Do movies set us up for unrealistic expectations of relationships in real life? Specifically, I am reminded of a time when my partner and I were watching porn and he asked why I didn’t do/enjoy the same things the women in the movie enjoyed. He considered sex portrayed in porn to be representative of what sex could/should(?) look like in real life. Eventually, I realized that I viewed rom-com’s and Disney princess movies through a similar lens. That I took portrayals of relationships out of those movies and assumed them to be accurate representations of what a loving relationship looks like in real life. So, that is my topic idea: unrealistic relationship expectations based on film portrayals of how things "should" be.
It seems as if the movie makers think that all audiences want unrealistic expectations rather than giving us a reality version of relationships. – Montayj792 years ago
I think that movies and media set us up for failure when it comes to relationships. I think they give us unrealistic expectations that actually help them in the long run. When we can't get an emotional connection like that in real life, we go back to the movies and media that gave us the idea in the first place, keeping the cycle going. – dallykay2 years ago
I do think that films engender unrealistic expectations in general. However, pornographic films are of a very different character from other kinds of films because they are designed specifically to generate sexual interest. There have, for instance, been studies that show that people who consume enough porn get addicted to it and feel compelled to seek out more and more extreme versions of it, which sets them up for very unrealistic expectations of sex in real life. – Debs2 years ago