Episode 03: The Struggle With Love

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Welcome to the Shy Girls Finish Last podcast. I’m Nicole Lathen, a certified shy Black girl. I hope you’ve had a restful day. Let’s get into it.

Hello beautiful people, thank you for joining me. Today, I want to talk about the type of romance stories studios force on us and why I’ve McHad it. This is “The Struggle With Love”.

I love love. I love the idea of it, the romanticism, the meet cutes, and the lingering glances. I love the tension, the banter, and the goofiness of two people finding each other. Or more, I ain’t hating. 

No matter how many romance books I read, I love a meet cute. I love reading about the journey from girl meets boy to these idiots are so head over heels for each other it makes everyone around them sick. As you can probably guess, I don’t do well with lukewarm feelings. I need to feel that love hot off the pages. I need devotion. I need the characters to yearn. To pine. To drool. 

Love is such a big emotion so when it comes to reading it or watching it, I need to see it. I need to believe it. I need to root for it. Nothing takes me out of a romantic story faster than the lack of chemistry between the characters or actors. These studio heads sit in their ivory towers and will smash anyone together. They think if it’s controversial enough that we’ll just gobble it right on up. 

I guess it works. For hopeless romantics like me, I just want to watch people fall in love. Because I never knew what that was like growing up. I fell in love multiple times in my head. I had painful crushes on guys growing up, the same guys who teased and bullied me but because it was school, where else was I going to go? Sure, some of those guys may have liked me back but they never told me. They were comfortable snickering and laughing and teasing with their friends rather than admit that they had a crush on the plump, nerdy Black girl. 

I didn’t have my first real kiss until I was sixteen. And I thought it was the most wonderful, amazing thing in the world. I was kicking my feet and everything. Drawing little hearts in my diary, thinking I finally belonged. Only for said guy to approach me at school that following Monday and hound me about who I may have told about our kiss. No one yet, I mean, it was literally eight o’clock in the morning on a Monday. I hadn’t even seen or hugged my friends yet. This was before social media and texting was not free, so I definitely hadn’t told anyone yet. But talk about a moment ruined. He was petrified of the idea of someone finding out we kissed. Big yikes.

I say all this to say that when you’re a hopeless romantic, you tend to gobble up all the stories about love you can get. And you guessed it, most of the images of love depicted were with white people. 

Some of my favorite romantic stories all star white people falling in love. I’ll get to the few Black ones I enjoy in a bit. My absolute favorite rom-com of all time is Down With Love, starring Ewan McGregor and Renee Zelleweger. It’s so fun and campy and is a throwback to all those rom-coms of the early 60s. And there’s not a Black person to be seen in that movie.

And that’s perfectly fine with me. I know I’m in the minority when I say this, but I’d rather a film or story be honest. If they want to write or depict a lily white world doing lily white things, I can get behind that. But when writers add in a random Black character for the sake of diversity, kill them off, and then fix their lips to say, “well, it’s not historically accurate”, then you’ve lost me as a customer. You’re writing a fantasy about winged fae immortal warriors, what historical accuracy are you trying to adhere to? 

Other rom-coms I enjoyed were She’s All That, The Wedding Planner, Something’s Gotta Give, There’s Something About Mary, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Holiday, She’s the Man, etc. You get the point. All have little to none Black people and I enjoy it just fine. I’m able to separate color from the story of love. Because I just want to see people in love. Studios expect us to relate to these stories about love. They encourage us to root for the hero and heroine to get together despite the obstacles. It’s nice. 

There are hundreds of romance stories following white people and not a struggle to be seen. What do I mean by struggle? Well, to answer that question, I have to take the long way around. So buckle up, folks. 

In the first episode, I mentioned Black Trauma Porn. In the previous episode, I mentioned how Black women are perceived. None of those stereotypes lends itself well to setting up a romantic story. The type of stories we get are adversarial in nature. And I’m not talking about an enemies to lovers trope. I mean they set up Black relationships to fail.

Black Trauma Porn is a phenomenon in media where the only stories they want to see are Black people in harrowing roles involving slavery, racism, police brutality, or overcoming hardship in some kind of way. These roles are absolutely important, but they shouldn’t be the “only” roles available. 

The allure of these movies is to show just how enduring Black people are. Just how resilient we are. Look how Black people were able to get us to the moon, play baseball, write music, or handle a shady town full of corrupt cops all while maintaining a certain dignity. The draw is to highlight how much Black people suffer, everything we had to do, and remain nice about it. The focus is on the struggle and only the struggle. It’s Trauma Porn. Like the audience is supposed to enjoy seeing Black people struggle because they show it in such graphic detail.

