Love is universally considered an integral part of life and of living, however it is also a prospect in which our culture is keen to buy into. Romance novels comprise 55% of all paperbacks sold, and romance within cinema is a term used to define an entire genre. But how accurately is love represented in these works of imagination, and furthermore is it possible to effectively relate an indeterminate concept to a mass audience?
“Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away”, thus making it a less desirable idea to communicate than romance. Rather it is often the pursuit of love or the effects of love that are related, as are conversely the pain of love and the results of heartache. The circumstances by which the process of love manifests itself are largely monotonous and are rarely encapsulated in any single work of fiction or cinema. 'Romantic authors' such as Mills and Boon instead choose to relate a journey often focusing more so on the eruptions of affection and passion, and so is it a coincidence that they are often considered to be creators of 'pulp fiction' suitable only for light readers? This is fiction most widely criticised for being highly disposable and inconsequential to the human condition (hence the reason why they populate a vast amount of charity shop space). It is literature that is considered to be far too broad for literary merit, however it is the type of literature that most overtly deals with the theme of love. Likewise the incessant torrents of romantic comedy's released in cinema is testament to their mainstream popularity, however there is the recognised critical opinion that these films are inane and unimportant to cinema as an art form. A romantic comedy never won an Oscar or gained the respect of dignified critics, however it is the genre that never ceases to prevail at the box office. Perhaps there is a vital ingredient of truth absent from these art forms, a sense of impending breakdown or collapse that lingers ever present in reality. Perhaps this is us as human beings trying to escape the grim reality of love in our own lives, but is romance really escapism? A refusal by us to confront what love actually is or what it could mean.
Often this mainstream representation of love is based upon a set of paradigms, however it is when these expectation are offset that reality is more accurately depicted. Lovers in film and fiction most commonly represent the idea of 'the ideal', the blue eyed, blonde haired damsel with the strong masculine counterpart. This image of what a relationship should look like is a distorted picture of reality brought on by a focus on gender roles and expectations. However after decades of extensive sociological change with regards to gender equality, it is this outdated image that still permeates into our more liberated society. These values are entirely artificial and carry with them a set of superficial and impersonal assumptions, the assumption that for people to be in love they should look a certain way, say certain things in particular ways, in particular scenarios, and it is this façade that dominates our understanding of love within fiction. It should instead be understood that love as an idea and as a concept is entirely dependent upon the individual. It is for this reason that it is rather fictionalised than realised, and also the reason that this idealised picture of a relationship not only misrepresents reality, but furthermore distorts our understanding of what love is.
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