Response to Titanic force of a young women in love.
When I think of romantic movies, I think of two people fall in love with each other, there is some type of conflict, but their love conquers that conflict. These movies differentiate from each other because the conflicts may very, or maybe how the two people fell in love, but we can all agree that these movies are not real. A lot of people understand that these movies are not realistic, while others are hopeless romantics and believe that this stuff actually happens.
One of the romantic films that I have watched was “The Notebook”. A part of me loved it, in terms how two people are so deeply in love with each other no matter what the odds were. HOWEVER, there are a lot of instances that were beyond unrealistic. You don’t even need to know the story to know how stupid this is. Just for clarity, the two lovers are Noah and Allie. Get this, the way Noah asks Allie is by threatening to committing suicide or physical harm. Here’s a little bit of context though, Noah sees Allie on a Ferris Wheel and instead of grabbing a seat like a normal human being, he grabs on to a bar and hangs there. Then Noah asks her out and if she says no, he will continue to hang on the bar until he not able to anymore. She eventually says yes because she doesn’t want to be responsible for a death. Then 30 minutes later, they fall in love. I have one good question to ask. WHAT WOMAN IS ATTRACTED TO A MAN WHO IS DESPERATE. Noah is as desperate as you can be for a woman that he never even met. The power of love I guess right.
Anyway, while Lorrie Moore talks more about women in her essay, I still think it was worth mentioning this example because all of romantic movies will never define what true love is. One phrase I would like to expand on is when she uses the phrase, “middle-aged pornography”, which I believe it is very similar to what romantic movies provide. Pornography is designed to stimulate ourselves without the viewer to even thinking, but at the same time, it shows us a misrepresentation of what sex is actually like. Even as something as orgasms. Not all women scream to the top of their lungs for 5 minutes when they orgasm, sorry to break the news.
Going back to the topic of interest, Romantic Movies are a misrepresentation of not only love, but what woman are willing to do when they are in love. These movies really convey the idea that love will make you crazy, and to some degree, I agree with this. However, look at Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is willing to give up her family name and everything that came with it for Romeo. She took a potion that would give the impression of death for a certain amount of hours, and didn’t really think about what could’ve went wrong with it. As we know, poor communication lead to the demise of both of these lovers. I have never come across people who have been willing to kill themselves if the other is not alive.
What I personally don’t understand is why these movies continue to exist. Lorrie Moore believes as though there is a purpose to movies such as these but I don’t agree with it. Just like Pornography, Romantic Movies are not healthy our expectations.
Could you learn a thing or two from these movies, sure, but don’t model your life after them. If you were to model a movie in your life, at least use the movie “A Bronx Tale”. This movie is amazing in the sense that it teaches you how to deal with a realistic conflict between two people who LIKE each other. In this movie, Calogero, a white man falls for his classmate, Jane, an African American woman. This movie took place in a time where interracial couples were not as accepted as they are now. One very memorable scene is the that Sonny, a father figure of Calogero tells him how to differentiate a woman that is special and is not. In the film he says, “If she doesn’t reach over and lift up that button so that you can get in, that means she’s a selfish broad, and all you’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg,”. Sonny is referring to a car when you open a door for a woman in your car, she opens it up for you as well. Cars were built differently back then and it used to be very inconvenient to lock and unlock car doors. Anyway I would go see that scene, it was very moving for me.
Long story short, just make romantic movies more relatable rather than over exaggerated non sense.