Billie Eilish "Objectified"

A lot has changed in 20 years. Twenty years ago, a curvy 17-year-old in a skimpy makeshift Catholic school uniform and her pigtails bouncing as she danced through a high school corridor graced our screens, and we thought it was okay. Today, another 17-year-old posted a mundane photo of herself showing the barest hint of a cleavage, and her fans are rightfully outraged that a sicko objectified her.

Reading about this makes me feel both happy and sad. It was 1998, and I was 10 years old when "Baby One More Time" came out, and to a 10-year-old, 17 seemed mature enough to be seen as a sexual object. Now that I'm 30, it's lowkey horrifying to me what we actually did to Britney Spears.

She and Christina Aguilera were objectified from the get-go. That was part of their whole image, an "innocent" girl with a budding sexuality whose age makes her unattainable but not for very long. And to cash in on the whole gimmick, both girls had to have breast augmentation. I've read from a book that it was Britney's mother's idea, and her father was furious because she wasn't even finished growing yet. Christina was a legal adult by that time, but I think it's still unfortunate that she felt it was necessary for her career.

Young Billie Eilish is clearly aware of this and sought to put on an edgier look that, for older audiences, is reminiscent of Avril Lavigne.

The difference is that Lavigne's image is born out of a naturally tomboyish and childlike demeanor. And while she does strike a nice figure, she is slim and athletic. With the right ensemble and a neckline just high enough, she can pull off a tank top without drawing unwanted attention to her body. Billie Eilish, on the other hand, is buxom, and she knows all too well that she could never get away with wearing normal clothes without people noticing and commenting on her enviably generous jugs. And while this image gives her the freedom to be as boisterous as she likes, one can't help but wonder if she is also being restricted to just that, that we essentially forced her into baggy clothes.

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A post shared by BILLIE EILISH (@billieeilish) on Apr 19, 2017 at 7:10pm PDT

Don't get me wrong; I think a sexy image in itself isn't a bad thing. The problem is when it is either imposed on or denied from these performers instead of letting them explore it on their own terms. Avril managed to grow into her sexuality when she was already an adult, and even then, she made sure she wasn't only a sexual object. For Britney Spears in particular, it was a marketing gimmick, and it ended up being psychologically damaging to her. The opposite is probably happening to Billie Eilish right now; even if she were to explore her sexual nature, not covering up could result in excess attention she knows she couldn't deal with.

This is an unfortunate thing.

I Love Dracula, and That's Why I Hated Universal's New Take on the Most Famous Vampire

One Monday, at the bus, Dracula Untold was playing. Unlike the other times, it was harder to ignore this because the headrest of the seat beside me was not high enough to hide the screen from my line of sight, even when I purposely tried to ignore it by putting on my earbuds and playing my iPod loud enough to drown out the volume.

But of course one cannot simply control the instinct of one's eyes to a moving object, and I occasionally find myself taking a peek, and there were four key scenes that I got to take in.

But first, the positives:

I'm comparing this chiefly to another Dracula biopic that has a similar concept, and visually, Dracula Untold looks good, as good as a film Universal can come up with. Fabulous Costume Porn that obviously lends some Artistic License as well as fantastic Scenery Porn. I might complain about the Conspicuous CGI, but every film nowadays has Conspicuous CGI anyway, even the good ones, so I'll let this one go. Besides, its version of Vein-o-Vision is pretty cool. The cast is good. Charles Dance is delightfully Hammy as the vampire who infected Vlad, and so is Dominic Cooper as Mehmed. I might have appreciated it if Vlad's wife was a brunette instead of a blonde; I've read somewhere that Romanians typically have Raven Hair, Ivory Skin. In the region, fair hair is attributed to Poles and Germanic minorities. I later find out that she was blonde on purpose because the epilogue has her reincarnated as Mina Murray (Harker), who was blonde in the novel. This is obviously a nod to Coppola's 1992 adaptation.

Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000) is not a great film as it suffered from mediocre acting and Soundtrack Dissonance, but it was heaps better than Dracula Untold in delivering a story about Vlad the Impaler. Dark Prince obviously had limited resources, so they had to resort to Pragmatic Adaptation/Adaptation Distillation to make it work with the concept. More on this in a moment. In contrast, Dracula Untold heavily embellishes the story with lots of Shout-Outs to Hollywood Vampire lore that aren't even in Bram Stoker's novel to begin with.

