Beautiful Movies, Realistic TV

What makes a great film? I think as long as a film moves you emotionally and leaves you thinking, perhaps of new perspectives, it is a great film. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does both really well and it is one of my favorites. When I read that 500 Days of Summer was one of the movies categorized as RTST movie exposure (Lippman, 2014), I immediately thought of Eternal Sunshine because I see many similarities in these two movies, one being that they both feature extremely normal characters experiencing extreme depths of emotion caused by changes in their relationships. In Eternal, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are both tired of life, but find novelty and love in each other. However, after the relationship lengthens and they begin to naturally tire of each other, they both opt to receive memory erasure in order to avoid any emotional pain associated with having to split up. However, even after the procedure, Jim and Kate's previous love for each other is so powerful that it transcends biology and like by "destiny," they are brought back together again. Watching this movie, it is very easy to see why it may promote the concept of "Love Finds a Way" because Love literally overcomes biological and physical barriers to reunite the two. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are so perfect for each other that even memory wiping fails to separate what would otherwise be two perfect strangers. The film is both beautiful and inspiring, giving hope to the audience through an artistic expression of the feeling of love. It is very reasonable for any viewer after watching a movie like Eternal to have a higher tendency to believe in "Love Finds a Way."

If I think about a lot of the romantic movies that I have watched, I have to agree that many of them employ the same optimistic romanticization of love that Eternal used. And if I think about television series, especially sitcoms, I do notice a trend that they tend not to reinforce the concepts of "Idealization" and "One and only" coded from Lippman's article. In How I Met Your Mother, Ted is still in love with Robin even after marrying the mother of his children. In The Big Bang Theory, Penny and Leoanrd foster a relationship only after an extended time being just friends. Clearly, there is not much conviction behind the "Idealization" or "Love at First Sight" concepts for these television shows.

The first reason for why this contrast exists is probably time. Movies are usually around two hours and simply may not have enough time to include multiple relationships to show the protagonist develop from each session of falling in love to the next. Also, films are usually meant to be packaged as artistic pieces that try to move the audience emotionally. It may be counteractive for films to downplay its use of love because it may take away from the ability of the film to be a riveting experience.



Lippman, J. R., Ward, L. M., & Seabrook, R. C. (2014). Isn’t it romantic? Differential
associations between romantic screen media genres and romantic beliefs.
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(3), 128-140. doi: 10.1037/ppm0000034