Last night there was one movie on TV(idk the name of it, TV is always turned on in the background and I randomly see it) where some man was minding his own business and he was walking down the street coming back home during evening while one woman he doesn’t even know started following and stalking him without him knowing, she literally hid behind the trees, walls, looked away if he accidentally turned around so he doesn’t notice etc. This whole scene is played for laughs and when he arrived at his doorstep, she was behind tree and bushes and he heard and saw her, of course he got scared but then they started chatting like nothing happened and it’s all played for laughs.
Why am I mentioning this now? Because my brother literally experienced similar situation a few years ago because of our classmate in school and it wasn’t funny at all while many people said it that he should’ve just brushed it off instead of making it a ‘‘big deal’’. Also, this isn’t the first time I saw this in movies/TV shows, I saw scenes/situations like this literally hundreds of times and it’s always a comedic scene played for laughs if it’s not a horror movie of course.
Why is stalking normalized in media and in general?
Not to sound like the usual suspects, but this was only played for laughs because it was a woman stalking a man. The opposite (male character stalking female character) occasionally crops up in plots of various crime dramas and such. Can’t blame you for not watching them, ofc, they’re largely copaganda. But off the top of my head - 911, the show about firefighters, had a whole multi part plot about one of the characters escaping an abusive relationship, and her former partner tracking her down, stalking her and stabbing her new boyfriend
It’s fucked up no matter the gender and it’s almost always played for laughs except ofc in horror and crime movies