Constantly
as a young girl I was told that eventually I would always get my happily ever after
through some hope provided by the late-night teen dramas I was probably
sneaking away from my parents. It just eventually became a natural thought and
fate that one day I would find my prince charming. But I think that is what
these shows both want to get away from. Take a look at these two main
characters Jane and Rebecca both patiently waiting for the right one, little do
they know that is not exactly what is coming around the corner. Being scared of
losing your purity to needing to move across the country to be with the one
leads the female leads to believe in the ever holy of idea of eternity with another
person as it plays on their inner insecurities. All they want is that true
love, but the stories are much more complicated than that because well you know
its women’s television. Until we reach an older age of maturity and reality, it
will probably be evident that love does not come easy. Society has told us all
our lives that love will eventually come, but it can never be that simple. And people
need to stop beating themselves up over it. Society identifies way too much with
our sex life, when it really has no indications of one’s character – this is
not something we as humans should be judged on, but we do not understand that
due to this overarching fantasy idea of the all the romance and love that will
be found once you exit puberty. These ladies soon realize life is not all that
it may seem, but they have to navigate their lives around this newly chaotic
lifestyle they both take on as their life quickly changes into a different
direction (literally for Rebecca). We depend on security of using our sex
life as a way of meeting fulfillment in our romantic lives. That mean’s when
the sex is believed to be good and happening frequently in a relationship, we
may believe this is the epitome of what a romance and intimacy is supposed to
be like. Or if there one partakes is some casual sex, they have been conditioned
to believe there are considered a slut. Sex is not an indicator of romance.
Love is not always a happily ever after. Both television shows, I believe use
the insecurities in their main female characters to portray a deconstruction of
the need for the fairy tale ending. Life is not all sunshine and rainbows and
that is most definitely the case when it comes to trying to understand your
romantic and sexual life. Television helped us believe in romance, but now I
think they want to take it away from us. It is time for the new stories that
are messy and real. The stories where the women pass the Bechdel test every
time they are in conversation with one another. No more setting up little girls
to think they have to follow a certain formula to achieve true love. Romance is a social construct, love is individual. We need to not let TV dictate how we view our own love life.
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