Abduction As Romance

The 2016 film Passengers, was advertised as a high concept science fiction blockbuster...

..about a romance in space.

Based on that, I was excited to see it.

WHOOSHING SOUND CLANKING

Unfortunately, the central premise... ..doesn't make for a very good love story.

In fact, it has much more in common...

..with a horror film.

WIND RUSTLING

Jim is a passenger aboard a starship, making the long journey to another planet,

when a malfunction wakes him from hibernation too early.

JIM: Where are we?

COMPUTER: We're in transit from Earth to Homestead II.

We will arrive in approximately 90 years.

What?!

It seems he's destined to live and die alone on the ship...

..before anyone else wakes up.

Trapped by his circumstances...

..Jim starts obsessing over another sleeping passenger, named Aurora.

Intent on pursuing a romantic relationship...

WHOOSHING

Jim sabotages her hibernation pod and makes it look like an accident.

From Aurora's perspective...

..this is a story about a strange man, who imprisons her alone with him in space, forever.

This stranger robs her of her life, her future, and her self-determination.

JIM: Can I talk to you?

And yet because this movie is supposed to be a love story,

audiences are meant to feel sympathetic to Jim,

and root for the relationship to work out.

STRINGS PLAYING SOFTLY

The film's science fiction setting tends to obscure the fact that Passengers...

..is an example of a very old and deeply troubling media convention:

Abduction as romance.

Abduction as romance is a media trope,

where a man kidnaps or imprisons a woman and then she eventually falls in love with him.

Like a lot of storytelling conventions: abduction as romance isn't new.

It can be traced all the way back to ancient literature,

and it was a favorite plot device in classic Hollywood.

Help! Get the police!

Help!