To be fair, I didn't pay attention to Dracula Untold because I know going in that it's not worth my attention. The first time I glimpsed this movie was at a bus, and the first scene was the drawn-out opening with Vlad's voiceover about his boyhood as a hostage of the sultan. When I first saw this years ago, it destroyed any chance that I might give this film. Obviously borrowing the aesthetics of 300, it shows two boys at a bloody duel while being whipped by their Turkish masters. Nothing could be more wrong. While the Ottomans did kidnap the sons of their European vassals, the boys were treated like the princes that they were because the objective was to enamor them to the Ottomans and indoctrinate them into the culture so that they would eventually return home and rule as Muslim vassals. While I have little sympathy for the Ottomans, it came off insulting to portray them this way. It showed little of the political cleverness of indoctrinating European aristocrats and slaves who were victimized by the Church, which was not a friendly place in the 15th century. Giving Vlad Dracula a Freudian Excuse like this is pretty damn shallow IMO as opposed to the treatment in Dark Prince where it took his willpower to not succumb to indoctrination and the love for his father and grandfather's legacy to not hand over Romania to the Ottoman Empire.

You see, what I loved about Dark Prince was that it showed Vlad III the way Romanians saw him. That for all his questionable (for soft modern people) actions,  he did what he could to protect Europe, its culture, and Christendom. While it does play with vampirism, it does derive from Slavic lore rather than Stoker's imagination. In the Slavic region, vampirism is a fall from divine grace, so in that movie, Vlad's wife becomes a vampire because she killed herself; Vlad became a vampire because he was kicked out of the Church. But the story as a whole does not highlight vampirism but only teases it at the beginning and end of the movie to amuse fans of vampire fiction.

Dracula Untold, as you know, puts vampirism on the forefront of the story. And from the trailers and synopses alone, it is implied that Dracula was a successful voivode because he was a vampire. This is insulting; it's like saying that the pyramids were built by aliens, that in the millennia prior to the Industrial Revolution, there's no way that people can achieve magnificent feats by human grit and ingenuity.

It gets worse each time I glance at the screen. It had Vlad dodging the sun like fucking Edward Cullen. NO, UNIVERSAL. This isn't Underworld. This isn't Anne Rice. This is Dracula. Dracula can walk into the sun, but it weakens him and makes him vulnerable. I know Dracula got the "burn in the sun" treatment before, but it made me indignant to see VLAD THE IMPALER looking SCARED of the sun and dodging questions from his wife and his allies like he's Spider-Man.

I gave up at this point and closed my eyes and tried to sleep with my screams playlist on. I was so angry. Now I want to watch Dark Prince again. I'm glad it's still on YouTube.

If You Need a Friend, There's a Seat Here Alongside Me

The last few days has been a sad time for the rock community, especially for Linkin Park fans. I found out in the afternoon, roughly 12 hours after it was announced, that Chester Bennington was found dead in an apparent suicide. I first found out when the Filipino band Saydie reposted Rakista Radio's Facebook post announcing that Chester Bennington had passed away.

At first, I did not believe it. But the pain I felt was so real and so strong that I just had to Google it immediately, hoping it was a hoax. But it was not a hoax. After a few more clicks, I learned that an "employee", probably a part of the band's crew, had found the 41-year-old father of six hanging in his L.A. home. I was devastated. I still am. Linkin Park was integral to my teen years. At the time when I was myself suicidal because of daily school bullying from the age of 6, "Crawling" came blasting on the radio and listening to it was a cathartic experience.

Even though I had listened to Queen, Aerosmith, and Bon Jovi as a child, Linkin Park was my first real introduction to rock music. After ten years of listening to mostly romantic pop songs up until that point, Linkin Park was a revelation. I learned that music can sound and feel so good even when the lyrics express the deepest and darkest parts of one's experience. I learned that hip-hop and rock together can sound so amazing.

But more importantly, I felt that I wasn't alone. The bulk of Hybrid Theory and Meteora illustrated the exact experience of depression and the catalysts for it. The simple and honest lyrics described the loneliness that I felt when I was bullied and nobody ever came to defend me. Every reference of fear and pain, I identified with. Every scream was my own anguish.

