Romance Movies and Real Life Relationships

1263 Words3 Pages

Today, romance is one of the most popular genres to watch on television. Unlike most, romance is a genre where the plot revolves around the love between two main characters as they experience the highs and lows of love. “Common themes that revolve around romantic movies are kissing, love at first sight, tragic love, destructive love, and sentimental love” (Taylor). These themes appear in many historical films and the pattern still continues in modern films as well. Watching romantic movies has a giant negative influence on the viewer's analysis of what love and relationships should really be like. These films give the wrong impression of reality when it comes to dating, marriage, having children, and even how to manage a relationship in the first place. Even though romantic movies are commonly watched, there are many effects on personal real-life relationships after watching these types of films.
To begin with, romantic movies mold expectations of what love is really like. They portray that love is the only thing that matters. In the past, love was secondary. Relationships were arranged by parents because they wanted their children to join lands or kingdoms, and whether or not the couple actually loved each other was irrelevant. Today, parents have almost no say in who their children fall in love with. Romance movies over-emphasize love when it comes to “falling in love at first sight” and the idea that “true love conquers all”. I’m sure that almost everyone knows that real-life love doesn’t work like this, but that doesn’t mean that those illustrations of love that movies characterize doesn’t affect viewers’ hope for romance and true love in their own life. For example, after watching The Notebook, viewers might portray Noah’s l...

... middle of paper ...

...tionships in a appositive or negative way, all depending how we choose to compare the Hollywood romance to our real-life romance.

Works Cited

Hefner, Veronica. "From Love at First ASight to Soul Mate: Romantic Ideals in Popular Films and Their Association With Young People's Beliefs About Relationships." Dissertation (2011): 1-241. Print.
Johnson R. Kimberly, and Holmes M. Bjarne. "Contradictory Messages: A Content Analysis of Hollywood-Produced Romantic Comedy Feature Films." Communication Quarterly 57 (2009): 1-22. Print.
Riskind, Arlyn G. "Romantic Comedies Affect Beliefs About Relationships Less Strongly Than Expected." National Communication Association (2013): 1-3. Print.
Taylor, Laramie D. "Cads on Dads on Screen: Do Media Representations of Partner Scarcity Affect Partner Preferences Among College-Aged Women?" Communication Research (2011): 1-20. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Gender Relationships in the Film Love Jones

    2532 Words  | 6 Pages

    Using the movie Love Jones I will talk about the characteristics of male/male and female/female relationship as they are portrayed in the film. Then I will talk about how different the female/male relationship is and focus primarily on their communication styles. There is some harsh vocabulary included in my essay but only in quotations that I have taken from the movie itself to communicate what was going on in the scenes I have chose to talk about.

    Read More

  • Lad Flicks: A Hybrid of Buddie Movies, Romantic Comedies and Chick Flicks

    2008 Words  | 5 Pages

    ‘Lad flicks’ or ‘lad movies’ is a type of film genre that emerged in the late 1990s. They are defined as a “‘hybrid of “buddy movies”, romantic comedies and “chick flicks”, which centre on the trials and tribulations of a young man as he grows up to become a ‘real man’. ‘Lad flicks’ respond in part to the much-debated ‘crisis in masculinity’” (Benjamin A. Brabon 116). This genre of film explored what it meant to be a ‘real man’ in the twentieth century and in order to do so, they would have to grow up and leave their juvenile ways behind to enter the heterosexual world. Gender relations in ‘lad flicks’ portray masculinity as a troubled, anxious cultural category hiding behind a humorous façade and also rely greatly on a knowing gaze and irony. The two ‘lad flicks’ that will be analyzed are The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow 2005) and Role Models (David Wain 2008).

    Read More

  • Male Failure and Genre Affirmation in New Hollywood Westerns and Noir

    2198 Words  | 5 Pages

    Keathley, Christian. "Trapped in the Affection Image" The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s. Ed. Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath, Noel King. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004. 293-308. Print.

    Read More

  • Whence, Comest Romantic Comedies: The History of Romantic Comedies

    1435 Words  | 3 Pages

    Romantic comedies typically revolve around two people who are falling in love. These two characters meet through a combination of circumstances and obstacles. At first these characters deny having any emotional feelings for each other. The reason for this denial is usually that one of the characters already has a partner or because of a social standard. Eventually, this problem is put aside, and the characters end up dating or, in some instances, getting married. Romantic comedies almost always have a happy ending for all the characters involved in the movie, book, or play (Berkowitz 867).

    Read More

  • Misunderstanding Relationships in Boogie Nights

    1633 Words  | 4 Pages

    The film Boogie Nights provides an interesting case study of the unique nature of human relationships, specifically love and friendship. It presents a crisscrossing mash-up of various combinations of traditional love categories: friendly (plutonic or nonsexual) love, family love, lust, master/servant or apprentice/teacher love, etc. Besides being entertaining, Boogie Nights presents these combinations to provoke an insight on our part into the nature of love. This insight is exemplified in Jack’s notion of the ideal pornographic film. His ideal film also serves to echo the same flaws found in Plato’s ideal forms. Boogie Nights attempts to demonstrate the false nature of a definite, meaningful love by disrupting its categorization and presenting the absurdity of its definition. Jack’s movie cannot exist by definition, and as a product of natural language neither can the common conception of love.

