You can count on your fingers how many times you’ve watched a movie where Black love is allowed to just exist. In most forms of media, Black love has to struggle or suffer. While other groups of people can experience that soft and loving romance, Black couples are often written into cheating, trauma, and emotional manipulation and neglect. When you watch films like What Did I Get Married, Love & Basketball, and Forever, you see how Black love is framed as something you have to survive rather than savor.
Why did I get married?
Tyler Perry has a reputation for releasing movies and TV shows that feed into every negative stereotype regarding Black people and their relationships. From Madea to Beauty in Black to Divorce in Black, Perry’s films often speak negatively of the reputations of Black people. In his 2007 film Why Did I Get Married, he portrays not one, but four relationships filled with toxicity. Each marriage shows infidelity, emotional abuse, control, and resentment. With not one positive example of a relationship, the film treats dysfunctional relationships like the norm. Even the title presents marriage as a burden or a question rather than a certainty or choice rooted in love.
The film claims to explore “real relationships” instead, it just explores how Hollywood loves to show Black love as struggle love. Reinforcing that black marriages are inherently unstable. Even as the couples within the movie resolve their issues, each couple goes back to toxicity rather than escaping. The movie represents love as something to be survived, not something that nurtures the mind and soul.
Love & Basketball
Most people look at Love & Basketball as a classic celebration of love. But when you look deeper into the story, you see that it’s more of a horror story surrounding love. To be with Quincy, Moniva sacrifices her self-worth and dreams for Quincy. Quincy is emotionally unavailable for most of the film, not being a good partner to Monica. Her loyalty is considered romantic, and his neglect is seen as ambition. The dynamic is another example of the idea that Black women have to earn their love. Instead of being able to enjoy calm and reassurance, Monica has to sacrifice a lot of herself in order to earn the love of Quincy. Even in what is considered a classic with Black households, it still shows a love rooted in struggle rather than support.
Beyond the Lights
One of my favorite movies of all time is Beyond the Lights, which was a rare portrayal of Black love not rooted in emotional turmoil. The relationship between Noni and Kaz is about emotional safety and mutual respect. Kaz supports Noni’s dreams even when he doesn’t want to. He loves Noni while also allowing her to grow, which helped her to find her identity in a loving and soft way.
This movie is different because even though conflict occurs, it’s not the center of the relationship. Rather than glorifying a toxic celebrity relationship, it shows the importance of communication, healing, and boundaries. Black love was finally portrayed as the reward rather than the risk.
The bigger pattern
Movies like Why Did I Get Married and Love & Basketball are indicative of a larger media pattern. A cycle where Black love is rarely seen as soft or joyful. Instead, it’s framed as toxic and volatile. This matters because what we see in the movies, we use as our expectations in our own lives. If all we see on TV is hostility in Black relationships, audiences are going to walk away seeing love as suffering. It normalizes emotional harm and lowers the standards of relationships. It makes young kids and teenagers believe that to have this kind of love, I have to have this kind of struggle.
Black stories can include struggle; that isn’t the issue. It’s the fact that the struggle is the only story being told. Black love deserves a space to be kind, healthy, gentle, and even boring. And it will not be until the media allows Black couples to exist without outside turmoil that Black love will be seen for the beauty it can hold.