Until Further Titling – Week 2; Covenantal Love
I just finished watching the movie New Moon. Besides having the worst acting and most unoriginal plot ever, it felt really wrong to me. The complete integration of the self into a romantic love interest is simply not right. The way in which the main character was consumed with her vampire boyfriend sets a pretty bad example for teens and Twilight fans of all ages, making virtue of instability, lovesick depression, and existential confusion based solely on the other person. And yet the story is typical of today’s chick flicks, where girl meets boy, boy is a near-perfect human being whose only bad traits materialize in a way that is endearing to viewers, girl falls in love and is totally consumed with boy (ad any fights between girl and boy are suave, with the perfect words and perfect save when things go wrong), and girl and boy live happily ever after. This story line is dangerous…
That is not what love is. I have talked lots about what love is, but rarely do I talk about what it is not. Chick flicks rarely give any notion of self-sacrifice or ego denial, which is not only diametrically opposed to what love is, but also makes for impossible relationships that only exist on scripts. Frankly, and perhaps even shockingly, I really do think that chick flicks add to the divorce rate. Not only that, but they are also akin to pornography in their moral stature (maybe to a lesser degree, but hear me out). I also think they add at least as much to the divorce rate than pornography does…
Porn is predominately aimed at one target demographic – men. Porn is said to give men unrealistic standards of women, and bases comforts (or simply normalcy) around the satisfaction of a single dimension of our being – the physical-sexual dimension. The standards gleaned from porn usually result in the treatment of women as objects, to be used for pleasure and then discarded. Women’s worth is nothing beyond the satisfaction of wants. In the world of porn, we are merely the sum of our physical body parts. Sex is not geared toward love, it is simply a release of tension that nowadays we are taught is normal. All of these things lead to unrealistic view of relationships, based around sex and focusing on keeping one’s body satisfied. It does not account for the human aspects of the sexual object in the slightest. It is unhealthy in many respects, and can lead very strong families to ruin. I have seen it happen at least twice.
Chick flicks also have a target audience – women. But it is rarely noticed that chick flicks can be dangerous to a holistic view of humanity as well. These movies focus on one dimension of the woman who is at the center: her emotional appeasement. Men are objects of comfort and ego-building, not ego-sublimation. Instead of being objects of the libido, men are used as objects toward the character’s happiness. His worth is rooted in the fact that he can make the woman emotionally stable (as opposed to physically so with porn), after which he may be discarded. Instead of doing the perfect thing in bed, in most cases the guy says the perfect thing, makes mistakes that apologies can always solve, or makes sure to give the main character flowers often. Just as porn projects unreal physical standards on all women, chick flicks project unreal emotional standards on all men. When real-life women see these examples over and over, they develop an idea of men that is not realistic to this world. Real men will be stupid, they will screw up, they won’t always say the right thing or be able to fix things in the relationship. No one can love you in a way that will suit all of your emotional needs. Only God can know you well enough for that. Couples will not always emotionally mesh. But if women are led to expect that they will and the man is not as well-spoken as his scripted tv/movie counterpart, dissatisfaction is almost sure to result, and tension will only build within the relationship. I worry that this equation is one for disaster…
In a way, the mass media has pushed us to forget the person who is right in front of us and love a person based on how closely they fit the ideal from the big screen. It is wrong for us to let this happen, and I think we should always be sure that we expect those we love to grow and flourish within the dimensions they are capable, not the fake standards foisted on our subconscious as the “perfect girlfriend/boyfriend”. No two relationships are identical, because no two people are identical (I find relationship advice to be pretty funny unless the person giving it is best best friends with both of the people involved). Why can’t you have a guy like Edward Cullen? The same reason I can’t have a girl like Jenna Jameson. Women are not sex toys. Men are not emotional teddy bears. Cultivating the idea that they are only makes things worse in reality…
Am I completely off-base, here? It is a pretty radical idea…
-kj-
*Noticing the two massive thought-filled posts you've made, both of which intimidate me.*
You've been…thinking. A lot.
Haha. I wish it would stop sometimes, but I guess it is my curse…
Any related thoughts from your end?
Stopped me in my tracks. The porn exegesis is if course self-evident, and you know that. The insight into chick flicks is startling and very thought-provoking.
Of course, reflection quickly leads one to the conclusion that mass media outlets (movies, TV, even advertisements) are almost programmed nowadays toward one-dimensional characters/plot-lines, so we ought not be surprised that mass media hits the male market with flesh, while the female market gets hit with appeals to emotional comfort.
Not a bad post for an Irish grad! 😉
This is true. It is a bit extreme of a view, until you think about it…
Gotta love the Irish. Then again, I don't even remember what Prep's mascot was. Ha.
Despite the efforts of some to see it otherwise I think you're right about the porn and mostly right about the chick flicks. I maintain that there are exceptions. Ten Things I Hate About You, Juno, Enchanted (part adventure but I'm counting it) and perhaps the recent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, though the last is not a chick flick, come to mind as movies with heavy romantic plotlines that don't really put out an unrealistic portrayal of men or women. Ten Things you might get out of because it's theoretically based on Shakespeare, but even if the dude is 'perfect' for her in that movie, he's obviously not the perfect guy and it boils down to actual character growth, not just wish fulfillment. Juno's male lead is far from perfect and the resolution of his and Juno's conflict comes more in the form of him telling her off, Enchanted goes out of its way to put the 'realistic' and the 'idealistic' characters in a qualitatively better place than they start in. SP, being not strictly a chick flick, is more of a stretch and not the best example, but I would go so far as to say Scott does some things that ought not be fixable by apology and only are for the sake of movie length, as I understand the film's source material gives his actions more consequence. (Then again, maybe these more realistic portrayals of both men and women are what make the movies I've just listed less known as chick flicks and more known as just fun or thoughtful movies.)
Thing is, the nature of porn, with its nigh-exclusive focus on the physical-sexual dimension, makes exceptions more difficult if not outright impossible.
Thanks for the examples man. I agree about the porn one, too. But then, maybe that goes back to the question, where is the line between art and obscenity? "you know it when you see it," I guess…