Why The Kissing Booth Portrays Toxic & Harmful Ideals About Relationships
To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of cliche, cringe romantic comedy movies. In recent years, Netflix seems to have spat out a similar line of films which all seem to follow the classic- ‘innocent girl meets bad boy and they fall in love.’ At this point, it really should be a genre listed on the site.
A couple of months ago, my housemate and I were bored and she suggested that we watch a movie. Flicking through Netflix, she exclaimed ‘The Kissing Booth!’ I snorted and said it looks like something I would hate. I turned out to be right and had to turn it off after 20 minutes.
Whilst watching it, I felt a deep sense of anger. I was and am angry that there will be young people watching this movie and actually thinking behaviour like what the movie shows is acceptable. I don’t think I fully gave credit to how much films influenced my expectations of the world until I realised that teenage relationships really are not kissing in the rain and running through airports. So here I am to tell you everything that is wrong with The Kissing Booth (or perhaps not everything; I am not sure I could fit it into 1,000 words).
Despite seeing enough toxic behaviour in 20 minutes, I knew I needed to watch the full movie to make a fair judgement. Overall, the movie wasn’t entirely bad- it had some redeeming features, such as the strong friendship between Lee and Elle. However, my main issue with this film, as with other romantic comedies geared towards young teenagers, is usually the lack of agency the female protagonist is given.
However, this was disguised in The Kissing Booth by a supposed headstrong Elle Evans, who laughed off being sexually assaulted and photographed in her underwear without her consent. I found the portrayal of her character to be contradictory. Love interest Noah claims that he likes her because she’s not afraid to call him out on his crap, but then, she almost feeds into misogynistic and abusive tropes. It is not Elle’s fault for this, she is simply just surviving in the world around her.
I actually think Joey King did a really good job of playing this poorly constructed character, but she wasn’t the feminist protagonist for young girls that I hoped she would be. She would call something out and then dust it off after a half-hearted excuse. I take issue with this because it then teaches young girls, or young people that this is the behaviour you can tolerate and accept.
Films made in 2020, or 2018 when the first film was released, should do more to combat these kinds of harmful representations. Young people watching it won’t notice these nuances - the same as I did not notice the toxic control and ownership of Bella when watching Twilight aged thirteen.
I was quite surprised that this movie is rated twelve, given the use of profanities, mentions of porn and sex. This is what enraged me - this is a film that is geared towards young people and consequently, it is them that will soak up all the harmful narratives perpetuated by this film.
In the first 20 minutes of the movie, Elle is hypersexualised by wearing a ridiculously short skirt and then gets sexually assaulted, being slapped on the bum, and taken to the principal's office. Elle then ends up forgiving Tuppin, her assaulter, after he parades around wearing a skirt and she actually agrees to willingly go on a date with him. To me, the idea that when you sexually assault someone it can lead to date is such a harmful narrative to purport. I actually can’t believe that was written in.
Along with other boring tropes such as the stupid hot girls and the geeky girl with braces, this film is bad enough. But then we get to the main crux of the film, which is Elle’s relationship with her best friend’s brother, Noah.
The recurring theme throughout the movie is that Noah is controlling towards Elle. That is highlighted many times by Elle herself, but nothing ever seems to be done about it. The whole relationship dynamic is set up right from the start with Noah telling all the other guys in her year not to date her. He never really gives any explanation as to why this is, but immediately he has control over her. She notices this and gets annoyed to which she exclaims Tthe days of you controlling my life are over!” and he smirks back, “We’ll see about that”.
One of my favourite things was when Elle wrote a pro and con list about Noah and the only pros were how he smells ‘yummy’, that he’s hot and a good kisser, that was literally it. The cons also stated that he was controlling but, again, just seems to be glossed over.
Noah constantly mansplains by starting fights with anyone who tries to pursue her. Even when she is handling it herself, he just butts in to hit them. This annoys me because it pushes the stereotype that women can’t defend themselves.
After (quite understandably) Lee is upset to hear about the secret relationship between his brother and his best friend, he verbally lashes out. This causes Noah to physically attack him by pushing him to the ground whilst Elle frantically pleads with him to get off. Eventually, he relents and Lee scurries away. Noah then states “You can’t pin this all on me”, showing that he is trying to manipulate Elle into taking responsibility for his violent actions like it was somewhat her fault for his physical outburst.
Violence for Noah is highlighted as a problem, but never really dealt with. I am all for character progression and films addressing issues but the important things are never truly addressed. Noah hits anyone he doesn’t like the opinion of, including his younger brother, which, again, only seems to be met with a meek apology.
A video circulated on Twitter of Noah telling Elle to get in the car after she ran away when he hit a boy that was wrongly forcing her to go somewhere with him. After telling her twice, Noah finally slams the lid of the roof of his car and shouts “Get in the car!”, to which Elle obliges. This is a blatant form of coercive control but is never addressed again. To any young person watching this, this is already setting up an idea of how you should act in relationships. By the film never deeming this action toxic, the idea that if you want to get someone to do something, you shout and bang your fists becomes implanted in their head. This behaviour becomes registered as normal.
I am so bothered by this film’s lack of accountability for actions or explanations. Everything seems to blow over with the utter of a mumbled “Sorry”, which is definitely not the way life works. You should not expect to be forgiven once uttering the magic word after hitting everyone in sight and totally controlling the woman you claim to love. The star character of the movie for me seems to be Elle’s dad who tells Noah that she can make her own choices.
To me, this is a poor attempt at a comical, bad boy good girl romantic movie. It hides toxicity and harmful behaviour behind beach montages and massive mansions. I really could go on about how harmful these kinds of narratives are to perpetuate to younger children.
Spoiler alert, but it ends with Noah going off to college and Elle saying that she felt some kind of peace and freedom - no shock there. Safe to say that I won’t be watching The Kissing Booth 2.