Chester's voice resonated through the music. In multiple interviews, fellow Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda has described Chester's inclusion into the band as the gel that put their sound together. Unlike their contemporaries, the band lineup had stayed the same from their inception. Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda on vocals, Brad Delson on guitar, Dave Farrell on bass, Rob Bourdon on drums, and Joseph Hahn on turntables. Because of this solid band, there has been some degree of consistency despite gradually transitioning to electronic pop as of the latest album One More Light.

While Linkin Park has always been, first and foremost, a band, Bennington's role as lead vocalist elevates him to "frontman" status for many fans. And so, the impact of his death is all the more heartrending as he had been at the forefront as the band's young fans fought their demons alongside him.

Just a few hours ago, Linkin Park released a statement, an open letter for Chester in which they expressed their sorrow for his passing and their continuing love for him and his family.

While Chester's absence is not nearly as literal for the fans as it is for his friends and family, it is still heavily felt. Chester's beautiful lyrics came from a dark place in his life, and the anguish of it resonated with adolescent fans all over the world. Knowing that he had since gotten clean from meth since joining the band, we felt that Chester's story was one of redemption. When the theme of the band's music shifted from teenage angst to sociopolitical commentary, I felt like I'm growing up along with them. I eventually healed and stopped having suicidal thoughts by age 20.

It is doubly heartbreaking that the story was not the same for one that had sparked my love for rock music and taught me that creating art is worth living for. This gave me the painful realization that depression is invisible, and Chester himself has expressed that he cannot be left alone with it; otherwise, he can be his boisterous self as long as he is surrounded by other people. In the process, the people surrounding him may not have spotted the signs at all.

Let this be a message to all. If you feel alone, or hopeless, or empty; if you feel like there is no point in living or loving; if there are voices in your head telling you how ugly and awful and unlovable you are; if the voices are so loud you don't hear the birds singing, or your colors are muted; if you feel so tired on the inside that you don't feel joy with your interests, or your favorite food tastes like ashes; if you feel so numb that you find yourself turning to alcohol or drugs or self-harm to feel anything; if all of these combined culminates in you writing a goodbye note and brainstorming which way out to choose, STOP AND GET HELP. Reach out to a loved one and don't be ashamed. You might be surprised that people are actually willing to help you. You are alive for a reason. You are alive for a purpose. You're not here by accident. There are people who love you so much they will be hurt if you go, because you are precious. PLEASE GET HELP.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/146077-doh-hotline-mental-health-assistance-open-suicide-prevention
http://www.in-touch.org/contact-us

Late to the Show: J.K. Rowing Twitter Drama

I am disappointed, and I feel alienated about J.K. Rowling's antics. I don't follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter, but I occasionally follow up on her tweets when BuzzFeed posts about it. Like her Author Avatar Hermione Granger, J.K. Rowling has strong opinions on social issues especially those pertaining to racial and gender conflicts. At first, I brushed it off as "pandering" to her American fans, who have racial and gender struggles mostly figured out. But I've discovered through multiple videos on YouTube in the last month that my beloved author who has inspired me to become a writer, has become a Trump hating, self-hating white upper class feminist that panders to Black Lives Matter and wants to open the Western borders to Arabs that can potentially be terrorists.
Now, it's one thing to be passionate about the plight of colored people immigrating into first world countries in the West, but after some time, it's been coming off to me like she's just trying to stay relevant somehow, especially after The Casual Vacancy flopped. Furthermore, she's been alienating fans that might have different political opinions, especially when it comes to American politics. I know it shouldn't have to color my perception of her, but it does because she's being kind of a jerk about it too. And now, I hear her fans have been demanding that she put her money where her mouth is.


Now, I appreciate celebrities who are passionate about the cause of their choice. I respect that Lady Gaga championed marriage equality despite being mostly straight herself. I respect that Linkin Park built an organization to help victims of natural disasters. I respect Shakira for fostering education in her home country of Colombia. And I especially respect Angelina Jolie for immersing herself in impoverished communities in the third world. But these other celebrities actually make formal speeches, raise money, or help build infrastructure to help the less fortunate, while all J.K. Rowling does is tweet about it.

[Zootopia SPOILERS] Interpreting Nick and Judy for Fan Fiction; or, the Question of Who Is More Mature

"Smort!"

When I first watched Zootopia, Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps distinctively reminded me of Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As the illustration shows, I was not the only one who noticed. While Jake Peralta is the lead character of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Amy Santiago is an equally strong character in the main cast. The two characters are amicable coworkers who often clash with one another, in an eerily similar way that Nick and Judy struggled in the first act of the movie.

