Just this past weekend I went to see the movie every woman was talking about, "Me Before You.” If you know me, you know that I don’t watch a lot of movies because I tend to fall asleep and I most definitely don’t watch movies out of my typical genre. Well, this was a big leap for me. Although this film had a good mix of humor and heartbreak, towards the entire ending I was an emotional wreck and I’ve never cried over a movie more in my entire life. If you ask me, I completely hated this movie and I will never watch a movie like this again. And don’t worry if you haven’t seen this movie yet, I won’t be spoiling anything besides the obvious.
Yes, I was a bit skeptical going into the movie theater. I kept reminding myself of all the love and beauty that was portrayed in the trailer, but I knew there wasn’t going to be a happy ending. I assumed that this movie would follow the same plot line as many other romance films. The man and woman fall hopelessly in love and at the end, they’ll either live happily ever after or not. In this case, there’s no happy ending. It’s more of a selfish and heartbreaking ending (sorry for that little spoiler).
You may say that I’m being pessimistic, but I’m just not falling into the romance movie trap. These movies make us believe that we’ll meet one of the sexiest men on this planet and live a life full of happiness, lust, and love. On the other hand, these movies also make us feel as if love is a waste of time; we’ll meet “the one” but we won’t have a happy ending. When you think about it, romance movies are not the best love stories. They are deceiving and usually a bunch of lies.
I can compile a list of all the reasons why I hate romantic movies, especially because I could have spent the last two hours of my life doing something else. Whether it’s a happy, fairytale ending or a sad ending, I can’t seem to control my tear ducts. There’s something about these misleading love movies that bring out all of my emotions. I’ll walk out of the theater with puffy eyes, a red face and a sudden desire to find love. It’s crazy to think that a simple movie can make me question my independence and that’s why I absolutely hate these movies. I end up dreaming about my Prince Charming coming to my rescue and sweeping me off my feet.
These movies are solely for entertainment purposes, they suck us out of reality and make women have hope in the hopeless. In real life, we don’t easily meet single men and at times the men we do meet turn out to be complete a**holes. Romance movies are made to sell the idea of love in the most overly glorified way. If we want to see real love, go to Grand Central and watch couples take wedding photos or go to Central Park and watch a couple fight after their date.
There are many standards that the film industry creates. We hold our expectations of men very high, all because of the characters we see in the movies. The men in these movies are willing to go to extreme measures in order to pursue women. We will never find an Edward Cullen who will protect us and fight for our love. In reality, career-driven men don’t have time for romantic gestures and a guy who is willing to give everything up for one woman most likely isn't career oriented.
In our fantasy life we wait for a rich man to spot us across a crowded room. On the first date, he’ll give us a dozen red roses and he’ll take us to a fancy restaurant. On our relationship anniversary, he’ll buy us pretty things and take us traveling. But these expectations stem from romance movies and they are far from reality. We expect these well-developed characters to come to life. Instead of traveling in our disappointment, we should have hope in things that are possible and not allow these romantic movies to change our perceptions on true love