The movies usually show someone getting whipped, someone getting called the n-word - hard R, chains on their ankles, white only drinking fountains, Black men in jail, Black women raising five kids alone, or gun shootouts with police. But there’s always at least one White Savior to show that “they’re not all like that”. 

When you have a playground in fiction, almost nothing is out of pocket and they choose to show the same roles over and over. The same backdrops over and over. It’s either slavery or the hood. Neither place is particularly romantic or lends itself well to a romance movie.

Black women are usually Sapphires in a romance movie, a stereotype of an angry Black woman who emasculates their men, and there’s usually a huge hurdle they have to go through to achieve love. They have to accept the bare minimum, sometimes less than the bare minimum, in order to achieve love. They have to change their personality, their looks, dumb down their intelligence, or soften up their rough edges to achieve love. Black women get cheated on, dogged out, beat on, or face complete ruin in their pursuit of love. They can’t exist without the struggle. But you know who doesn’t have to struggle?

A white romantic comedy might have a tom-boy into sports who switches places with her twin brother to attend an elite school with a great soccer program to prove women can be just as good as men and falls in love along the way. Another may have a “high-powered” book editor who fakes an engagement to her overworked assistant to avoid getting deported to Canada and ends up softening her edges. Another movie may have a man who grew up with his parents in a fallout shelter because they believed an atomic bomb irradiated the surface only for him to leave and discover the world moved on, he finds a woman to show him how to live in the modern world, and they fall in love. Or, there may be a movie about a loveable schlub who happens upon a free-spirited woman who had an accident where she can’t remember anything from the day before, so the man takes her on multiple first dates, every single day, and they fall in love.

Don’t those just sound fun? They sound uplifting and funny and whimsical and sweet. The women in these movies may face obstacles. Like deportation, fear of discovery for cross-dressing, believing the hot guy likes you only to realize it was a bet, or literally having no short term memory. And you may be thinking, well, yes. Stories need conflict. They need some things in their way preventing the heroes from being together. That’s half the fun. And yes, you’re right. That is half the fun. Starting a story and seeing if the couple makes it despite all that.

The problem with struggle love is that you get none of that. It takes it three steps beyond conflict to the point where I’m personally left scratching my head at why these people are even together to begin with. I can’t root for struggle love. Struggle love makes the assumption that Black women have to endure. Black women don’t get the prince, only the frogs. They have to make do. They have to do it all with a smile on their face and enjoy it because the alternative is worse. 

Some Black rom-coms I enjoy would be Coming to America, The Last Holiday, Just Wright, Two Can Play That Game, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. I tried to pick ones without a lot of struggle to begin with. One has an African prince looking for his princess, a physical therapist helping an injured basketball player, and an older woman going to Jamaica and finding the love of her life in someone half her age. You know, uplifting stuff. 

But the majority? Pretty much dog Black women out. The most prominent purveyor of this is Tyler Perry. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy his earlier movies. If nothing else, all Black people know is struggle so it makes sense to depict that on screen…to an extent. Falling in love despite living in the hood or falling in love despite being overworked, that makes sense to me. But as I said, struggle love takes it further.

I stopped watching Tyler Perry movies because it was clear early on how lazy he was. He mostly had a dark-skinned Black woman abused by her dark-skinned Black boyfriend who was usually wealthy, arrogant, and on top of the world. As a surprise to no one, the dark-skinned Black man wants an upgrade. He’s tired of the “nagging” by his wife or girlfriend or she’s too old now and he wants someone younger. So out the door the woman goes, either by force or some other shifty means, and in walks a “Spicy Other”. I say “Spicy Other” because it’s usually someone of a different race or so light-skinned and exotic looking she could pass for white. 

The downtrodden woman returns home and her eclectic family helps her get on her feet because naturally, the ex left her with absolutely nothing. While she’s getting on her feet, here swoops in a light-skinned Black man who’s blue collar in some way, works with his hands, and is an all around good guy. He tries every trick in his book to prove he’s not like her ex and yet she wants nothing to do with him. She can’t trust him. She’s bitter now and finds some way to yell, scream, and turn into a harpy to push this light-skinned savior away from her.

Until she has to deal with her ex in some way. Maybe he won’t let her go because he made a deal with her mom in exchange for his influence. Maybe he gets shot in court and the upgrade left him because he was no longer a man in her eyes. Whatever the reason, it’s not until this confrontation that the woman realizes that her light-skinned savior is the man of her dreams who would never hurt her and she runs to him crying, gives a passionate speech, and then they all live happily ever after. 

