What is love? Love is something that cannot be defined; it has so many shapes, forms and variations that there is no one definition for the word.  So how can we begin to define it? What makes something an act of love and not something else? We base our answers to these questions based on our experiences and largely the society surrounding us.  I feel that in our society, media and works of literature portray love as an ideal perfect romance, paired with intimacy, understanding, and a “happy ever after”.  We are influenced to believe that love is supposed to be everlasting and close to perfection, that one person can fulfill our needs and desires.

Films and works of literature that portray this so called “love” are Romeo and Juliet, The Twilight Series,  Titanic , etc. However, it’s not just limited to films and books. Music, commercials, and ads all bomb us with this ideal love. There’s even an entire holiday dedicated to romanticism, which we call Valentine’s Day. With all these media sources constantly pushing the idea of love into us, is there any wonder why we are so influenced by all of it?

So knowing the influence the media has on our ideas about love, I want to examine it in detail in a paper. I want to dissect popular preconceptions about love and examine in detail just how realistic they are. The ideal love is something that is pushed on us by countless sources, and isn’t something that can be realistically pursued. I will use this as the driving thesis of my research paper, and prove it through examples and my media.My media artifact is a music video of titanic which I believe is a classic example how media influences us on love.