I'd normally pass this over to CG - he deals with movies and stuff, it is his joy, his life and, well, his job - but I do watch chick flicks and read romance novels.
There is a book I read every summer vacation. "The Regulars" by some author I don't remember (my lady's parents only have 2 English language books in the house and the other is a Tim Robbins. Hey, I got some standards ....). The book strongly implies that two tough, competent, highly qualified women who are at the top of their field - TV in this case - throw it all away for love.
Off the top of my head, lets look at "The Devil Wears Prada." Old enough that most have seen it several times, recent enough that it is still relevant.
In summary - they have a great relationship, she gets a new job, they fight, argue, split up, she screws someone else (the bad guy), then she quits and they get back together.
OK, she gets another, with a clumsily inserted DXM that means her boyfriend is able to move and stay with her, living happily ever after.
Recipe for every chick flick ever made except for Thelma and Louise. Yet the more you watch or read, the more you become conditioned to think that these standard plots are a blueprint for life, rather than just a bit of fun escapism from the day to day business of living.
Chick flicks are about as reliable a relationship bible as Bridezillas is a guide to wedding planning, or Desperate Housewives was a guide to family life in the suburbs. Setting out love as an either / or proposition when it is something that simply is, without needing to be questioned.
I don't like that. At all.
It demeans the viewer, and, yes, I think it sets up unrealistic expectations. Like I implied in last week's blog post, happily ever after is a journey without an end. Something to constantly work for, not something that just magically happens.
I wish more books and films would recognise and respect this, while being entertaining.
I think men in general have skewed my prospective on love. Their lack of effort doesn’t give a lady the warm fuzzies…
I don't think anyone actually believes in "happily ever after" movies unless they are crazy in love or getting married. Then the chick flicks make perfect sense...
Chick flicks' biggest problem, in my opinion, is that they oversimplify situations and bend them so that things always work out. It's not that way in real life. You won't magically win the lottery if you and the one you love live in different continents and can't get to each other. You can't always drop everything to chase someone on the last plane, leave alone afford a last-minute ticket. On the (very) rare occasions when that happens it's no guarantee.
That sort of thing we already know. If we weren't used to it we'd be shouting at the screen "Come on! That NEVER happens!" every single time. Here's the kicker: scenes out of chick flicks cross over into real life. I'd never admit to it about a month ago, but then I met a perfect man in the most unimaginable situation.
In a nutshell, I'd made my mind up to be undesirable because I'd be stuck with people I was sure I wouldn't like and would try to hit on me (they tell me I'm pretty, I hate being stared at and wear tents if I must). Didn't work. Over the course of one chit-chatty conversation he was taken by me. "I like the way you laugh" (and can say spontaneously it without being corny because I mean it) taken.
In a chick flick universe, we'd start dating and after a while we'd get married and have lots of sex and babies. In real life, he's got a girlfriend (he didn't actually do anything, except hug me and say he wishes we had more time... he's a gentleman) and he lives in another continent. Both my hands and his are tied by that thing we call "having a real life and having to get shit done."
So, we know better than to expect lives out of a movie script, but get carried away trying to follow a familiar pattern when we're stuck in a scene that seems to have been pulled straight out of a movie. That's when we get disappointed. That's my theory, anyway.
Still, I can understand the need for people to want to believe that these "happy endings" can actually be real. I mean, who doesn't want some magical solution that fixes all your problems at once? I think most people recognize that this is far from reality, though.
Side note: why was that blond guy the "bad guy" in The Devil Wears Prada. What did he do wrong? Seriously, he seems pretty perfect to me.