Sunday, 10 January 2010
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The Media Has Ruined Love
Love. What is it to you? In reality it's merely a certain amount of chemicals in the brain that cause you to feel lust, security and trust. In my opinion, love is a warped term. It use to be extremely simple. You find someone you like, you date them, you fall in love, you marry them, you have children. You then raise those children, and go on to die while still married to your first husband. You should feel comfort, and respect for this person you have chosen to spend your life with.
The media has completely destroyed what love use to be. In movies love is shown and an incredible passion, as a feeling of gravity towards another person. That there is only one person in the entire world that can make you feel like you're "flying". This is all untrue. Love isn't completely about intimacy. It is about comfort and security. Yes there is a certain amount of passion. However it is not even close to the amout the media tells us it should be. This feeling of "love" has also ruined the idea of marriage to another person. 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. Because the definition of "love" has been changed so much in the past years. People get married in the spur of the moment, without thinking about what is going to happen in the rest of their life. Without thinking about who they are marrying. This is due to the "passion" they feel. That is not passion, that is merely lust. You cannot actually love someone you barely know. Real people who are in love disagree, they get on each others nerves, and they know each other longer than two months before they commit to spending their lives together.
Movie like Titanic, Twilight and yes, even Avatar show people who "fall in love" in less time than it takes to take a plane from Canada to Australia (less than a week, more than a day). They then completely throw their previous life out the window, and everything in their life turns into an obsession. I'm not saying these movies are good. I'm not saying I hate love. I'm saying I hate what the media has turned love into. Love use to have so much meaning. Marriage did too. Now they both seem like nothing in this world. Nothing at all. Just two words that use to have deep meaning in society.
Thoughts?
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About the Author
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- From: BrookeFehr@xanga
- Name: Brooke
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Comments (38)
50% of first marriages? That's shocking. But surely that's partly down to it now being easier to get a divorce?
I agree completely. So many of my friends (im just in high school though, so it's a large part of the problem) leave as soon as the passion in the relationship simmers down, and they start fighting. That's not how love works.
A lot of my friends have told me to dump my boyfriend of two years because we butt heads so much about everything. But I respect him, I feel safe with him and he's my best friend. I love him in the most intimate sense of the word.
Because of movies, people think love is happiness, passion and always missing them. That's not it at all. Saying you're in love the first week or month is not probably love. Passion is not what drives a relationship.
Hello Brooke.
I commented on the original entry, but congrats on this :)
Not only the media, but filling your head up with romance novels which are all fiction. Are also messing up womens thinking. Love evolves, all the super costly weddings.trying to fullfill a unrealisitic expectation! Are also fueling these divorces. The movie stars and celebs.Have these huge weddings and some divorce within 2 yrs. Studies have shown that the more independent a woman is, financially she's less likely to both marry and stay married.
I agree with what you say. Also adding on: The media has also created the belief that you can't have love without sex. If you meet someone you think is attractive, you sleep with him. If he/she's still there in the morning, it's love.
I really don't like America's values anymore.I agree that in a lot of cases love does have to evolve, and it is not the same as lust or passion, but I disagree that it is impossible to fall in love within a very short space of time. I know of one couple who met ages ago, and somehow they simply clicked. They are still together something like 8 years later, and whilst they have argued a lot, butted heads and fallen out, they have somehow always worked their way through it all. From what I hear along the grapevine, they are planning a wedding for sometime next year.
i both agree and disagree , sometimes that passion and spur of the moment things can lead to something more , i'm not saying go marry someone just cause you have an attraction to them . also , what people aren't seeing is that love take work , time , and patience .
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Real people who are in love disagree, they get on each others nerves, and they know each other longer than two months before they commit to spending their lives together."
Thank you. About time I'm not the only person saying this. (I thought it was common sense, but damn.)
I agree to an extent as well. I think there are a lot of different kinds of love... but some people fall into lust and from what they've seen and experienced around them think this is love- and that's all you need. In reality you need a lot more, and love requires work. You don't just see someone, fall in love with them, and get married. Real relationships meant to last over a long period of time need a stable foundation, work, AND love. The people who experience otherwise are a glitch in the system, IMO, and lucky they've gotten that far.
i agree and disagree. while you should never base your beliefs and life on movies or TV shows, love is something that can be unique to every person.
and you might want to check your marriage statistics, i'd like to know your source. theres a lot of factors that go into those statistics then just a number. i dont believe yours are quite accurate anymore.
