While Purple Hearts — which has been watched for more than 100 million hours — offers an opposites-attract love story, many viewers feel that it does so while projecting misogyny, racism, and pro-military propaganda.
The line gaining the most buzz involves a Marine toasting at a going-away dinner for Luke, spewing, "This one is to life, love, and hunting down some goddamn Arabs, baby!" It's wrong and cruel for a plethora of reasons; plus, it's just cringe-inducing.
At said dinner, Cassie storms away in disgust; meanwhile Luke brushes the comment off like it was only mildly offensive — which is obviously far from the case.
Because the two fall in love despite their opposing views, many feel as though Purple Hearts excuses bigoted, racist comments, as if they're something that can easily be looked past.
“I hope that people understand that in order for characters to grow, they need to be flawed in the beginning. So we very much intentionally created two characters that had been bred to hate each other,” director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum told Variety.
“They are flawed at the beginning and that was intentional. In order for the red heart and the blue heart to kind of turn purple, you have to have them be kind of extreme. Some of the people that they’re surrounded with are even more flawed than they are. They both have been neglected by the system; he’s hurt in a war that doesn’t seem to be ending and she’s slipping through the cracks of the healthcare system. So they’re both neglected by the system, and then they live under one roof, and in these extreme circumstances, they learn to become more moderate and to listen to each other and to love.”
Sofia Carson — who's an executive producer for the project — told the outlet that she fell in love with the film because, well, it's a love story, "but it’s so much more than that."
“It’s two hearts, one red, one blue, two worlds apart, who are really raised to hate each other. Through the power of love, they learn to lead with empathy and compassion and love each other and turn into this beautiful shade of purple," Sofia continued. "We wanted to represent both sides as accurately as possible. What I think I’ve learned to do as an artist is separate myself from all of that and just listen to what the world is feeling and reacting to with the film. That has been so beautifully overwhelming and so many people have felt seen or are comforted by this movie."
Listen, there's a difference between "let's agree to disagree" when it comes to political views, and ignoring racist tendencies. Sadly, Purple Hearts seems to represent the latter, whether or not it intended to.
Purple Hearts is currently streaming on Netflix.
