The Notebook. The Fault in Our Stars. Titanic. Love movies. We know them. We love them. But do we know why? Do we care? Before we get started, I just want to say that this article is NOT telling you to hate love movies. It’s not me giving myself a pat on the back for not liking a lot of them—I hate it when people do things like that for the sake of “hipster cred.” Those horrible, lovely plot clichés are perfect for a night on the couch with your mom or your friends. Personally, I could watch Leap Year seven times in a row and I get strangely emotional about the show “Say Yes to the Dress,” though if you ever called me on them in public, I’d deny it off the bat. Again, this article isn’t trying to change your mind on the movies you like, that’s your thing; it’s simply a little bit of awareness advice on why we should care about how they’re portraying love—dangerously and inaccurately—and why we keep watching them.
“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.” So if I want to be done with this movie, what does that make you?
The actual problem is not the movies themselves (unless the movie is just really, really bad), but is the hidden messages within them:
1. If it’s not dramatic, it’s not love.
2. People are nothing without a relationship.
3. There has to be something wrong with either you or the other person in the relationship in order for it to be genuine.
The Notebook is a classic example; a microcosm of the problem, as a whole. The most frustrating part of that movie (besides the fact that the title has absolutely nothing to do with anything) is that it creates the preconceived notion that love is supposed to be this big, dramatic thing. Him, writing her 365 letters (creepy, much?), her, waiting seven years before she starts living her life without him. And then it all comes together perfectly in the rain, except, oh yeah, she’s engaged. *LE GASP* But that’s beside the point. The dramatic, unrealistic ideal of love that it portrays is a poison to girls—specifically young ones—who  find it hard to understand that all these scenarios are just movies. They think they have to find love that’s dramatic and, in a way, doomed in order for it to be worth anything. For example, someone I follow on Tumblr once posted a picture of a Facebook comment a young girl posted on a picture of Hazel and Gus from The Fault in Our Stars. I tried for hours to find it, but I couldn’t, so you’ll have to trust me. The comment was roughly this:
“I wish I had cancer so I could have a love like Hazel Grace and Augustus.”
I wish I had cancer.
I WISH. I HAD. CANCER.
*HORRIBLE SCREECHING*
THIS IS THE PROBLEM. These books and movies make young girls who don’t know any better think that these love stories are the standards at which we should hold relationships. Over all the bad acting, cheesy lines, raining scenes and the bad soundtracks, this is the biggest crime these movies commit. Young girls believethese scenarios are true because they want them to be, in a way. They want, hopefully not cancer, but to feel the way the characters do when they’re in love. This isn’t a bad thing; I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to feel like that. But it becomes a problem when these girls begin to associate these stories as the only way love can even happen.
We can watch these movies. We can like these movies. That’s fine. More power to ya, in fact. But please, please, please don’t help perpetuate these lies with which they control young girls, and even women our age, by telling them that it can happen to them. Instead, show them the beauty in normal, average, every-day love. Simple love. Like when you’re sitting on the couch with your significant other watching a movie. Or when you catch him or her looking at you read a book. Love between friends. Love between family. Love for animals. And, most importantly, love for themselves…for yourself. Instead of supporting a message of rain-scene dramatization, support a message of “whatever love whenever,” and how beautiful that can be. Because it can and will happen to you.
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