Chick Flicks Can Ruin Your Love Life NBC Today Show 24DEC08

a Scottish university issued an alarming news release warning that romantic comedies "may actually damage your love life."

According to a few enterprising social scientists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, romantic comedies can raise unrealistic romantic expectations among fans and may therefore set them up for personal failure and a lifetime of disappointment.

Bjarne Holmes, the lead researcher on the project at the university's Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory, says "Audiences are able to see that movies are not reality. We know this. But there's a little emerging evidence that it still has an impact on our emotional lives."

Holmes isn't arguing that contemporary romantic comedies invented today's outlandish expectations of romantic love. "Such fantasies have been around since antiquity," he says. But that's part of the point. Until recent times, marriage was more a matter of joining families and property than it was about love. Romantic myths, Holmes said, arose in a time when people longed for a personal connection to the lucky fools with whom they would share their short, brutish lives.

Today, however, argued Holmes, when we have the great good fortune to marry for true love, we don't need all those overwrought narratives about finding your soul mates. "The myths have outlived their usefulness," he said.

Check out Time Magazine's "Are Romantic Movies Bad For You?"

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868389,00.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Romantic
• Comedies
• Film
• Movies
• Couple
• Marriage
• Research
• Bjarne
• Holmes

[lelocker]

White or black, it's all people!!!

[thechene]

as much as i hate romance comedies, i can't help but wonder if this is just the truth with most movies.

what about a stereotypically "GUY" movie?

i'm sure there are studies connecting violence in youth to their theatrical heroes on the big screen as well.

as people we just look around for a way to relate ourselves, model ourselves "discover ourselves"

so maybe it's not just the content but the accessibility.

maybe movies are just too big a part of our culture.

[breaks0]

Have to disagree about harry met sally. The only problem w/that film is the way it destroys any hope in adult inter-gender friendships.

[ragetti911]

I think it is rather sad when people go beyond watching a movie.

I mean it is just entertainment. If you take these films too personally, you will end up stupid and disappointed. What a Clip!

[cherilynmonroe]

It's fantasy, a movie..lighten up. Relationships are a give, give. Love Clint Eastwood movies, wha? They're trying to imply that violent guy movies are more realistic.. going around shooting people everyday, instead of kissing? Yeah, your right, fun romance movies are unrealistic..shooting people, and making their day is realistic. FAiL

[BlueNeko100]

Wtf? How did this turn into a debate over racial discrimination?

[0LuceNox0]

the only people that this would work on would be desperate people plain and simple

[xocraziixo]

wow. i mean im not someone who believes the movies and gets all sucked into them, but i do believe that there is a guy who is not a complete asshole out there. you know? romantic comedies are definitely an exxageration but who is to say that there aren't couples with experiences like "when harry met sally"?

[rosebriar03]

just bein realistic..

[AlthenasGuard]

I go to movies for the art not for escape

[EineKleineTHfan]

I watch romantic chick flicks ALL THE TIME! And I don't think... no I KNOW that the things that happens in the movies will never ever happen to me.

1. I would be happy if i even found a boy I like. Wich i havent.

2. I am the kind of girl who only believes in stuff when I see it in front of my eyes. I've had too many peapole lying to me in my life.

3. I am not stupid.

4. It's way too good to be true.