Poll Did a Girlfriend you love dearly "Make" you watch The Notebook "Or Else"?

[Guy Gardener]

A generation is the distance between giving birth to one child and then that child becoming a parent. I'm raising an eyebrow at your ten years.

Because these overly romantical movies are only viewed by a very narrow crtossection of impressionable woman caught with a strict thin band of years in their life, before they stop being soppy twits.

14 to 23? Give or take. Give or take a lot.

That's a lot of moving parts, since how we have children as a species if nothing like Logan's Run.

A 12 year old girl and 24 year old woman, could both technically be part of the same generation, and have seen Titanic in the cinema on the same day in 1996, but because one of them is 12 and the other is 24, how they react to seeing this film will be completely different and in no way relateable experiences.

If however I was to say a woman in her early 20s or late teens saw a romcom in the late 80s vs. A different woman in her early 20s or late teens saw a different romcom in the late 90s?

I may have been using the word generationally inaccurately but maybe not inappropriately.

 

[thestrangequark]

Because these overly romantical movies are only viewed by a very narrow crtossection of impressionable woman caught with a strict thin band of years in their life, before they stop being soppy twits.

14 to 23? Give or take. Give or take a lot.

You know that just because you imagined something doesn't make it real, right?

 

[Guy Gardener]

If I wasn't a little bit right, they wouldn't keep making these movies, and they wouldn't keep making hundreds of millions of dollars.

Painfully romantic movies for painfully romantic people.

 

[thestrangequark]

^No, it is totally wrong, and here is why...
To expand on the utter ridiculousness of your claims (not to mention the weird sexism about women of a certain age being soppy twits, because I won't necessarily disagree, but anyone and everyone can be a soppy twit)...

1. Unrealistic and unhealthy romance is pushed on both girls and boys from the get go, starting with stories and movies geared towards toddlers and preteens: Disney Princesses, anyone? With the exception of the superb Frozen these movies enforce the notion that romance is the ultimate goal in life, that the woman's job is to wait for her prince, and, as damaging to boys as to girls, that the prince doesn't really matter so far as personality or anything: he can be bland as boiled cardboard so long as he's pretty, and, most importantly, so long as he saves her.
2. The ideals are just as prevalent in movies targeted to males: your raunchy '80s teen comedy being the most blatant example, wherein the goal is to "win" the girl (Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, I could go on).
3. It's not limited to young people: A slightly more subtle example, that appeals to the more "mature" male is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, to be found in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden State, and Almost Famous, but with the prime and classic example being Holly Golightly, exemplifying how the "impressionable" men of any age develop and later on justify their soppy twit attitudes towards romance by pointing to critically acclaimed films.

Combine the two notions, a)that a woman needs a prince to save her, and b)that a man needs a manic pixie dream girl to save him, and you get the greatest heap of steaming tripe, Pretty Woman, which was just as popular among males as females.

Then there's the most insidious version of tinsel-laced, sugar-coated moldering offal: Love Actually.

Now, I love me a soppy twit movie, don't get me wrong - I even like some of the movies I mentioned here (Not Shitty Woman or Shit, Actually though). But there are some serious problems with romances (and romantic comedies especially) that reinforce negative stereotypes for both men and women, and it's nonsense to think that it only applies to females of a "narrow" age band. It applies to everyone.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Because these overly romantical movies are only viewed by a very narrow crtossection of impressionable woman caught with a strict thin band of years in their life, before they stop being soppy twits.

14 to 23? Give or take. Give or take a lot.

My mom must be younger than me. She loves that stuff. Especially Nicholas Sparks' books and movies

 

[Guy Gardener]

I don't disagree with any of the words you just typed TSQ.

I changed "soppy twit" to "painfully romantic", before I read your reply.

Nerys, some people go through phases, as their palate changes as the grow, and others have an arrested development, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

these movies enforce the notion that romance is the ultimate goal in life, that the woman's job is to wait for her prince, and, as damaging to boys as to girls, that the prince doesn't really matter so far as personality or anything: he can be bland as boiled cardboard so long as he's pretty, and, most importantly, so long as he saves her.

A variant of this trope can be found in TV series like Outlander and movies such as Kate & Leopold. In which, every male person on present day Earth really IS bland as boiled cardboard and that a woman's only recourse is to time travel into the past and meet some walking cliché from like 300 years ago.

