Many women like to read love novels and watch idol dramas, and often feel heartbroken and even cry for the love of the protagonists in the drama. These behaviors greatly puzzled their boyfriends, and sometimes even sneered at them. In fact, not only men can’t understand women’s behavior, but many middle-aged women can’t understand why their adolescent daughters like romance novels, Korean dramas and Taiwan idol dramas. They worry that their daughters will be affected by these books and TV, and thus become unrealistic, fanciful and detached from reality. So, do idol dramas really “teach girls bad”?
Since childhood, girls have been exposed to more romantic novels than boys. The happy endings of princes and princesses in various fairy tales make girls’ childhood full of beautiful dreams. Beautiful Barbie dolls and pink dresses also let Girls feel like little princesses; boys at this age are inspired by the Ultramans to become heroes and save the world.
Girls who have entered adolescence spend a lot of time fantasizing about a beautiful love, longing to meet a perfect love like the heroine in the book. During this period, a lot of love novels and idol dramas filled their lives. Many girls not only read these books, but also learn the mannerisms of the heroines in the books. The romantic love idol drama shows the various illusions of love more directly than the book: elegant candlelight dinner, gorgeous carousel, affectionate confession, handsome rich family, these pictures make the girl’s dream become fresh in the video live.
However, British relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam (Susan Quilliam) said that romance novels not only give women wrong expectations of the relationship between the sexes, thereby affecting their normal interactions with men, but also damage women’s physical and mental health.
Susan believes that romance novels and idol dramas tend to deliberately ignore some social issues, as Susan said, “Romance novels will not tell you how to survive as a single mother, nor will they mention domestic violence, nor will they teach you how to be right. Contraception” and the fact that the hero and heroine never seem to need a job to get the money they need to travel the world is very impractical.
The influence of romance novels on women
In order to attract attention, many romance novels and idol dramas often carefully arrange various “destined encounters”. The male and female protagonists often fall in love at first sight, and then fall in love with each other again.
The male protagonists in the book and the play also generally have the characteristics of high-quality men considered by the world, they are brave, strong, passionate, rich, and have a handsome appearance. Especially in idol dramas, in order to attract female audiences, the selected male protagonists are artists who are most in line with the current aesthetics. These men who are easy to impress women in the first place, coupled with the personality given to them by the screenwriter, will naturally become the prince charming in women’s hearts.
As Susan puts it, romance novels are “idealized, perfectionistic, and escapist.” Likewise, these factors, if they permeate a woman’s mind, can make them detached from reality. Women who have been addicted to romance novels and idol dramas for a long time are prone to form some wrong thinking patterns. They will idealize love and men, and do not know how to protect themselves in the relationship between the sexes:
Idealized love. Some women who read a lot of love novels and watch love idol dramas will have extremely high demands on love, they long for romantic love, and they pay more attention to “feeling” than to reality. This makes them miss the proper and happy marriage, and suffer deceit and disappointment in the pursuit of so-called romance.
Idealized man. Some women’s requirements for men completely copy the type of male protagonists in idol dramas, handsome, rich, passionate… They deliberately ignore or simply do not understand the complexity of human nature and the multi-faceted life of life, and do not understand what a man is like, and I wasted my youth waiting for the appearance of Prince Charming.
I don’t know how to protect myself. Some women who are dazzled by the “flaming passion” in love novels do not know how to protect themselves when interacting with men, and think that as long as they are in love, they will sacrifice everything. Therefore, they refuse to use condoms and cause frequent miscarriages for men. , and take these as sacrifices for love. In fact, in a survey on whether romance novels mentioned condoms, researchers found that less than one in 10 romance novels mentioned condoms, which is very bad for girls just entering puberty. influences.
In addition, romance novels and idol dramas not only affect unmarried women’s mate choice, but also affect married women’s family happiness. Some married women often fantasize about having a romantic love on TV when they face their increasingly dull family life. They hate their husbands, seek extramarital affairs, and even get divorced. Susan mentioned that many women have written to her saying that they are no longer in love with their current husbands and that they need a new love, otherwise life will no longer have meaning.
In fact, love can only last longer if it takes into account practical factors, and such love is easier to be happy. While romance novels and idol dramas arouse people’s feelings, they do not teach people how to face love rationally. In other words, although love stories come from life, they are definitely not equal to life. Therefore, when we read and appreciate works of art, we must look at all of them rationally.