Love at First Sight … is it really?
Oh media … how I love thee. *sighs*
It is the oldest love myth we’ve all come to love and question.
Is there such a thing as “love at first sight?”
I’ve come to love Dr. Galician’s research and once again, she nails it on the head. The media in all forms likes to convey this myth to the popular culture. Why? Sex sells. Emotion sells. Excitement sells. Plus they’re far easier to portray and for the audience to follow then the slow progression of love.
A university survey towards men and women asked if there is such a thing as “love at first sight.” Half agreed and the other didn’t. The point is HALF did believe in the myth. On Bizjournal.com, they took an excerpt from the book “100% AMERICAN” by Daniel Evan Weiss and published by Poseidon Press. From that book there was a question of “love at first sight” and the statistic showed 57% women believed in the love myth.
Dr. Galician mentions how the media would convey this myth by camera angles, panning in and out on the character slowly making the scene dramatic with emotion. Course we can’t forget the multiple books, movies, music and shows on TV that has helped society underestimate what love is.
Here are some examples of “love at first sight” courtesy of the text “Love, Sex, & Romance in the Media.”
Books - Gone with the Wind, Romeo & Juliet
Movies - Red of Roses; Cinderella; Snow White … Bambie…etc; City of Angels; Coming to America; Footloose; The French Lieutenant’s Woman; Moulin Rouge; Notting Hill; Out of Sight; Romeo & Juliet; South Pacific; Serendipity; Titanic; Wayne’s World; The Wedding Planner; West Side Story
Recorded Music - Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered; I Love You; I Saw Her Standing There; Just One Look (That’s All It Took); Lady in Red; Love at First Sight; Love in the Library
Television - 90210; Dharma & Greg; Family Matters; Full House; Mad About You; Melrose Place; Saved by the Bell; Sex and the City; Passions; Grey’s Anatomy
Here’s a blogger who as absolute faith in “love at first sight.” This blogger has been hearing “lust at first sight more often but won’t deny that she still has faith, in fact she says, “I don’t see why you can’t fall in love at first sight. I guess I’ve always been a believer in it and no one has been able to change my mind about it.”
There is one blogger who absolutely thinks “love at first sight” is a “crock of poop” in fact she says, “love at first sight is a shallow statement and should honestly be erased from the world’s vocabulary.” Gotta love that.
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I for one do belive in the “myth” Love is illogical; its funny hearing myself saying that since i am an engineer and our life revoles around logic, lol. In any case though, it may not be both people being in love, it could be just one. This is coming from personal experience.
But really now, most people see the other person and falls in love with them, btu this happends on different degrees of love, it could be a little or it could be a lot. I say this because people fall in love and out of love in any relationship. Have you seen the divorce rate lately???
-Chris
[...] Darkspell wrote a fantastic post today on “Love at First Sight … is it really?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractBambie…etc; City of Angels; Coming to America; Footloose; The French Lieutenant’s Woman; Moulin Rouge; Notting Hill; Out of Sight; Romeo & Juliet; South Pacific; Serendipity; Titanic; Wayne’s World; The Wedding Planner; West Side Story … [...]
I will definitely admit that the media over exagerates “love at first sight” and that is does have a negative affect on what people’s definition of “love” is. The love portrayed by the media most often is in all actuality, lust. It is a scene where two people gaze into eachothers eyes and, with the backgroud music playing to enhance the viewers mood, both parties know that they have fallen in love. From there they continue by expressing that “love” in many sort of physical expression. And…that’s it. That was “love at first sight”. Now I am definitely not saying love at first sight doesn’t exist becuase by saying that I would be overestimating my intelligence by assuming I have knowledge of every single relationship that has ever graced the face of the earth. I do believe though that what the media often calls love, is in fact lust. If they wanted to acurately portray love at first sight they would have to continue following the couple into the years where the real intimacy of the realtionship flourishes. Where the couple would encounter differing opinions, the tedious task of managing finances, the awkardness at times of sexual intimacy, weight gain after having kids and all the other less glamorous, but equally important, aspects of love as it is acted out in a real-life, commited realtionship.
Chris, since you say people fall in and out of love a lot… do you have any experience in that? Plus do you still want to call it “love” or lust?
Now Sarah, everything you say is true from an analytical psychology major way (which you are) but I also know for a fact you have been in “love” far many times then I can count. Is there any way behind your subconscious that the media (Disney movies?) may have affected you to keep on trying to find “the one”?
First off, there are many different types of love. I love you, you say “I love you victor” when we’re on the phone but that doesn’t mean that you’re head over heels for us. I can say that I have only been truly in love once, and that is with Victor. I do still love Devin and Gary but not in the same way as I do Victor. The media may have played a very small insignificant role in that but the majority of
that has been my socialization growing up and mostly the role my mother played in my life. My quest to continue finding “the one” is a person choice just like staying a virgin has been a personal choice,
the media definitely hasn’t played any part in that or else I’d be sleeping with everyone I was with. Part of that was also influence by my religion. We believe that marriage is a sacred thing between a man
and a women, a gift so to speak, and with that comes the joy of sex, being able to put into physical form the emotion of love. I will say that media did play a role in defining what constituted a virgin and
also sex but, again, my view was changed due to understanding more about what the bible says. So breaking it down, the major factors were my mom and my religious beliefs, the media obviously frames much of what our society believes to be a “relationship” or acceptable behavior while in a relationship but I don’t think any of that had a big part in my way of thinking. So, do I believe in true love and that
people can live happily ever after? Of course! Will everybody get it? No. Why not? Becuase it takes a lot of work to acheive it. In the end, though, its worth it.
Love at first sight - Is it just a celluloid reality?
Their eyes met. Time seemed to come to a standstill. Like the famous lines ”aur us pal me koi nahin hai. Bus ek mai hu aur ek tum ho.” Though this magical first look and falling in love at first sight has been a staple of romantic novels and movies…
Love at first sight is a widely debated notion. Some say that true love based on physical appearance without a deeper understanding of a person does not exist. Others argue that one may be able to recognize true love immediately.
I am currently studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and trust me, I believe in love at first sight completly. Romeo and Juliet fall in love and get married in a matter of days. It all happens so quickly it might seem hard to believe. But it’s not so hard to think of times in our own lives when we’ve fallen in love at first sight – if not with a person, then with a significant thing, like a house or a car or a dream job.
We can see that love at first sight did exist during the time of shakespeare, but has it died with Romeo and Juliet? Course not…its just rarer.