Amazon Prime’s original series, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” (TSITP), has stoked division since the release of the first season in 2022, and once again, the popular show has prompted viewers to take sides with the release of its third season over the summer. Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? Team Childhood-Crush-You-Have-Been-Pining-After-For-Years or Team Chocolate Mirror Glaze? These are the existential questions Isabel Conklin, or Belly, along with viewers of the show, have been struggling with in its third season. In this show, based on the novel series by Jenny Han, Belly’s love life involves the choice between the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah, both of whom she has grown up with since childhood. In 2022, the release of the first season sparked debate that circulated on social media, initiating what may very well be the defining pop culture love triangle of this decade.
Although TSITP has revitalized the love triangle trope for a new generation, the trope itself has been a consistent romance trope from ancient literature to modern media. Its presence has been cemented in media since the love triangle between Helen, Paris, and Menelaus in Homer’s “The Iliad.” The love triangle trope is also featured in the Bible, Arthurian legend and the novels of Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. What is it that makes this trope so enduring in popular media? And how has the love triangle shifted with the emergence of teen romance television dramas to fulfill the preferences of a predominantly female audience?
The New York Times revealed that of the show’s 25 million viewers, the primary audience for “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is 25-54-year-old women. According to a video essay on the use of the female gaze in “The Summer I Turned Pretty”, YouTuber That’s Joaq distinguishes between the modern media romance fantasies of men versus those of women. He argues that while male love fantasies are either centered around the pursuit of one woman or a fantasy about having a harem of women, female love fantasies tend to employ the love triangle as a romantic plot device. Although the love triangles from the Western canon include men at the crux as well, those centering women implicate women’s historical lack of agency in marriage, usually due to political and social mobility constraints. As the love triangle common in teen romance dramas today has become more gendered (female crux, two male love interests) to cater toward female audiences, the various manifestations of this trope have evolved as well. In perhaps the most culturally impactful teen romance, The Twilight Saga, Bella’s decision between Edward and Jacob didn’t just represent the characters themselves, but the mortal rivalry between the vampire and werewolf species. In “The Hunger Games”, Katniss wasn’t just choosing between Peeta and Gale, but her modus operandi for fighting a revolution.
An interesting sub-trope that has proliferated teen romance dramas is the (extra forbidden) two-brothers triangle. If you want “TSITP” with vampires and other supernatural creatures, watch “The Vampire Diaries” with Elena, Stefan, and Damon. If you want cowboy Conrad and hee-haw Jeremiah, try out “My Life With The Walter Boys”. And if you’d like to visit the “TSITP” author’s original inspiration, Jenny Han referenced it way back in Season One. Viewers may recall that Belly and Cam Cameron watched the 1954 film “Sabrina” on their drive-in date. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as the eponymous protagonist and tells the story of her triangle with the Larrabee brothers after returning from Paris with a glow-up, a plotline that bears similarities to the third season.
According to YouTuber Lindsey Young, the love triangle trope has two main frameworks. The first, coined the “Leap Frog”, establishes a first love interest for the protagonist, then introduces a second love interest that provides a journey, resulting in the protagonist choosing the latter. Young calls the other arc the “Stepping Stone”, where the protagonist is faced with various obstacles to get to her first love interest, one of which is the second love interest, generally ending in her choosing the former. Popular Leap Frogs include “The Hunger Games”, “The Vampire Diaries”, and “The Selection” series, while well-known Stepping Stones are “Twilight”, “Gilmore Girls” (Dean-Tristan-Rory), and, of course, “TSITP”.
When it comes to the Belly-Conrad-Jeremiah triangle, however, the question of who Belly will end up with is not much of a mystery. The show’s production itself is skewed toward a certain brother, making this more of an isosceles triangle, where two of the three vertices are noticeably closer to one another. For instance, regardless of which brother Belly ultimately ends up with, the series is focused on the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope; yet, a large majority of the flashbacks with Young Belly focus on her relationship with Conrad and not with Jeremiah. Additionally, Jenny Han, the author and co-showrunner for “TSITP” explained the importance of getting permission to use several Taylor Swift (who Han herself is a big fan of) songs in certain scenes between Conrad and Belly. Han even went so far as to write a handwritten letter to Swift herself, which secured her permission to use a number of her songs, including “Lover” during Belly and Conrad’s first reunion after her supposed glow-up (Season 1, Episode 1), “The Way I Loved You” when Conrad steps in to be her dance partner at the Debutante Ball (Season 1, Episode 7), and “You’re Losing Me” after Belly and Jeremiah’s argument about Cabo (Season 3, Episode 1).
In the third season, especially, the showrunners make choices that deliberately elevate Conrad while diminishing Jeremiah to the point of what many see as character assassination. For example, after the four-year time jump between the first and third season, while Conrad is portrayed as attending regular therapy, with a clear career direction at Stanford Medical Center, Jeremiah is shown as more immature by comparison, “majoring in Beerology”, engaging in frat boy behavior, and ultimately cheating on Belly during his Spring Break trip to Cabo. Since Season 3 has aired, jokes have proliferated on TikTok that lean into this dichotomy between Jeremiah and Conrad. For instance, there are edits on both the way that Conrad did the dishes in a scene attractively, with users commenting and captioning “so husband,” as well as the hate edits about Jeremiah and his mansplaining about the chocolate mirror glaze cake.
Usually, a teen romance love triangle divides the audience into “teams”, such as the Team Edward or Team Jacob phenomenon of the early 2000s. Under Young’s video, a commenter mentioned a K-drama line that elucidated the formulaic purpose of the love triangle: The primary male love interest is meant for the protagonist, while the secondary male love interest is intended for the audience. But if the love triangle is so obviously skewed between Conrad and Jeremiah, why make it a triangle at all? Is it to unite the people against a common villain? Does Jeremiah (nicknamed Wonka by Team Conrad because of his love for chocolate mirror glaze cake) serve as a cathartic release through his embodiment of frustrating red flags for Gen Zs and Millennials? On the flipside, does Conrad provide a model template for a love interest that completely caters to the female gaze? Perhaps this new isosceles love triangle will become the new prototype for teen romance dramas to come.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.