On Monday night's Dancing With the Stars, Janel Parrish and Val Chmerkovskiy are doing a Romeo and Juliet number to up the romance factor. In a blog for People magazine, the Pretty Little Liars star spilled on the upcoming dance saying it's going to be "beautiful and romantic." Parrish even says the contemporary number has the potential to be her favorite dance so far.
The song the couple will be performing to is "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" from the 1996 movie adaptation of Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Shakespeare's doomed lovers are often seen as one of the most romantic pairings fiction has to offer, but I beg to differ. I mean, these are teenagers who killed themselves in the name of love when they totally didn't need to die for the cause. That's not a happy ending, and that's not really the lovestruck couple Janel and Val should look up to.
Sure, the partners are still denying that they're dating, but if they're going to pick a romantic song and characters to play, they should have gone with a couple that actually lived happily ever after. For example, here are eight movie pairings that would have made for much better romantic muses.
ALLIE AND NOAH
OK, so they die too. But only after living a long, (mostly happy) life together instead of dying before they were even legal adults.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Val Chmerkovskiy could copy brother Maks and his partner Meryl Davis and channel some of their Belle and Beast charm. It's a tale as old as time, and seeing Janel and Val swoosh around the dance floor would be much more romantic than watching them drink poison.
HERCULES AND MEGARA
Bustle already established that Janel and Val are basically the human representations of this Disney couple. They should have brought those characters to life before they even considered touching Romeo and Juliet. Yawn.
HERMIONE AND RON
Who cares what J.K. Rowling thinks, everyone knows Ron and Hermione are the ultimate OTP. Plus, how cool would a Harry Potter-inspired dance be?
LIZZIE AND GORDO
He stayed home from the dance just for her. Lizzie and Gordo were the best couple my childhood had to offer. Also they started out as friends, just like Val and Janel, so it's perfect really.
LADY AND THE TRAMP
All I want is for them to recreate the spaghetti scene. It doesn't get any more romantic than that.
PEETA AND KATNISS
Forget Gale, Peeta and Katniss are meant to be. This is a timely romantic pairing to play considering Mockingjay comes out in just a little over a month.
TROY AND GABRIELLA
Still a better love story than Twilight and this rain dance from the third movie is killer. Besides, they can pick basically any High School Musical song and the crowd would love it. WHAT TEAM? JANELSKIY!
What I'm getting at is that basically any romantic couple is better that Romeo and Juliet. Even cartoon Disney dogs. If Janel and Val make it past this week, I hope they'll get a little more creative with their next number.
Images: jamesfrancos, primarilyprincess, pretendididnttearyourworldapart, dancingtilldawn/Tumblr; animatedfilmreviews; degrassi/Wikia; weheartit; giphy