    Read More

  • Acceptance of Queer Identities in Disney

    1780 Words  | 4 Pages

    I found “Someday My Prince Will Come” to be a very interesting and enlightening article, sometimes when watching Disney movies at face value, it is easy to miss just how heterosexually driven these movies are. Many of the Disney movi...

    Read More

  • Disney Argumentative Essay

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some people might say that these movies provide entertainment and transport families into the lives of princes and princesses. Many critics have said that the films have amazing soundtracks and have detailed and interesting plots. Still, however entertaining the films may be, the way women are viewed and treated outweigh any enjoyment that a viewer could have. The subliminal lessons young women learn from these films have lifelong repercussions and negatively affect the female

    Read More

  • Romantic Relationships: Romantic Love Types And Relational Dialectics

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    When thinking about romantic relationships, whether in the movies, media or your own relationship what characteristics come to mind? The topic we will discuss in this presentation attends to the romantic relationships within interpersonal communication.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles, Socialization and Relationships

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    Watch the classical film Grease and one will understand how relationships function in western Society. The film tells a story of a boy (Danny) and a girl (Sandy) who falls in love. Through a series of misunderstandings they break up, but still care enough about each other that they still try revive their relationship. Through ballads such as Summer Night’s that are still popular today, the film shows how differently males and females view relationships. Danny, for example, describes his relationship in more physical terms while Sandy describes her relationship in much more emotional terms –such as what they did that night. Films like Grease are like a mirror, reflecting societal values and how it socializes its members. It makes clear that in relationships, males –like Danny—are socialized to view relationships as mostly a physical, sexual endeavor, while females –like Sandy— view it as an emotional bond, that is has resulted from a deeper connection between the two individuals within a relationship.

    Read More

  • Feminist Ideas the Screwball Comedy Film Genre

    1816 Words  | 4 Pages

    Shumway, David, R. “Cinema Journal.” Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999. 7 – 23. Print.

    Read More

  • The Film Philadelphia- Prejudice on an Innnocent Man

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    The LGBTQ community has wanted to see same sex romances blossom on the screen for as long as film has been around, but overtime has come with some consequences. It has brought to light what people don’t want to talk about and has stereotyped all LGBTQ with the same wreck less, careless, and erotic lifestyles and behaviorisms. This is seen initially wit...

    Read More

  • Interpersonal Relationships In The Movie: Friends With Benefits

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film analyzes a romantic relationship that is expected to last for a day. However, the nature of emotional attachment created by the relationship proves otherwise. Interpersonal communication is an essential aspect of romance because it enhances understanding, conflict resolution, and decision making. I selected the romantic interpersonal relationship because it is an essential aspect of life as far as marriage is concerned. Marriage is sustained through constant communication to help reduce the differences and enhance the effort of the couples in developing their marriage (Burleson

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Love In The Film Valentine's Day

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    The relationships we view in the film vary from young to old in both the ages of their participants and the time they’ve spanned over. In every relationship we find that the way these pairs express their intimacy between each other is different. For Willy and Felicia, a young high school couple, we see intimacy in the form of physical,

    Read More

  • The Notebook Movie Analysis

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is a word that’s been both miss-used and over-used all at once. Romantic movies change our definition of and have a big impact on this definition greatly. There have been many movies and novels made over love, but never like this. “The Notebook” is a love story about unconditional love that two people have for each other. This emotionally, heart touching story will have your eyes blood-shot and burning from you not wanting to blink your eyes. This tremendously wonderful love story will have you not wanting to even miss a millisecond of this heart throbbing film. With many plot twists and many scenes that will have you falling off of your seat and you not having any nails by the end of the movie, this is the movie for you. This emotionally rich film is full of action, laughter, and romance, which is the perfect trio combination. This movie shows us how love can bind us together forever. This film went above and

    Read More

  • The First Gay Movie: Transamerica directed by Duncan Tucker

    2325 Words  | 5 Pages

    I am the kind of person who enjoys movies; however, this does not apply to all genres. Interestingly, despite being a girl who is still interested in boys, my favourite genre of movie is gay movies. In general, I make a decision whether or not I will watch a movie by reading its review, and I have yet to be disappointed from this. This corresponds to Scott and Yalch’s (1980) claim that a favourable review would intensify a consumer’s expectation, if her previous experience indicated that the pleasure she got from watching movies is same as her prediction from a review. I think the basic reason why I selected “Transamerica” is precisely because its review was so interesting. Nonetheless, apart from that particular reason, there are other reasons which influence my continuing to watch gay movies – a feeling of sameness and a relief of tension arising from internal conflicts.

    Read More

More about Romance Movies and Real Life Relationships

Open Document