Does Media Portray Romance Realistically? (Week 12)
This semester I will be posting my thoughts every week on some media I've consumed. This is a semester-long project for my SFL 358 class: Media and Family Development.
Does Media Portray Romance Realistically?
Reflecting on a scene from a show I watched this week, I pondered how the media portrays things romantically that wouldn't be that romantic in real-life, and things that just flat out would never happen. Sometimes it even seems like romance is just "better" in fiction. I have felt a lot of expectations from fictional romance in my relationships, and they have never been anything but harmful.
I finished Anna Karenina last week, which was a huge goal of mine. Tolstoy really challenges the idea of romance- Anna is swept off of her feet in a love at first sight deal by the handsome Vronsky. Their relationship ends up failing horribly, whereas the seemingly mundane and boring love shared by Kitty and Levin flourishes over time as they sacrifice to make it work. I feel like it was really healthy for me to consider what real-life romance looks like, and why it isn't what the media says it is while I read this novel.
I'm a huge fan of romance books and rom coms of all sorts but I wholeheartedly have to agree with you on this. I think it's important to realize that the romance portrayed in the media isn't real life, as much as we'd like it to be. Real life is not black and white and it's can't be written out simply in words on a page. It twists and turns and has unexpected twists that can't be tied up neatly in a bow. It takes hard work and it won't be what we imagined. But I think it's important to remember that while media romance is fun it is nothing compared to the great thing that real romance is.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Thinking about what you are exposed to can help you regulate how you respond.
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