Do Romantic Movies Influence Our Personal Romantic Beliefs?

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      The romantic comedy genre was the sixth highest grossing category of films between 1995

and 2010, it had over $10 billion in gross revenue during this 15-year period (Hefner & Wilson, 2013). However the question is does the public's viewing of romantic relationships affect the way people view real romantic relationships? Hefner and Wilson (2013) conducted a study that looked at what romantic ideals were prevalent in the top 52 highest grossing romantic comedy films from the last 10 years. In addition, they handed out a large-scale survey of 335 undergraduate students, who were asked to report their romantic comedy movie viewing and their beliefs about romance. 

          According to Hefner and Wilson (2013) both male and female adolescents seek out romantic content in television and movies in order to gain information about dating. In addition, Hefner and Wilson (2013) cited that past research regarding romantic comedies suggested that romantic media tends to cultivate idealistic or even unrealistic beliefs about romance. An example of this is when a survey was conducted on high school students and found that heavy viewers of romantic television were more likely than light viewers to hold traditional dating role attitudes, such as the belief that men should be in charge on dates. In other words, romantic content influenced the beliefs of the viewers of romantic ideas. 

        First Study 

       The first study looked at the construct of the romantic ideal as comprised of the following four themes: love conquers all, idealization of partner, soul mate, and love at first sight. This study found that all (98%) of the movies chosen in this study contained at least one romantic ideal expression, so any of the four previously mentioned. 

1. 40% of the movies had the romantic ideal expression of having a soul mate.
2. About one third of the expressions fell into the idealization of other category
3. One quarter of the expressions were coded as love conquers all 
4. Less than 10% of the expressions were categorized as love at first sight 

          In addition, the first study suggested that the romantic films included in the study held only some of the romantic ideals, whereas they also challenged or contradicted some of the other romantic ideals. For instance, some movies made fun of the romantic ideal of love at first sight. Some proved this ideal false and incorrect.

Second Study

          The results of this study suggest that exposure to romantic comedies is related to

young people’s endorsement of romantic beliefs, but this relationship is not as strong as what the researcher's predicted. They found that repeated viewing of romantic movies was positively related to

only one of the four beliefs that make up the romantic ideal: idealization of one’s

partner. So in other words, people that viewed romantic movies a great deal are more likely to have idealization of one's partner as a romantic ideal in their personal life due to viewing this form of romantic media. 

Conclusion      

         All in all, romantic movies hold four common romantic ideals: love conquers all, idealization of partner, soul mate, and love at first sight. The most common romantic ideal is that of partners being with their soul mates. However, the audience is only strongly correlated to believe in the romantic ideal of having an idealization of their partner in their own personal romantic lives. 

References:

Hefner, V. & Wilson, B. J. (2013). From love at first sight to soul mate: The influence of romantic 

      ideals in popular films on young people’s beliefs about relationships. Communication                           Monographs, 80(1), 150-175.