by Melissa Jerez

Created on: March 20, 2009

Most movies distributed today have shown an increase of romantic comedies where the woman is struggling in not only being independent, but finding love as well. In these movies, love is defined as that butterfly-feeling in your stomach where everything is wonderful and perfect. The man in the movies are well-refined and nice guys. The woman jumps through obstacles to try and have that love. However, by the end of the movie when the two characters do get together, you never see what happens afterwards. There's a good reason as to why they hardly have a romantic movie where the basis of said movie is the whole relationship: movies are entertainment and nobody wants to see their life up on a movie screen. People go to the movie theaters to have a good time, not to be reminded of their own relationship problems.

In today's media, love is no longer real, it's only an idea. While love as an idea is, in itself, beautiful, to not show the reality of it can do more harm than good. It does more harm than good because people watch these movies and become entranced with what the movie shows as love. Then, they become so allured by the idea of love, that they try and replicate that into their lives. This, more often than not, comes out disastrous. It becomes a disaster because not all men are like the men in those movies nor are all women like the women in the movies. Women go out and try to find that guy from the movie they love so much who understands her without second thought, only to be disappointed by the guy she accepted a date from who's a bit of a slob.

Men also fall victim to media's portrayal of love. Men try to find that perfect girl only to be left with the girl they thought was perfect, who turned out to be insecure or have some kind of flaw they didn't think she would have, and leave her. The media portrays the perfect woman by the size of her chest, and her willingness to allow the man to do whatever he pleases. That is not love, that's Stockholm syndrome. There are other cases of what a "perfect woman" is defined as, but nevertheless it is harmful because it portrays an idealistic view of what they should find, rather than accept that most women aren't like that. It destroys the chances of people finding someone who's just as good and as healthy.

In the end, people need to understand that the image of love in the media is an image that is fabricated to make not only money, but to make people keep coming back for more. Love is supposed to be something expressed real and not only in an idea. The reason why is because in order to be full-filled in love, you have to experience all the many facets of love, and not just one side. The butterfly-feelings in the tummy could just as easily be defined as puppy love, whereas that togetherness and powerful bond created within a couple, is real love.

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