@NadoAngel@xanga - Yep those statistics are a little misleading. Studies actually showed that divorce rates have decreased over the decade. While divorce rate is still high, divorce is becomin less common as people choose to live with their partner but not marry him/her and the single life is becoming more and more common as part of society. The real issue lies in more and more people wanting to be single rather than married.
i wouldn't say that the media has ruined love. the media only represents certain aspects of love, just like they only represent certain sides of political issues or news coverage. the media manipulates angles and words, yes, but still it is up to the public to decide whether or not they want to accept the information that is presented to them. following this train of thought, i truly believe that love is something that each individual must define on their own. love doesn't follow any set of guidelines, it is not bound by any parameters. a person cannot form a general equation that ultimately results in love with 100% accuracy because people experience love in different ways. love is love. it works because it works. and i believe the chemicals in our brains are merely our body's reaction to love. think of it this way: if love really is just chemicals in our brains, why not synthesize those chemicals in a laboratory, bottle them up, and sell them on the open market? it doesn't work because there's no relationship involved. to me, love is when i am able to put a person's well-being and happiness above my own without any thought of reward, to find joy and fulfillment in this seemingly impossible task. you can tell me that i'm wrong. you're entitled to an opinion. the only problem is i probably won't believe you. that's the best part. my definition of love is the only one that truly matters, just like your definition of love is the only one that matters to you.
I thought I was going crazy for a minute until I realized this was published on datingish and lovelyish almost simultaneously. I'll repost my comment here.
I never really let the media affect how my personal relationships were. I knew that "love stories" like "You've Got Mail", "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Titanic" were all just that.... STORIES. I'm not really worried too much about what love is supposed to be, etc. I just know what my love with my husband IS.... and that is based on the quote from the Bible in I Corinthians 13 - "love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy.... love does not boast. It's not proud. Love does not easily anger. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always hopes, always perseveres". Etc. I've missed a few in there (just reciting what I can from memory). Of course, I'm not perfect. I don't meet all those qualifications (and neither does my husband) 100% of the time. But it's a good goal to strive towards as opposed to what the media offers, which is a shallow substitute for real love.
And I also think that anyone with a shred of common sense would realize that movies do not equal "real life" or "real love". I have not yet met someone who actually believes everything they see on TV or in the movies. That's just silly.
@SilentMetronome@xanga - I am so there with you on this one. Why is sex necessary to define love? Can't we define it without sex?
i think the media just sexualized love a little more than what it really is
I see where you're coming from, I don't know about romantic love bc I've never experienced it. Nevertheless you're right ppl are starting to get distorted by the Twilight version of love...but then again...that view has been around forever...Wuthering Heights...even Romeo and Juliet.....
I hope to find that passionate intense crazy love also...but there also has to be reality and happiness and stability in the afterglow also. Love means a lot of things, I think people don't understand...like care, heat, passion, but also sacrifice and generosity and a lot of other things.
And what's with couples on TV falling in love after a few episodes or after a few meetings in movies, right?
Well, Hollywood isn't really good at portraying anything well or realistically. It's their forte I believe.
I don't think placing the blame solely on the media with this issue is wise though. Other societal factors could contribute as well (after all the media reflects society a lot). This could be anything from the overbearing emphasis on marriage=love, people's busy lives, people's inability to be patient and work through things, stress, focus on monogamy, etc. For those that do find love in a partner or partners though, good on them. I'm sure they're annoyed/amused by these portrayals of love because they know the truth.
Your statistics are wrong and misleading.
Also, I commented my opinion on Lovelyish.
I think you'd make a good policewoman .... anyone the police don't like the looks of must be committing a crime .... in other words, no deviation from the rule....
ok i know media has distorted the outlook of love, but those moves and novels are for people who are in love with love. who try to strive for the best in their relationships. and i do hope that alot of people arent influenced by it.
i like watching those kind of movies and reading those kind of novels because it is an escape for me from the real world.
and i can say that you can fall in love with a short period of time and its not only lust
on jan 31st ill be with my bf for a year and we have had our rough patches all ready and worked through them and hopefully will be able to fufill the rest of our years with happiness. but i know that takes work and time. im not just a kid who is new to this. but i believe my bf is my partner for life and im 19 saying this. and if you tell me im wrong. oh well idc we will see what the out come is later on in life.
First of all, common sense says that Hollywood isn't in the business of portraying life realistically. Who's going to pay to see ordinary people living ordinary lives?
I also agree with another commenter here. It's *you* who decides what your definition of love and a loving relationship is.
I totally agree
Bingo.
I think that the things you have mentioned definitely provide a unique danger to those who aren't mature enough or wise enough to see past it. And I agree with you-what is promoted as love is this always euphoric feeling-something akin to passion, something akin to lust, and something akin to nothing that exists 100% of the time.
Love is a mystery. I don't think I'll ever know exactly what it is made up of, but I do know that yes-it is made up at least in part, of stability, comfort, true commitment. But I don't think any particular decade or generation has ever really gotten it right. Just because someone died while married to their first spouse doesn't signify a thing to me except that it is just another fact. Whether or not they loved while still married to one another-that is a different story.