Although as far as K & L goes, it's just as well, since:

Spoiler: film

Liev Schreiber's character, who was Kate's original boyfriend if I remember right, is actually her several-times-great-grandson

Oh, and on a related matter, whoever wrote Chances Are should be executed without trial.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Because I was such a good boy who can follow orders quickly and perfectly, the next movie my muffin has put on the docket is Drive. Does anyone have a moral problem with this movie, or a reason to be outraged?

 

[SPCTRE]

my advice would be to cut your losses and break up with her

 

[Guy Gardener]

Because Drive is so unmitigatedly awful?

 

[Pingfah]

Drive is great.

My girlfriend likes sci-fi, fantasy and action films mostly. We did watch Trainwreck, the other day, but that was my suggestion. She quite enjoyed it.

 

[SPCTRE]

Because Drive is so unmitigatedly awful?

I was way behind with this thread, my post was re: The Notebook

 

[Pingfah]

Drive was one of my favourite films of that year, very moody, definitely not soppy.

Titanic being the second highest grossing movie of all time doesn't really fit with Guy's description of the demographic. There's not enough soppy 14 - 23 year olds in the world to go see it.

 

[hux]

Frozen

Frozen was the same shit wrapped up in a different packet so that women wouldn't notice. And all they had to do to achieve this was tell the story... don't fall in love with the first guy you meet... fall in love with the second guy you meet. The end.

And they lapped it up believing it was a new dawn in feminist fairy tales.

Then there's the most insidious version of tinsel-laced, sugar-coated moldering offal: Love Actually.

I love, Love Actually. Especially the Bill Nighy and Laura Linney stories. But then I possess a functioning aortic pump.

 

[SPCTRE]

Frozen was the same shit wrapped up in a different packet so that women wouldn't notice. And all they had to do to achieve this was tell the story... don't fall in love with the first guy you meet... fall in love with the second guy you meet. The end.

And they lapped it up believing it was a new dawn in feminist fairy tales.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I had a co-worker, she was 19, maybe 20, and she says "Titanic. The feelings, the love they had, between them swelling up, couldn't you feel the love, didn't you want to be part of the love, it was huge and magical and didn't you just want to see their love become foreever like... Titanic is the best movie ever!"

1. I understood what she meant perfectly.

2. I did not want to be part of the "feelings".

3. Titanic was not the best movie ever.

4. She was sober, but not the brightest of bulbs.

5. This was 1996ish, a month after Titanic premiered.




Yes, Titanic is one of the best stories ever told. It is a fantastic movie, and an epic love story with an indomitable cast from stem to stern, but if you hadn't figured it out yet, I am talking about comfort movies. A movie for whatever reason one finds themself watching again and again, several times a year, for years on end... So yes, everyone in the free world may have seen Titanic twice, but only a special sort of sociopath, usually a female who believes that love will conquer all because she's been brainwashed by greeting cards and Disney fairy stories, has seen Titanic more than 40 times.

TSQ, I have a much lower opinion of men who try to explain the presence of worthwhile content within the Fast and the Furious Franchise because of broom, broom, rrrrrrhhh! woosh!. Sqeeeee cchrch!

 

[Pingfah]

I haven't seen Titanic.

 

[SPCTRE]

TSQ, I have a much lower opinion of men who try to explain the presence of worthwhile content within the Fast and the Furious Franchise because of broom, broom, rrrrrrhhh! woosh!. Sqeeeee cchrch!

don't forget blam!

the explosions are the best part

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Frozen was the same shit wrapped up in a different packet so that women wouldn't notice. And all they had to do to achieve this was tell the story... don't fall in love with the first guy you meet... fall in love with the second guy you meet. The end.

And they lapped it up believing it was a new dawn in feminist fairy tales.



I love, Love Actually. Especially the Bill Nighy and Laura Linney stories. But then I possess a functioning aortic pump.

Actually, it's Christoff who falls in love with Anna (whom he just met) all while making fun of her for agreeing to Marry someone she just met. Anna is also having doubts about Hans even before the big reveal. In the crucial moment when Anna can choose to save herself, by meeting up with Christoff on the ice. She chooses to save her sister instead, the purest example of true love and selflessness. Anna grew an immense amount from the time of singing For The First Time In Forever to the end where she saves her sister. She was so caught up in the whole fairy tail princess because of the shut in life she was leading. She gains a worldly, more realistic view without loosing her optimism.

 

[Guy Gardener]

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Frozen doesn't make any sense.

The first thing those princesses had to do as soon as they were back in charge is to dig mass graves to empty all the traitors who supported the other side when they briefly lost the kingdom into... Frozen 2 is going to be Brutal.

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