I’ve posted about this channel before, as they make a lot of great videos shedding light on some weird, regressive tropes in media, and this one is no exception. Portraying kidnapping situations as ones where two people are equals, and are therefore might lead to romance, has always struck me as a little weird.
There are lots of things you can do in movies or TV where characters can partner up in creative ways, and many don’t require a character to threaten or hold somebody against their will. Enabling female characters to be more than just victims or valuable objects isn’t difficult, but it typically requires a more diverse writing team. With more voices at the table, these kinds of problematic storylines can usually be avoided, and audiences will usually be more interested and invested in what happens if the stories they see make more sense than a victim immediately developing feeling for their captors.