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The Masochism Tango: Difference between revisions
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In fictional relationships, there's a gray area between a [[Destructive Romance]], a [[Friendly War]] and [[Romanticized Abuse]]. Sometimes [[Ambiguous Situation|the writers make it hard for the audience to figure out if the relationship is even supposed to be a good thing or not]]. Sometimes the writers don't even know the answer themselves, and sometimes this question isn't even meant to have an answer - the characters are there for the audience to laugh at, and that's all there is to it.
Two characters are supposed to be [[Happily Married|deeply in love]] -- despite being [[Crack Pairing|blatantly unsuited for each other]]. They are constantly screaming at each other or worse, and yet the characters insist they like each other. Very often, the only [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other|indicator of the characters' affections for each other]] will be their [[Green
Basically, there are two ways this trope can be played: either the writers ''really'' don't get that the pairing isn't working out, or the writers are fully aware and it's the ''characters'' who insist that their relationship is just great. In either case, the audience tends to quickly catch on, and you can bet that the [[Shipping|shippers]] are already thinking up [[Fan
This is not the same as an [[Odd Friendship]] or [[Odd Couple]], where everybody knows the relationship is strange and the characters very grudgingly learn to respect each other. In [[The Masochism Tango]], the entire relationship hinges on the mutual hatred between the two lovebirds... for better or for worse.
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The partners dancing to this particular beat have already resolved the [[Will They or Won't They?]] issue ([[They Do|they did]], and won't [[She Is Not My Girlfriend|deny they're a couple]]) -- it's just the saneness of their hook-up that's in question. This is often the result of resolved [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]].
For the platonic version, see [[With Friends Like These...]] or [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]. For a milder version, see [[Slap Slap Kiss]], [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]], and [[No Accounting for Taste]]. If the characters ''aren't'' at each other's throats, but their relationship feels contrived and artificial nonetheless, they've been [[Strangled By the Red String]]. Compare [[All Take and No Give]]. If the sadism and the masochism part in the coupling is off balance, also compare [[Love Martyr]]. [[Played for Drama]], it can easily become [[Destructive Romance]].
This trope is named for a song by [[Tom Lehrer (Music)|Tom Lehrer]], quoted above. As he explains it, a certain genre of love song is "the passionate or fiery variety, usually in tango tempo, in which the singer exhorts his partner to haunt him and taunt him and, if at all possible, to consume him with a kiss of fire." In his version, the singer asks for whippings, broken bones, cigarette burns...
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** Jonathan & Victoria from ''[[The Amazing Race]] 6'' were possibly an even better (worse?) example.
** And Tara & Wil from Season 2 were the series' [[Ur Example]], with their behavior towards each other making fans wonder [[No Accounting for Taste|how they EVER agreed to marry each other]]. As TWOP recapper Miss Alli commented during a rare moment of Tara laughing at one of Wil's jokes and Wil visibly beaming at his success: "This is so weird. If he likes her this much, then why is he so mean to her?"
* Lee Adama and Kara Thrace on ''[[
** Saul and Ellen have been dancing theirs for a long time. {{spoiler|[[Artificial Human|Several thousands of years, in fact.]]}}
*** {{spoiler|Although it's hard to tell how much of it is really them and how much of it is the fact that they've had their heads seriously messed with by someone with a seriously messed up head.}}
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* Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy have been the [[Official Couple]] of [[The Muppets]] for a quarter century, however in that time there have been a fair bit more instances of them bickering than getting along. Piggy's affections towards Kermit usually go unreturned, and they can both be quite abusive towards each other (Kermit verbally, Piggy physically).
* JR and Sue Ellen Ewing of [[Dallas]], to the nth. He cheats, she drinks and cheats, he cheats and has her committed... and on the dance goes. Most of the horrible things Sue Ellen does are fairly reasonable reactions to JR's misdeeds, but many argue that he was only slightly overreacting to her being a right old bitch in the first place. The more heinous infractions include: JR using Sue Ellen's alcoholism as his go-to blackmail or attempting to push her off the wagon for the same reason, Sue Ellen's use of their son as a pawn knowing it's JR's only weak spot, JR cheating on and conspiring against Sue Ellen with her own sister, believing Sue Ellen shot him and allowing her to rot in jail {{spoiler|when her crazy sister was the actual culprit}}, and Sue Ellen actually shooting him a few years later. Somewhere in there they get a divorce, RE-MARRY (because of all the love), then re-divorce. The two are so massively screwed up they make a certain sense together, but even at the best of times he makes it clear that she will always be second to Ewing Oil. Bummer.
* ''[[
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[[Category:Romance Novel Plots]]
[[Category:The Masochism Tango]]
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