That described about five or six of his Madea movies right there. And that’s only the Madea movies. He pushes this concept that Black women have to get beat, lied on, cheated on, embarrassed, sexually assaulted in their youth, or yelled at, in order to recognize when a good one comes along. And that good one? His only requirement is that he doesn’t hit her. The men don’t usually have a lot of money, because why would Black women need financial security too? They’re usually not as educated as Black women, because Black women are too uppity to begin with. They do the bare minimum and Black women are expected to jump for joy that at least somebody out there wants them. 

It’s a dangerous concept to push on people. And you may be thinking, “it’s not that deep”. To you. It’s not that deep to you. If you enjoy his movies, by all means, keep enjoying them. You’re his target audience and there’s nothing wrong with that. But to me and mine, to Soft Black Girls, we are so tired of the message that we have to be Sineaters for our counterparts to be able to love our counterparts and be loved in return. 

Everyone has a preference, but I’m speaking directly about the Black women who love Black men who don’t love them in return. Black men have a terrible relationship with Black women. They say we nag, we are too loud, we refuse to submit to a man’s will, we’re bougie, we’re gold diggers, we’re sluts who open their legs for anyone but them. And despite all this, I still love Black men. Because I’m grown enough to know that they’re not all like that. And yet, that’s all these movies want me to think.

In Why Did I Get Married, Sheila is played by Jill Scott who was heavy at the time, and her husband Mike dogged her from start to finish. He not only played in her face with her skinnier best friend, he laughed when she couldn’t get on the plane due to needing to purchase two seats to accommodate her size, didn’t care that she drove up the side of a mountain by herself, laughed when she tried on lingerie to entice him in bed once more, and endured while he acted an entire fool the entire trip. 

And the man she falls in love with? A sheriff, which isn’t bad. Small town type of hero who sees her as beautiful and works with her trying to bring her out of that ugly shell Mike put her in. That was it. That’s all he had to do to prove that he was a better fit for Sheila than Mike was. I’m not saying anything is wrong with Sheriff Troy. But where’s the fun? Where’s the elaborate dates? The romance? We just get a couple of scenes where he convinces her he loves her and she starts losing weight, starts feeling herself, and moves on. It’s not like we truly get to see any kind of love being tossed around. 

One of the most prominent Black rom-coms around is Love and Basketball, a sweet story about childhood friends who both dream of becoming professional basketball players. But it starts out complicated. 

Monica, played by Sanaa Lathan, plays a childhood friendly game of basketball with Quincy, played by Omar Epps. She ends up beating him at the game and his first reaction? He knocks her down and she cuts her cheek. But it’s okay because they share their first kiss. Fast forward to high school, Monica is accused of being too emotional on the court, harboring unrequited feelings for Quincy while he dates the most popular girl in school. But it’s okay, they get together after they’re both accepted to USC.

Fast forward to college, the mounting pressure they both face pulls them apart. Especially when Quincy learns about his father and Monica confronts her mother. Quincy suffers a knee injury and is engaged to be married and because this is before the WNBA, Monica quits the international league to work at a bank. But it’s okay, they play a one-on-one game in the end that Quincy wins but eventually figures out that he loves Monica and so they finally get together. And eventually Monica plays for the WNBA. 

The story itself isn’t problematic, but Monica had been busting her behind the whole movie to get where she wanted to be. Okay, she gets emotional on the court, send in the guards and pitchforks! She has to completely soften her tom-boy tendencies in order to achieve love by wearing a dress and forcing Quincy to see her as an actual girl. She has to tamp down her skills to make Quincy feel better about himself in order to achieve love. She has to carry a torch for Quincy while he openly played in her face, used her for emotional support, yelled at her, and went as far as getting engaged to someone else, for Quincy to finally wake up and “see” her. 

Another somewhat popular rom-com is Deliver Us From Eva starring Gabrielle Union and LL Cool J. It’s a modern update of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, in much the same vein as 10 Things I Hate About You. Ray, or LL Cool J, gets paid to date Eva, or Gabrielle Union, in order for her sisters’ husbands to enjoy their relationships without her influence. 

Eva is a Sapphire. She is a man-hating, bossy, bitter, ball-buster who had to take care of her three younger sisters because their parents were gone. She took their love and safety seriously. So seriously, in fact, that her brothers-in-law actively groaned whenever she came around because she would insert her opinion on her sisters moving in, having babies, whatever. 

The men are so miserable and have tried talking to their women about Eva, but they are not going against the grain. In their infinite wisdom, they pay Ray, a Master Player, to seduce and distract Eva so that they get to enjoy their partners. Except, he does his job so well that Eva’s sisters start complaining that their men aren’t more like Ray. Sick of it, again in their infinite wisdom, they learn Eva is moving to Chicago anyway so they kidnap Ray, say he died, and push Eva to leave.