"Title of your sex tape?"

Like Judy Hopps, Amy Santiago is a competitive young woman who is determined to prove how tough she is. She is also quite a stickler for the rules and often has to call out Jake whenever he is less-than-professional in his ways. While Jake and the rest of the Nine-Nine detective squad do respect her and take her seriously, they don't miss the chance to tease her, often insinuating that she is childish or old-fashioned or even unskilled. While she is good at her job, Jake manages to be a quicker thinker than she is, with less effort.

Like Nick Wilde, Jake Peralta is witty, snarky, and has a big heart under a flippant attitude. While Jake has had a tough childhood, it had more to do with having a broken family than any sort of bullying. He also clashes with his superior Captain Raymond Holt but comes to respect him more as the series progresses; not unlike Nick's burgeoning relationship with Chief Bogo.

But that is where the similarities end. In a way, Judy Hopps has a bit of Jake Peralta in her, too. While Jake is openly rebellious toward his strict boss, Captain Holt, because he prefers go off on his own path where he thinks his own way of solving crimes is more efficient, Judy goes against regulations because of a misplaced sense of righteousness. With Judy being Nick's superior by the end of the movie, we don't exactly see how Nick performs on his new job as a cop.

But what's beautiful about Zootopia is that it maintains an element of mystery regarding its two leads. We see nothing of Judy in the fifteen years between Gideon Grey's attack and training at the Zootopia Police Academy. All we know about Nick is that a traumatic event at age 9 destroyed his optimism while a combination of poverty and discrimination had him running marginally legitimate and ethically questionable hustles every day for 20 years from the age of 12. The rest of the movie spans two days, a montage that spans three months, and an indeterminate time skip between the climax and the epilogue. The narrative is chiefly plot-oriented, leaving plenty of room for interpretation for the characters involved. It also helps that the narrative acknowledges that personalities are multifaceted; nobody is fully good or evil, and that even some biases are justifiable.

Much of the ambiguous elements of the movie are intentional, and cleverly so. While there are a myriad of interpretations of the characters through Zootopia fan fiction, the interpretation for Nick and Judy is surprisingly consistent. Apparently, fans regard Judy as the "more mature" half of the pair while Nick doesn't really take anything seriously. While this can (and has been) done pretty well in the many pieces of fan fiction I've read, something about the idea feels a little off, to me.

Nick is usually written as a slob who is good at his job but otherwise favors fun over work to the point of being lazy sometimes, which is problematic to me. You don't make "200 bucks a say, 365 days a year" for 20 years by being lazy. I don't imagine Nick being dependent on Judy for anything. I don't think his ego could handle that. Furthermore, I think having a legitimate career would be so fulfilling for him that he would be dedicated to it, so he could keep it and his Carrots.

The "lazy, immature Nick" idea is usually lifted from a set of concept art by digital artist Armand Serrano including the pitiful state of Nick's apartment, which is a leaky basement in a building in the Rainforest District. We never see this apartment in the movie, but fans accept it as canon anyway. But I for one don't see his living quarters' dingy condition as an indication of laziness. With that many pipes shooting out from every which way and leaking onto the floor and through the walls all the time, I don't see how it is possible for him to keep his living space tidy anyway. It's a legitimate idea, but it's also an iffy one.

Despite being decidedly more serious than Nick, Judy has displayed some degree of childishness throughout the movie, especially in the first act. She risks breaking police protocol and disregards her status as the rookie of her precinct. Her class valedictorian status shoots up her ego to the point that she feels entitled to make demands instead of keeping her head down like any other newbie in any career track. In the third act, she lets her ignorance and naïveté get the best of her, hurting Nick in the process. Sure, she seems to have adulthood figured out, but her shortcomings are something people out to remember sometimes, when they attempt to interpret her. Seriousness doesn't necessarily equate maturity.

In romantic narratives, Nick's perceived immaturity is often interpreted as being emotionally stunted. Having made a conscious decision as a little kit onwards to build a barrier of humor around himself, Nick is interpreted that having closed off his emotions to everyone else has made it difficult for him to address his own emotions to himself. In many of the narratives, Judy--in typical romantic comedy lead fashion--would have to pry him out of his shell while he struggles to say "I love you" to her even know he knows it painfully well. Again, this makes for some rich drama, but it comes off cliché and amateurish in less than skilled hands.

