A Blog Titled "Love: As Seen On TV"

As I was browsing through the web to look at different blogs, I came upon one that was strikingly familiar. This blog was about romance AND television! I was intrigued so I read on and even more exited to find out this person also wrote about Friends and the many other television shows that I have watched over the years. The Blog is titled “Love: As Seen On TV.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/cl/2003/001/1.38.html

What caught my attention the most in this blog was a section she titled, “TV’s Big Love Myths.” There were four myths, Sex, The Quick Fix, Different Values Don’t Matter, and The Futures to Far Away to Think About. I disagree with a lot of these, throwing religion and faith out of the picture. For example, she thinks that TV characters act as if “Sex” is not in issue, and “the future is to far away to think about,” that the characters usually do not care about a persons past relationships. While that may be the case in some shows, I disagree that it is the case for most, especially the shows that have a larger female audience like the ones that she has been using as examples. Past relations ships have caused many issues to TV couples. For example, on Friends, Richard Monica’s previous relationship comes back to try and interfere with Chandler and Monica. Another example would be from 7th Heaven. When Sandy and Martin have a one night stand and she get pregnant. It ruins Martins relationship with his current girlfriend at the time, and it completely changes both of their lives now that a kid is in the picture. Sex is an issue a lot of the time, and I believe that by showing the mistakes and consequences on television, could possibly keep them from happening in reality.

“The Quick Fix,” she states is a myth that TV relationships can fix broken people. I do not think this is a myth at all. A relationship can fix broken people, maybe not all people but some. Her example was that On Gilmore Girls Rory was able to fix Jesse, who was a rebellious teenager. She helped him believe in himself. I do not think it is fair to say that that is a myth because while she may not have helped someone, other people may have. This is really hard for me to write because it brings up a lot of emotions, but I had a friend in high school named Jonathan Whitaker. He was a really messed up guy, but I was there for him, someone to talk to. He would tell me a million things and usually they seemed really far fetched and I would not believe him. I would just nod and smile or say I am sorry. Then he dropped out of school and I did not see him for awhile, and then one day at my dance team car wash I saw him from a distance and smiled. He just left. Three months later I got an email telling me that he checked himself into rehab for drugs or alcohol that day because he remembered that someone believed in him. While this may not have been true, i choose to believe him. We talked for awhile through emails and then I went to college and that was it. September of last year I got a call from a friend that told me John had committed suicide, shot himself in a church parking lot. I do not believe that this was my fault because we has stopped communicating, if anything I believe I helped him keep himself alive longer, but I also believe that if John had more people there to believe in him or care about him, he would have stayed on the right path. I do not believe it is fair to say what is reality or a myth unless you have experienced it.

Another Myth she started is “That Different Values Don’t Matter.” She uses 7^th Heaven as an example about Matt the son of a minister marries Sara the son of a Rabbi, but she leaves out the part where Matt’s dad refuses to attend the wedding and all of the difficulties they went through because different values DO matter. My friend Rachel went on and internship this summer in Chicago and she met a guy Calvin and they dated for about 3 months. However, Rachel is Jewish and Calvin was an extreme Christian. They tried everything to keep dating, and Rachel’s parents told her if she marries out of her faith they would not pay for her wedding and so on. These differences finally drove them apart, but after about 3 weeks of being apart they got back together behind her parents back, because they were in love. Needless to say, they did not live happily ever after, they did break up, but not because they weren’t willing to work through there religious differences, they broke up because of distance.