These are quotes and notes from the first chapter of Galacian’s book “Critical Thinking about Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media.”  This chapter’s focus is on Media Literacy.

“…mass media are powerful socialization agents that rely on simplification, distortions of reality, and dramatic symbols and stereotypes to communicate messages from which consumers learn and model many behaviors – both healthy and unhealthy.”

“It’s a difficult task to find anything in the media that has much to teach us about the realities of love.” – Robert J. Sternberg

”If one depends on mass media for their ‘sexual socialization’ either the media must be accurate or the viewers critical analysis must be precise. ”

“Unrealistic attitudes are linked to both romantic and nonromantic movies as well as to men’s and women’s magazines focused on appearance and television”

”It is my belief that unrealistic, mythic, and stereotypical portrayals of sex, love, and romance adversely affect males to the same degree as they affect woman. ”

”Media literacy is not so much a finite body of knowledge but rather a skill, a process, a way of thinking that, like reading comprehension, is always evolving. To become media literate is not to memorize facts of statistics about the media, but rather to raise the right questions about what you are watching, reading or listening to.  At the heart of media literacy is the principle of inquiry. ” – Elizabeth Thoman

1.    Who created this message?
2.    What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
3.    How might different people understand this message differently from me?
4.    What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in – or omitted from – this message?
5.    Why is this message being sent?

From her book ‘Critical Thinking about Sex, Love, and Romance in the Mass Media,’ this is Mary-Lou Galacian’s list of myths found in media  along with perscriptions that she suggests.  It’s not hard to think of a Hollywood movie that uses one of these themes and, for me, it’s easy to see the bullshit being each idea.  I hope nobody really believes these situations happen in reality.  Her prescriptions are a little too catchy and simple for my taste - the complexity and difficulty of understanding any person, including yourself, makes these remedies seem like myths themselves.

1.    Your perfect partner is cosmically pre-destined, so nothing/nobody can ultimately separate you. (Rx: consider countless candidates)
2.    There’s such a thing as “love at first sight.” (Rx: consult your calendar and count carefully)
3.    Your true “soul mate” should KNNOW what you’re thinking or feeling without your having to tell them. (Rx: communicate courageously)
4.    If your partner is truly “meant for you,” sex is easy and wonderful. (Rx: concentrate on commitment and constancy)
5.    To attract and keep a man, a woman should look like a model or a centerfold. (Rx: cherish completeness in companions)
6.    The man should not be shorter, weaker, younger, poorer, or less successful tan the woman. (Rx: create co-equality, cooperate)
7.    The love of a good and faithful true woman can change a man from a “beast” into a “prince.” (Rx: cease correcting and controlling; you can’t change others)
8.    Bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and woman really love each other passionately. (Rx: courtesy counts; constant conflicts create chaos)
9.    All you really need is love, so it doesn’t matter if you and your lover have very different values (Rx: crave common core-values)
10.    The right mate “completes you” – filling your needs and making your dreams come true. (Rx: cultivate your own completeness)
11.    In real life, actors are often very much like the romantic characters they portray. (Rx: deconstruct celebrities)
12.    Since mass media portrayals of romance aren’t ‘real’, they don’t really affect you. (Rx: Calculate the very real consequences of unreal media)

I met Staples at a homeless shelter in Richmond, VA.  He was intense.  He was one of the nine homeless people taking an art workshop at a not-so-nearby shelter. He had mentioned, as me and 12 other classmates all met for the first time, that he really loved music, so when we broke up into groups the first thing I asked was ‘what kind of music do you like?’  Because of his religiously excited response and the two minutes of singing that followed, I can tell you, without a doubt, that he eats and breathes Nirvana.  He was also open to mention that the lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, had the same disease he has: Bipolar disorder.  

He seemed willing and able to talk about his difficulties with the disease but I didn’t really get to hear much about his homelessness.  I was told he lives on the streets in Henrico County outside of Richmond and that he commutes to this art workshop from there.  

I’ll talk about these films together since they are so similar, though one important distinction is the age difference in what I will refer to as the ‘love interest.’  In Breathless, Patricia (played by Jean Seberg) is in her early 20’s and in Band of Outsiders, Odile (Anna Karina), is a teenager.  The characteristics of each of these women include ambivalence, indecisiveness, and contradiction.  Odile expresses herself in a childish manner where as Patricia, for the most part, keeps face and tends to control her situation better, though she still doesn’t get what she wants because of her indecisiveness.  What each of these characters DO want is to be loved, and Godard shows this in a believable way.  I’m not sure that I would say that the relationships and love portrayed in these films are realistic, but it has an honest air about it.  I think a justification for this statement can be felt in the ending of each movie.  To put it simply these films are tragic and it’s important to note here that this is a huge difference when considering Hollywood films of the time.  My point here is that, beyond the movie screen, love is tragic, and a film that embraces this I will consider realistic.

As a director Godard strived to find a new way to do things.  In fact, he was there at the start of the French New Wave.  This breed of directors was young and bold, rejecting Hollywood and it’s pre-fabricated flics. In general, films made during this period paid no regard to conventions of the church, state, or any other dogmatic mindset. One of the most interesting characteristics of Godard’s filmmaking was how he used romance and the extraordinary difference it possessed compared to Hollywood movies of the same period.

The majority of Hollywood genre films have contrived, traditional, and stereotypical relationships between a man and a woman.   Most often there is a good deal of romance - which is, of course,  inversely related to the number of explosions – and, fortunately, for all but a few of us, there is a happy ending. These films have a way of making you want to believe them.  Some people willingly give their souls to this romance.  Others, fortunately, are disillusioned, perhaps by painful experience, and spit at the screen cursing the bullshit that lay before them.
There are many prevalent myths in America’s culture about what a healthy relationship looks like - the most stereotypical ones are put on the big screen, which only perpetuates them.  Something I would like to do is to relate specific films to specific myths about what love is and what relationships should be like, and then see if I can find these expectations in my own culture.
To expand on the power that films have over the way people view love I’d like to look at the French New Wave.  To exaggerate, this movement was the anti-thesis of Hollywood film making and to compare each style’s approach to love and romance is quite interesting.  The French New Wave had a big impact on film making history and I’d like to know if it brought about a new way for society to view love and relationships.