and this time the story didn't even need this kind of age difference, which is where Imlie gets a slight benefit of the doubt. And people find the chemistry "cute" and so. Bro, when the FL was a literal baby, you were already a teen or more. How do people not find that creepy ? And it's literally the case, everywhere these days, top Bollywood stars romancing actresses half their age. It not only enforces the disgusting stereotypes ki young girls are good (read : pure) and marriage material while rest are not. But sexualizes and fetishizes young girls as well. I wonder how anyone was going to bring a change even if marriage laws are changing from 18 to 21 for females, if they we keep prioritizing "the younger, the better" concept.
It's so far from okay and completely skewers the power dynamics as well. Obviously a person who is older in age will always have more experience and more power, to the extent of manipulating the younger girl, gaslighting her or even abusing her if worse comes to worst. We definitely need to not normalize these things and start talking more regarding them to create a better narrative than which is present at this current moment (which is pretty pathetic tbh).
Exactly, right? I am not even against age-gap romances. But the older person has to go the extra mile to make the relationship more equitable, right? More importantly, age-gaps can work if both the parties have considerable life experience. The way Atif has set of both the "age-gap" relationships is marvelous truly. You can constantly see Aryan striving to negate the power differential between Imlie and him. Whilst there was a 35 y/o blaming a literal highschooler for his misery.
Regarding the creepy casting, my god, it's something. At least, Bollywood casts fully grown women, who can mindfully consent to working with older men (as creepy as it is). ITV casts literal children as adults, opposite men who are much older than them. Be it Sumbul, Reem, or Ashnoor. It's such a systematic issue and gives me all sorts of creeps all the time.
The long-running show looked to tap into the actor's popularity for sure, but even then the normalisation of that sort of romance; stalking, cornering, fake-dating someone's sibling to get them to 'confess' their love, which only the hero knew, is beyond disturbing. The fact that most of the people in that fandom are teenage girls is just heartbreaking.
Edited by Deltablues - 3 years ago