They might be borrowing a little too much Jake Peralta elements in interpreting Nick. Whereas Jake is genuinely confident and his Class Clown persona is drawn from being immature (and Daddy Issues), it's mostly a mask, a defense mechanism for Nick. Nick is more intelligent and mature than he seems at first glance. His contributions to Judy's investigation in the movie indicates that he is a sharp thinker and likely more introspective as well. Few fan fiction writers have written Nick as having figured out his feelings for Judy; hence, dropping the L-bomb at the end of the movie.

Contrary to Jake Peralta being "uncomfortable with emotions" (yes, he says that at one point), I see Nick Wilde to be quite in touch with his emotions. The fact that he chooses to conceal them to others may or may not be the same as being "emotionally stunted." It is understood among both the writers of the film and the film's fans that humor is a psychological defense mechanism for Nick, but considering the complexity of his character, it's entirely possible that keeping a mask on does not necessarily equate having a case of emotions he can't unlock on his own. As far as I see it, Nick's humor tends to match whatever he's feeling at the moment. He is passive-aggressive when he is annoyed; he goes off on tirade laced with offensive slang when he is especially ruffled; and he teases others when he is happy. He becomes transparent, however, when he is scared, angry, or contemplative. In other words, he is in control. And if telling his backstory to Judy in the Rainforest District is of any indication, he seems to have no problem opening up to someone once he is close to them.

So what's with the recurring drama of Nick being reluctant to just tell Judy he loves her? Wasn't he the one who dropped the L-word at the end of the movie? Granted, neither of them says it outright, but Nick saying, "You know you love me," sounds like a straight "I love you" is in the near future.

It deeply bothers me that many fans of the film regard Nick and Judy as opposites when they're not. They have similar ideals, and when it comes to both smarts and strength, I like to think they're more or less the same as well. They just have a slightly different temperament. Nick and Judy interact similarly to Jake and Amy respectively, but the analogy isn't exact. While I am also inclined to think that Nick isn't as obsessed with becoming a police officer as Judy, he doesn't come off as someone who would skimp on paperwork or come to work late, which are common Officer Nick Wilde traits in fan fiction. If he would be dedicated enough to sell enough Pawpsicles or fur rugs to make $200 a day, every day for 20 years, he certainly could show as much dedication to being a police officer. If this is the case, Judy would have no need to nag him about anything. After all, they've been on the same page since surviving Manchas' attack.

Never Forget: A Call to Unity

When I saw this post last year, a familiar fury gripped me and then grew with the supportive feedback that I got from a few friends.

"I hope more people can not be so narrow-minded and realise how Islam should not be blamed for an individual’s act because Islam stands for peace not terrorism."
Posted by The Guardian on Tuesday, November 24, 2015

It was like being back in late 2001 and early 2002. Fresh from the 9/11 attacks in which members of the Al-Qaida deliberately crashed one airplane into the Pentagon and one airplane each into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, anti-Islam sentiments were on the rise. Fed up with the violence against innocent members of the Muslim community, Prince released this controversial music video:



Now, it's one thing to sympathize with perfectly harmless people who happen to be Muslim. But it's another thing to see all these attacks by Muslim extremists and keep defending them. "Not all Muslims are terrorists. The terrorists are extremists." "I have friends who are Muslim, and they are good people." "Well, Christians massacred Muslims in the Crusades, too."

Let's face it: Most of these attacks were conducted by Muslim groups. Why should the rest of us not feel fear or even a bit of apprehension toward our Muslim brothers? Why are the people who claim to be forward-thinking so quick to defend "innocent" Muslims when our Christian and Jewish brothers are literally dying by their brothers' hands? I'm pretty sure some of them want this animosity to stop too. But to start that, they have to recognize that the hostiles are among their group, and these peaceful Muslims ought to learn to stand with the rest of us if they want peace.

We ought to not turn a blind eye to what these stories tell us. As soon as we ignore the common denominator in these attacks, the hashtag #NeverForget becomes null and void. We have effectively forgotten. Let me share raw video footage from someone who was actually there:

9/11 - September 11, 2001. Raw, Real and Honest video recorded by ANDRES BARRILA from andres barrila on Vimeo.

Do you remember now? Do you remember the fear, the pain, the rage? I do.

