Mmmmm, Mufasa

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1804444]

context

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks almost made me give up the idea of relationships in favor of masturbation.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Here's my take on it:

1. Porn teaches you that your ideal partner will want to fuck you constantly and will always orgasm at the drop of a hat. Not a great message but not that damaging and there are people who end up in healthy relationships based on constant sex and easy orgasms.

2. Disney movies teach you that strong men will love you and keep you safe if you are pretty and helpless and that your weakness will bring out his strength. Not a great message, but I'm sure there are lots of healthy dom/sub relationships that fairly mimic this dynamic.

3. Romantic comedies teach you that your ideal partner will stalk you and/or that you can just wait around and fate will provide your ideal partner. These are both horrible ideas, since the first will get you stuck in a controlling and often violent relationship and the second idea is a good way to end up lonely and without any meaningful relationship at all.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming mainstream porn here, otherwise (for me) it's too broad to be a meaningful category.

It was very close between porn and romantic comedies, but at the end of romantic comedies everyone usually looks happy and you generally get the impression the people involve enjoy talking to each other and spending time together. Neither of these are true for mainstream porn.

[andrewducker]

So you're saying that the porn is more accurate, and therefore better?

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I would never say porn is more accurate (those boobs! those cocks! that hair! that lack of hair!). I think they both present ideals and the romantic comedy ideal is less harmful than the porn ideal (although the getting there is still quite harmful).

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

See I see fake orgasms and fake breasts as less harmful than stalking...

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree that both genres involve people displaying systematic disregard for the personhood of their parter (or would-be partner), but I think ending up happy and liking each other mitigates that in romantic comedies, where there isn't really a similar mitigating factor in mainstream porn.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

ObOnion: Romantic comedy behavior gets real-life man arrested

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Depends on both context and individuals.

[andrewducker]

I don't think you've got the hang of this "internet" thing. You're not supposed to be thoughtful and considered, you're supposed to pick a side and start insulting anyone that disagrees with you!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I disagree with this comment you nazi.

[andrewducker]

Hey, at least Hitler was decisive. He _knew_ Disney was the enemy!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Did he actually have an opinion on Disney? All I know is a little bit about old Uncle Walt's political views, it would be awesome if Hitler actually had an opinion.

[andrewducker]

I don't actually know what Hitler thought of Disney, but he probably wasn't pleased about the propaganda films that Disney produced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_World_War_II_propaganda_production

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Good lord, there's as Donald Duck investigating the nazis short. How splendidly bizarre.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Okay. You asked for it.

The problem with questions like this is that they're predicated on a false (and harmful) assumption: that all porn and all romance are similar in nature.

Example of harm caused by porn here.

Example of situation where porn supports a relationship here.

I think it's apparent that these two case studies are talking about different kinds of pornography. (Sentencing for child pornography offences is a function of three variables: youth of child(ren), number of images and severity of what is shown.) Thus it is possible for what Nina Hartley says here and what Gail Dines says here to be true simultaneously. It is not an either-or. It is a both-and.

Similarly for romance: how it can heal and how it can harm. (Note that this last is a PhD thesis. I haven't read it all, but my impression from the abstract is that although it can be harmful, the wider picture is complicated.)

I do understand why you set up your polls as you do, but I question whether they achieve what you seek. I think an unintended consequence is that they continue to polarise and encourage absolutes, and I think that's problematic.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I think we've seen a real shift in Disney Movies from films like Rapunzel and Snow White to films like Enchanted and Tangled. While there are clearly some large flaws in Enchanted, I think the big dollop of 'hey, why don't you talk to people you fancy and get to know them' shows progress in the right direction...

[andrewducker]

This is true, and while the end of Enchanted was a fail, the rest of it was pretty damn awesome, and I love Tangled to bits.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Ah, Enchanted. It's one of those films that I adore, but that really makes you think that not-fail is relative. I mean, it's so much better than 'look gormless, marry prince', but still there are lots of messages like 'better to run off with the person you've known three days and are crushing on than the person you've invested 5 years in' and 'little girls just like princesses, Mmmkay, giving them books about Awesome Achieving Women is bad', and 'Your relationship stands a better chance of working out if it's someone you've known for two days then if it's someone you've never actually spoken to' isn't the strongest take-home message...

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

It is a delightful film, very pleasingly parodying a number of classic Disney tropes, but also stuffed full of UnfortunateImplications.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I am prepared to forgive it a LOT for the scene with the cockroach and the pigeon.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I was going to pick Romantic Comedies, but then I remembered Valentines Day, and all the crud and expectation that goes with that. Which made me think about the way that capitalist consumerism has created this world where we can only show somebody how much we love them by buying them shiny and expensive things.