Ray escapes, attends his own funeral that Eva threw, and she wisely leaves him. Only she did actually fall in love with Ray and it has softened her shrewd ways, so she apologizes to the men who started the whole ordeal. Eva leaves for Chicago and Ray shows up on a literal white horse to convince her that he did fall in love with her. 

Ya’ll, that was exhausting to type out. I love the movie, I do. It’s fun and it’s hilarious watching the men groan and complain, but…there’s so much that has to change about Eva specifically. Not the men to do better, not Ray to get a better job, not the sisters who didn’t know how to stand up to Eva. No, it’s Eva who has to change. Eva who has to apologize. 

This isn’t to say that the heroine doesn’t need to change in a story. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat, played by Julia Stiles, also has to be the one to change after she finds love. But it’s this notion that she at least gets to remain the snarky heroine. She delivers the 10 Things poem in a way that’s on brand for her. What does Eva get? A white horse, sure, but she also adopted a grown man with no job because he dropped everything to move to Chicago with her. Absolutely romantic, but doesn’t ultimately serve her in the long run.

I’ll bring up one more. In the Black Mirror episode “Striking Vipers”, Nicole Beharie and Anthony Mackie star as Theo and Danny respectively. They are a couple who’s been together forever and as they got older, they managed to find a comfortable life, they have a kid, and are trying for another.

Long time friend and terminal bachelor Karl, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, arrives after years of no contact to strike up that easy friendship and deliver a present, a copy of Striking Vipers, the video game Danny and Karl spent hours of their life on in their youth. This time, it comes with a virtual reality set where you can feel the punches and kicks and what have you. Almost immediately, Danny and Karl start having sex in the game as their avatars where they can feel everything.

There begins this exploration of sexuality and gender roles and what have you, but…who’s left picking up the pieces? Theo is shut out, abandoned, and left clueless as to why her husband would rather play this video game all day and night than make a baby with her. Eventually Danny fesses up because Karl starts acting like an addict and it’s never addressed if he developed feelings for Danny specifically, if it’s game addiction, or a mixture of both. 

And it ends with Theo, with gorgeous Nicole Beharie, coming to an agreement with Danny. Once a month, he gets to play this game and essentially cheat on her while she goes out to bars and picks up random men. They like it, I love it, but media hates to see a Black couple coming. 

I could wax poetic about several more examples of Black Trauma Porn and Struggle Love. The message behind it is loud and clear. Black couples together are nothing but strife, irritation, and struggle. Or it’s always a mixed race couple. It’s always a dark-skinned Black man with a Spicy Other for a wife, a mixed race daughter with wild curly hair, and a dark-skinned son. It’s always a commercial with one Black parent with their one Black child but goodness forbid that you actually see both parents together. 

We get a few examples of Black couples. We had Misty Knight and Luke Cage from Netflix’s Luke Cage, Martin and Gina on the tv show Martin, Miranda Bailey and Ben Warren on Grey’s Anatomy, or Will and Lisa from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

But these examples are too far and between. It’s almost non-existent these days with the way there’s nearly no surviving Black shows. They got rid of My Wife and Kids, All of Us, Black Lady Sketch show, Southside, and Insecure. They got rid of positive Black shows and claims it was for ratings, marketing, tax write-offs, or whatever. 

All of this feeds into the idea that a Black woman can’t be loved in return by a Black man. Which is categorically not true. Does it happen, yes. Can it happen, yes. But it’s not the only thing that’s true and I need us to collectively heal. And how do we heal?

We use our voices. We tell our stories. We share edits, fanfiction, moodboards, fanpages, whatever it may be. We create what we want to see because the big Hollywood machine will have us believing that Black women don’t deserve it. And I refuse to live in a world where I’m not loved and celebrated for my skin. 

That is why I write. That is why I wrote my book. That is why I decided to share it with all of you. I want to join other incredible Black women authors who dared. Dared to create a story for a Black man and a Black woman in love. Which shouldn’t be a radical thing in 2025 and yet here we are. 

Dare. Dare with me. Seek out and share positive Black stories. We do not have to accept their narrative. I won’t. Will you?

Thank you for listening, ya’ll! And while you’re here, don’t forget to check out more on my website nicolelathen.com. You can find me on Instagram and Tiktok as nicolelathenwrites. Be on the lookout for my upcoming novel, “With These Words” about a shy Black girl finding the love and strength to fight for the future she wants. 

See you next time for "Black is Not a Monolith". Everybody loves saying it, but what do we actually mean by it? 

And remember, Black girls deserve to be seen.