A heartfelt but cheesy scene from a Nicholas Sparks movie is posted on social media with the caption “relationship goals.”
We try too hard to live up to expectations we see in movies and read about in books without realizing that they’re fiction.
Movies and books try to convey that their main character is nothing but an ordinary person, someone their audience can easily relate too, and then they put them through life changing and extraordinary events that are supposed to seem attainable in real life.
We face the world expecting extraordinary things to happen to us, but we really only lead ordinary lives that seem mundane and uneventful compared to the lives characters lead in books and movies.
We don’t go and save the world from destruction or wake up one morning with super powers, and we don’t touch hands with a stranger and instantly fall in love.
Romance movies and books often depict over the top relationships and grand gestures of love as the way into ones heart.
According to Huffington Post, most of the more recent television shows, movies, and books have created flawed depictions of marriage and relationships that lead to unrealistic expectations of love in life.
One of the newest “relationship goals” that has swept the nation is between the doomed young couple of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters in “The Fault in Our Stars.”
Especially since the popular book and movie adaption is targeted at a young adult audience, it easily influences young people with its unrealistic teenage relationship that has most girls captivated with desire.
To top off the unrealistic relationship is the character that makes the relationship so unattainable in the first place. Throughout the movie, heartthrob Augustus Waters says cheesy, but artfully worded lines that proclaim his undying love and affection for Hazel, such as: “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.”
According to Deseret News, specifically the content in romantic comedies, especially for young people, can shape unrealistic expectations of marriage and relationships.
For example in the romantic comedy “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” the married couple on the verge of divorce magically solves all of their problems by the end of the movie because they realize nothing else matters besides their love for each other.
However, in the movie they never actually take any time to discuss and work out the serious problems between the couple.
This movie and many other romance stories convey the “love conquers all” theme to wrap up the story on a happy note and convince the audience that love is the key to fix all things.
It’s okay to enjoy stories as they are, but remember to enjoy and appreciate the simpler feats that real life actually offers.