So we have parents running up massive debt to provide expensive toys to their children, and people who obsessively penny count every gift to their significant other to calculate exactly how much they do or do not love them.

So I'm picking capitalist consumerism as being most harmful to peoples ideas about relationships.

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

Funny that. I blogged about this about a year ago: http://milenapopova.eu/2010/10/on-sex-education-and-the-romantic-comedy.html

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I think all of them contain harmful messages, but I went for romantic comedies as the most harmful because I think that of all those genres, they're most likely to be confused with real life. With porn and Disney films, I'm always conscious that not only the specific characters, but also the general world in which they move are fictional, and I think that makes me aware that the underlying assumptions about how relationships work are just part of a fantasy. In romantic comedies, the general world looks quite a lot like our own, so it's easier to absorb the message without remembering that it's also a fantasy.

I don't know if this is true for everyone, or just me, or possibly true for more women than men (given that women are typically socialised to place more emphasis on romance as a goal.)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

It isn't just you, I had very similar reasoning, although I also think Disney has managed more half decent relationship portrayals than some people give them credit for.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

This was part of my reasoning too.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

:-)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Of the options on offer I’m picking Romantic Comedies.

Partly for the reasons already mentioned about the appropriateness of borderline stalking behaviour and the agency of (mainly) women in seeking significant relationships.

My other critisism of Romantic Comedies is lack of exporation of the functioning of relationships and their ability to fulfil your needs. There isn’t much in your typical rom com about how long term relationships are created, maintained, go wrong and are repaired. Nor is there much discussion about how the significant relationship may or may not contribute to your overall life.

There appears to be very little in the way of conversations about shared values, the establishment of long term trust so that compromises can be made in a way that honours both individuals (or all the individuals) and the collective. Love is instant, respect is unearned and the relationships seem pre-destined to succeed once “trivial” obstacles have been overcome.

External friendships, careers or interests are often portrayed as a threat to the primacy of significant relationship.

Trivial obstacles ranging from a pre-existing significant relationship with someone who is morally suspect to a misunderstanding about shoes.

This is why I quite liked the relationship between Chandler and Monica in Friends. It was a bit contingent, the beginning was messy. The relationship had all manner of difficulties and the interaction of other aspects of the characters lives was important. Monica didn’t stop being an ambitous chef with OCD because she married Chandler. Chandler didn’t stop wanting to hang out with Joey, become sexually secure and develop a love for his job because he married Monica.

Reader I married him and we all lived happily ever after – without either of us having to make any futher efforts or changes or compromises. I’m not sure that’s a great message, especially when it is marketed as not explicitely a fantasy.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Very much this. I think I've mentionned here before that one of the reasons I have a soft spot for How I Met Your Mother is that Lilly and Marshal generally have a real relationship. I think the idea that a partner should totally complete your life on all fronts and be the only person you ever need for anything is unhealthy at best.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I like How I Met Your Mother too.

[andrewducker]

Me too!

[andrewducker]

I completely agree. They fight, they disagree, and through it all they love each other utterly. I approve.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Of course the biggest threat is probably romance novels, since many of them imply that rape of one sort or another leads to true love, particularly if that rape causes the woman to become pregnant.

[andrewducker]

John Norman has a lot to answer for!

[nmg.livejournal.com]

At least with John Norman the sentiments being expressed are so barking that no-one could confuse them with real-life.

[andrewducker]

You say that...

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Okay, no-one apart from a bunch of orthodox Gor-ites.

[andrewducker]

Who exist, of course, purely to prove that there is no idea so outlandish that someone won't take it seriously.

(See also: Poe's Law)

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

o crap, that's a hard one - they are ALL, ALL dire - that's why I watch NONE of the above genres...

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Soap operas. More pervasive and a gauge by which many measure their "normality". Weddings happen within weeks or at most months, and the marriages rarely survive at all due to salacioius ratings winning plots.

Answer based on gut feeling rather than any research...

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I'm going RomCom, on the basis that no-one remotely sane would take relationship advice from the other two. Or over 12. Which kinda matters.

Amusing Anecdote: I was convinced to get counselling after Best Friend And Rediculously Hot Woman I Lived With [but not *actually*, strictly, partner. Even if she was. ish. briefly] mentioned that I would be Jack Nicholson in As Good As It gets in 10 years.
I epically love that film. Want to be him I did not. The scene where he tells her he's taking his medication - that was effectively a direct instruction, to me, to go get some.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Porn has a lot to do with sex.

Sex doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with relationships, although romantic comedies would often suggest that it does.

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

All of the above.