In the romance genre, sibling-related love triangles have become a staple. This trope isn’t new, dating as far back as Louisa May Alcott’s classic 1868 novel “Little Women.” The resurgence of this trope has led to its domination in the 2000s. The 2020s have been even more marketable for this dynamic, whether it’s Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” or Netflix’s “My Life With The Walter Boys.” Despite its prevalence, this trope needs to be abandoned.
In the current streaming era, these sibling-related love triangles, which typically feature two brothers and one girl, have increased in popularity. These shows are also heavily favored by their streaming platform, garnering early renewal announcements and lots of advertising. Prime Video renewed season two of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” before season one even premiered, which is a rare occurrence for any streaming show these days. Netflix, a company notorious for early cancellations, renewed “My Life With The Walter Boys” just 12 days after the first season aired.
You could be thinking, maybe these shows are of immense quality— lock-ins for award season— but you’d be wrong. I had a rough time watching “My Life With The Walter Boys.” The acting at times can be uncomfortable to watch; despite that, the show made Netflix so much money so fast that they had no choice but to renew it. These romance shows’ biggest success is always commercial. This doesn’t necessarily make every show or movie incorporating this trope bad and undeserving of awards; it just means that they aren’t what the academies are looking for. Awards are very important to networks and streaming services, because the more acclaimed something is, the more people are interested. Shows with this brother trope are almost immediately successful, maybe due to the intensified drama that comes with it, since families are also getting broken up over a relationship between two high schoolers (that never look the age they’re supposed to be portraying).
Despite the popularity of these shows, this trope should be questioned, with the most obvious issue being that it’s just plain weird. Dating someone your sibling has already dated will only make for an uncomfortable dynamic. Not only awkward for the ones dating each other, but awkward for the whole family. Imagine every time you hang out with your boyfriend, your ex-boyfriend is also there. It’s a situation that can never go well, especially if the relationship ended on a negative note. It is also not a good way to bond with the in-laws if you’ve already broken up with one of their kids.
The underlying issue of this sibling-oriented love triangle trope is this separation of families during a rough time in their lives (spoilers ahead for both “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “My Life With The Walter Boys”). For instance, in “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” brothers Conrad and Jeremiah both get involved with their family friend Isabelle (nicknamed “Belly”) during their mom’s cancer relapse and soon after her passing. This back-and-forth with Belly leads to a rift between the brothers, with her being a common argument topic between them throughout the second season. In what is arguably one of the hardest struggles to go through—the loss of a parent (or in Belly’s case, a maternal figure)—this family can’t even find comfort in each other anymore.
In “My Life With The Walter Boys” Jackie has moved in with the Walter family after her entire family was killed in an accident. Jackie starts dating one of the Walter boys, Alex, shortly after her revival, but the season ends with her cheating on Alex with his older brother Cole. This causes Jackie to leave the Walter family and go under the care of her uncle, uprooting her life yet again in a short time. Jackie left right after she was starting to find her groove with the family and her new life, but this love triangle ruined the “found family” she had settled into.
People love to discuss “homewrecking” in relation to popular movies or television shows, typically as a way to vilify female characters or the third party, instead of focusing on the person who actually cheated. In the romance genre, the real “homewrecking” issue isn’t a couple cheating on each other with a third party, but someone dating a set of siblings and causing a permanent rift in their relationship. Again, this isn’t placing blame solely on the non-sibling of the triangle; we should also be judging the second sibling in the picture, because betraying not only the “bro code” but the “sibling” code is reckless.
These shows can be good in a way; they’re an addictive type of drama, but there is no world where you can convince me they should stay. This matters because these shows romanticize the destruction of familial relationships. They want you to focus on romance and buy a “Team Conrad” or “Team Jeremiah” shirt, instead of thinking about what they’ve lost. This trope sets a dangerous precedent for those who might end up trying to emulate the characters, valuing teen love over family.