Our society often glorifies toxic, and abusive behaviours when it comes to romantic relationships. Specifically within media, male characters are often put on pedestals for doing things that are actually quite harmful. In Susie Kretschmer's, And Summer Is Gone her main character David extremely awful towards his childhood friend Amy. His unhealthy actions towards her, are never seen as such though, instead David’s actions are romanticized by both the author and the reader. Despite his clearly poor treatment of her, Amy is the one demonized, simplily for living her life the way she wishes and differently than David would. Throughout the whole story David is judgemental, and extremely close minded towards things that he deems as ‘good’; his toxicity only strengthening has they grow older.
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Throughout the whole passage he makes snide remarks about Amy, and later on about her friend group as well. One specifically backhanded being “-there seemed no night she didn’t go out” (pg 4), though it seems fairly innocent the underlying message is harsh. David is truly implying that Amy should feel bad for moving on in her social life, friends, and interests. David seems to think that he is better than Amy because he keeps to himself, or because his interests are slightly less mundane than Amys. However, he is just as much as a stereotype as Amy is, just in a different way. He and his superiority complex are just as extraordinarily ordinary as the people he judges. This characterization is found often across media, the ‘weird’ boy with an interest other than a type of sport, taking it upon himself to save a perfectly happy girl, with friends who fit into the preppier side of the high school clique placement from the popular crowd. The trope is boring, overused, and creates a toxic master narrative for young girls to
Throughout the whole passage he makes snide remarks about Amy, and later on about her friend group as well. One specifically backhanded being “-there seemed no night she didn’t go out” (pg 4), though it seems fairly innocent the underlying message is harsh. David is truly implying that Amy should feel bad for moving on in her social life, friends, and interests. David seems to think that he is better than Amy because he keeps to himself, or because his interests are slightly less mundane than Amys. However, he is just as much as a stereotype as Amy is, just in a different way. He and his superiority complex are just as extraordinarily ordinary as the people he judges. This characterization is found often across media, the ‘weird’ boy with an interest other than a type of sport, taking it upon himself to save a perfectly happy girl, with friends who fit into the preppier side of the high school clique placement from the popular crowd. The trope is boring, overused, and creates a toxic master narrative for young girls to