If this were happening today, there would be a spike in social media about this tragedy, and within hours, a vocal minority would complain about news and social media attention that New York is getting and then point out that other cities in the Middle East have been suffering worse for a long time. Sounds familiar? But this isn't a new phenomenon of misplaced compassion. It was December of 2001 or early summer of 2002 when a young speaker visited my school to talk about 9/11. I don't remember his name, but I sorely wish I did. It was a young man, probably a college student or a graduate student. Seems intelligent enough, but he was incredibly antipathetic toward 9/11. I remember feeling an incredibly rage when he began mouthing off about how the attack on the World Trade Center was in retaliation for America apparently "stealing oil" from Iraq and abusing the people there. Being female and 13 years old at the time, I felt utterly helpless. I wanted to yell at him about how wrong he was. But the rage I felt effectively blew the words out of my mind. It didn't matter that, at the time, I was a 13-year-old Filipina girl living halfway around the world. I could only imagine the horror: What would it have been like to have seen it with my own eyes; the terror that anybody I love were there, in the towers or in the planes or in the surrounding areas? Thousands of New Yorkers died that day, and thousands more lost people they loved. In late 2001, it didn't matter to me that most victims were upper-class white Americans. They were people with families, friends, loved ones. Some of them died without knowing what happened. Some of them died screaming in the fire. And some of them died holding hands as they plummeted to the pavement at the foot of the towers. None of this is something anybody deserves, ever. And how is crashing two airplanes into two of the tallest buildings in the world, full of people, proportionate with stealing oil? The attack is wrong, and justifying it is wrong.

Maybe some Muslims have nothing to do with it. I appreciate that many people have the good sense to recognize that and leave them alone. It just infuriates me whenever a Muslim gets attacked and plays the victim, like she or he has no idea where the attack was coming from. People have been hurt and have lost lives and loved ones in these terrorist attacks. We have the right to be angry. We have the right to be wary. These terrorists live in a better, more enlightened world than the Crusaders did. If we want peace, let us strive for solidarity.

I Just Have a Lot of Feelings; or, On Shipping Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps

I once told myself I wasn't going to watch Zootopia. After the colossal disasters Maleficent and Cinderella, I didn't have much faith in Disney anymore. But after seeing Zootopia's impressive Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a gentle nudge by a close friend, I decided to see for myself what was good about this revival of Disney's tradition of anthropomorphic animal characters. Well, needless to say, I was hooked. Zootopia is an incredibly intelligent film, a modern fable about racism and prejudice.

Beyond that, it is something of a love story. Seemingly following Frozen's tradition of rejecting romantic love as the only standard of love, Zootopia presents the unlikely friendship of a fox con artist and a rabbit cop. Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps are such strong characters with great chemistry together that fans such as myself cannot resist imagining them as a couple. For weeks since I first saw the film (and I have now watched it more times in the three weeks than I watched Frozen in three years), I indulged myself with plenty of Zootopia fan fiction. I am proud to say that the Zootopia fandom have such talented and intelligent people writing stories I can barely come up with. Many stories further explore the themes of the film. Some present the excitement and danger of police work. And most of these stories use the movie's political themes as a backdrop for the romance of Nick and Judy. It's all incredibly fun to read. However, I have noticed a few patterns that are problematic to me.

A common Fanon dynamic between Nick and Judy is that, being the younger half of the two, Judy tends to be portrayed as the oblivious ingenue. If this trope is active, Nick would be friendzoned until he either makes an Anguished Declaration Of Love or Judy somehow learns that her affection for him is deeper than friendship. And when they do hook up, they get excited about the relationship like teenagers.

Now, I appreciate these writers and their imagination, but I think it goes against the organic development of the two characters' relationship. Their love, regardless of whether it is philia (Platonic love) or eros (romantic love), is based on mutual respect and trust because they overcame their differences and their prejudice against one another. Regardless of what kind of love it is, it is love nonetheless. Their mutual affection is no secret to either of them, so there is little to no need for a big reveal that they love each other. If love has been there all along, it just has to grow into something more, slowly, not suddenly.

Furthermore, these are two adult characters, not teenagers. Judy is 24, and Nick is about 32, possibly the oldest leads in the Disney Animated Canon. I think it's safe to say that they would respond to any ensuing romance differently from our adolescent Disney Princesses. Either they remain friends or make a mutual decision to take their relationship to the next level, whatever that might entail. I imagine the only real drama would be the outside forces that might be working against them.