If you've been reading the papers lately, you may have come across a story about research conducted at Edinburgh's Heriot Watt university into romance films and the surprising effect they could have on the personal relationships of those who love them. Eye For Film went straight to the source and asked Dr Bjarne Holmes to give us the low-down. First up, what was it that drew him to this area of research?
"We started paying attention a lot to what relationship counsellors were saying - one of the things that they come across a lot with couples is that couples that have problems seem to have very unrealistic, idealised interpretations of what romantic relationships are supposed to be like, and fixed ideas about what love is supposed to be like. For instance, the notion that if your partner truly understands you or truly loves you then they should be able to understand what it is you want and need without you communicating it. Also the notion of soulmates - the idea that there is such a thing to meet out there. There's a lot of research showing that if you hold that kind of belief, and you take it seriously, then you'll be less happy in your own relationship. When things start going wrong in a relationship, or when you need to work at it, thinking 'we're either meant to be together or we're not' means you're more likely to give up. So we were curious to see if some of these things were linked to some of the types of popular media that people were consuming."
So how did they go about trying to find this out?
"We did a couple of different types of studies," says Dr Holmes. "We did some where we looked at people's consumption habits and also at their various types of beliefs about relationships and their satisfaction and things like that. We did another which was a detailed content analysis of the top 200 grossing romantic comedies to come out of the big six Hollywood studios between 1995 and 2005. We didn't include any historical romances - they had to be set in the present day, and they had to be viewable by 12 year olds up. We then took the 40 top grossing films out of those and did a very detailed micro-analysis of their themes. There were a couple of things we could see from this. These films often tend to portray the idea that from the very first moment when people meet, some of the qualities that we know take years and years to develop in relationships, like deep commitment and love and understanding of each other's thinking, will instantly be there. Another interesting thing we found was that older couples - more established, committed couples that have been together for a long time - are often portrayed in quite a negative way. They are often slightly scoffed at and seem to be lacking romance in their lives, to be bickering a lot - and I think what's interesting about that is that, in reality, it's the people that have managed to stay together, especially if they're happy, that we should perhaps be emulating."
Have films got worse in this way, over the years?
"I don't think they've necessarily got worse. These notions of idealistic and perfect relationships are not ideas that are now - they've been around in culture for a long, long time. So I think it would be a mistake to blame films like some of the headlines have been doing. We're not saying that people shouldn't watch these, we just think they should be a little bit more sceptical about their messages and perhaps consider how those messages might influence their emotional lives. We might be a little bit more vulnerable to these things today, in Western societies, because our expectations of what relationships are supposed to be like have changed. The stakes are much higher today. Now we actually really believe that we're going to meet that one person who is going to be the best lover in the world, the best partner in the world, the best mom or dad, the best career person... those are really high expectations for people to live up to. The more such expectations you have when you go into a relationship, the less likely t is that you're going to find what you're looking for."
So what's next? Dr Holmes is planning a follow-up study to find out more, and you could take part.
"What we don't know is how things like personality types and relationship styles influence people's susceptibility to this sort of thing, so that's what we're trying to find out with this new research," he explains.
To get involved, all you need to do is visit www.attachmentresearch.org. In return for participating, you'll be given the chance to win £500, and you'll help to increase knowledge of how films might affect the way we think.
