I mentioned how movies and literature often show it as supposedly an honored tradition to force male characters into ritual combat for political reasons. The flip side of that is when female characters’ families force them into marriage under a similar rationale.
In watching Aquaman, I noticed that the main character’s Atlantean mother had been fleeing an arranged marriage when she met his father, a surface man. But then assassins showed up and she left her surface family to go marry the guy who sent assassins after her. Wha..?
Later in the same movie, Arthur meets Mera, another Atlantean princess and freedom fighter. But just as they get close, guess what? She’s been promised in marriage to his brother, Orm! (Yes, the same guy he later has the death-duel with.)
Ugh! Enough with the forced marriages. We see these so often used as a threat against women. There’s usually a rationale that, on some level, the men who are forced into ritual combat want to fight and show their manliness. But with women characters, this is always sex-as-threat. Marriage is a way to control them, take away their freedom — and allow some man to creepily gloat over them. “I know you don’t like me, but once we’re married, you’ll be forced to sleep with me!” *Insert lurid chuckle.*
Arthur and Mera have been an established couple in DC’s main continuity for a long time, although I don’t know whether the original Aquaman stories had Mera being promised to Orm first. That could have been something the screenwriters threw in to make it “spicy.”
I know it can be hard for fans to let go of a familiar story, but Aquaman’s origin was written decades ago. 21st century screenwriters are in a position to add and subtract material that suits our times. I wish that they had done so, instead of presenting yet another odious, sexually threatening “forced marriage.”
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