Going to the movies? Beware of the choice you make!
People that have seen romantic movies like Bridget Jones' Diary and
Notting Hill look may not have realistic and even unhealthy ideas about
what a relation should look like in real life.
Research conducted by Brittish pro's reveals that although romantic
comedies are often thought as being the perfect type of movie to pick
on a first date, they create false expectations and therefore are deemed
a bad choice.
It appears that those that fancy movies of another genre have a better
chance of finding their 'perfect' partner, than people who love to watch
romantic movies, for the latter are convinced that that 'ideal relation'
will knock on the door unexpectedly and they do not realise that to
make a relation work, one has to invest time and energy to keep the
flame burning.
Conception of love
Just by seeing one movie about romance people's view on what love is
can change completely. Dr. Bjarne Holmes stated "We don't want
to be the spoilsports here - We don't want to tell people that they
should not watch these type of movies. What we want to stipulate is
that people should be watching with a healthy doses of critisism and
not take the message that is carried out for granted. The problem is
that, eventhough most of us know that the 'perfect relation' does not
exist, the media has a strong influence on some people and we're just
learning this."
Love at first sight
The first part of the exercise that was done by the researchers was
to watch about 40 successfull film titles such as The Wedding Planner,
You've Got Mail and While You Were Sleeping. Most of these movies are
all about love at first sight and the idea that there is only one man
or woman on the globe that is made for the other. Striking fact was
that cheating was a lot easier forgiven by people than in real life.
According to Dr. Holmes the movies are all about destiny and that people
are well attuned to and completely understand eachother. "Believing
that this is a true reflection of love in real life could be very disappointing
for some people."
In the second part over 100 students were asked to watch the move 'Serendepity',
THE romance of 2001. When being
questioned after seeing the film, more participants believed in fate
than those that had choosen a non-romantic movie.
The third part of the research showed that fans of comedies/romantic
movies had stronger believes in a predestinated love.