It is with no doubt that movies play a role in shaping and redefining our concept of love. I love movies, especially legendary, love stories, and adventure types of movies. Most people like romantic movies, and the movie industry has made it easier for us to acquire our dose of love fantasies. Some even use scripts from a movie to propose to a fiancée. It can also be used to spice our love and sex life in a relationship.
Love is an abstract concept, it has a different meaning to different people based on the prevailing circumstances, to whom it is given and why it is extended.
Movie love Vs Real love
Movies corrupt our concept of love. They make love look like an object that can be purchased, the same way they portray sex. This reduces its true significance and makes it cheap and worthless. On the flip side, they make it a fantasy, unattainable and unrealistic. Of course, it does give pleasure to the viewer but ends up corrupting the concept of true and real love.
Love in the movies is based on love at first sight, while real love develops with time as you get to know each other. Love in movies is romanticized at every level making it unrealistic.
It also sets a false standard and expectations in the viewers’ minds. These standards make it difficult to appreciate the love your spouse has to offer to you.
Related: The misconception of love
Movies have their pros and cons. They have a transformational impact on our lives and culture at large. Some walk into marriage with a fixed mindset and a corrupted concept of love that has been imparted by a romantic movie. Then they expect success in their marriages. Movies tend to open up feelings in our hearts that are beyond our imaginations, yet we forget we are living in a real-world, not Disney world. We are in a broken world where utopia can never be achieved.
Most movies are tailored to be addictive. It’s just a business, and most often the directors of such movies don’t have the interest of genuine love in marriage at heart. This makes scenes to be very attractive and addictive just like any other drug and pornography.
The irony of movies and real love
Is it not a disaster and controversy that the same actors who present love as an illusion are most often in real-life victims of divorce? They never have stable relationships in their lives. If you read their biography, you will be shocked at how many times they have divorced and remarried.
These same characters are paid to teach us what love is all about and how best to express it. Is this not a disaster? Movies corrupt our concept of love and do not build it.
True love has characteristics, such as patience and kindness, but what is sold in movies is the total opposite. They portray love as an intense emotional and sensitive feeling and that’s all. We can’t build true love out of emotions and sensitivity alone; let’s be real!
Related: Vulnerability in a relationship
Hollywood movies teach that romance should be full of infatuation constantly. However, true love must be tested to be proven real.
Conclusion
As much as movies can inspire and resonate with us, they have devastating psychological effects on our behavioral change, which include; addiction, initiating feelings of violence as we become more sensitive and emotional, and failing to reason logically when it comes to love. The whole point is that movies corrupt our concept of love.
