As a little girl, I was a true romantic who believed that one day a ‘knight in shining armour’ would sweep me off my feet. Somewhere along the way I started believing that my life would only be complete and successful if I had the ‘true love’ of a male counterpart and that men were only interested in fun and frivolous activities, rather than love and commitment. Where did I learn this bizarre notion if not from my friends and family? During my teenage years I became very interested in the idea of love and sex (as I’m sure you are) and even though I had liberal parents and a tight circle of friends, I latched onto characters from television to guide me through my sexual and romantic choices.
Television became my friend, I learnt about anything and everything from the different shows I watched. I was particularly fond of soap operas and my favourite was the Bold and the Beautiful. I was fascinated by the character Brooke Logan. Brooke Logan can never be single, she is constantly trying to break up marriages and manipulate people in order to get her latest love interest into her bed and life. Her character implies that woman need a man in order to be happy and fulfilled and even though she is a successful and intelligent woman, nothing else matters as much as her personal relationships with men
The more time I spent in front of the television, the more addicted I became to the idea of love and romance.
Finding ‘true love’ became so important to me that I did not care about hurting people’s feelings let alone my own self worth. By trying to find the romance portrayed on television, I constantly broke up existing relationships, became too intimate too fast and dated numerous boys at once in order to increase my chances of finding it. I immersed myself so far into ‘television reality’ and did not offer enough time to the formation my own identity.
The ‘reality’ portrayed on television soap operas do prove to be highly entertaining but it is questionable whether they depict a valid representation of ‘reality’. The twisted plots of soapies and series make it very easy for one to become addicted to them as well as so involved that one forgets that it is only a show.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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9 comments:
Although i do agree that soapies are the mindless drivel we seem to find strangely addictive... It's hard for me to be pulled in to the belief that TV is "the route of all evil"...I'm sure that without soapies we would find many other ways to distract and mislead our thoughts and emotions... It seems to be human nature to make life more difficult for ourselves... Jo :)
I totally agree, nobody watching soaps believe that these are the stories of real people, and if they do, they’ve got bigger issues to deal with! We all know it’s made up just to get ratings, yet we strive to be like the characters in these shows, how is it possible? Maybe it has something to do with the way these characters are portrayed, maybe sub-consciously we all just want to be like them, because we’ve seen them on our screens for so many years, and we all know friends and/or family that are madly in love with one of them?
One cannot be blamed for being 'manipulated' by the characters portrayed in soapies... they are there for our entertainment and 'escape from reality', and as a result are watched n these times of need. This can lead to brain-washing in a sense as it is at these vulnerable states of mind that we use this 'escape'. Hence one may start to actually believe in these scenarios of love and sex. But, keep a cool head and remember, "it only happens in the movies"
Thank you so much for your comments. This blog however refers to children and adolescents and the influence they receive from media. I had parents who were open and honest with me about sex from the word go and yet i still battled with my sexual identity. i'm not saying that everybody can be affected by media in the way that i did. all i am sayin is that if it happened to me than it can happen to someone else... I would just like parents and teens to be aware of what they might be affected by...
yeah tv can be a big influencing factor on teens and their perceptions on sex and love and romance but its also an individual approach. if you allow yourself to be phased and to live your life as per a soapie character the there are bigger problems. Here tv isnt the problem
Its safe to assume that soapies do indeed create an alter universe for individuals to divulge into in order to escape their own monotonous lives. In your example of Brooke Logan - I believe she grants the public an opportunity to deliberate upon various sexual and fidelity issues that one would not otherwise in their lifetime consider!
It is the ability to get involved in an individuals life (their successes and failures)which keeps audiences keenly tuned in and fascinated....
you appear
most of what is shown on TV is dramatised/manipulated/scripted and so far fetched from reality - even the reality shows sometimes are so orchestrated and manipulated that you don't actually get the full picture or whole story.
I am wondering if you explored other things that may have influenced your view point or expectations of relationships and romance, perhaps you were lacking (or have overlooked) something else in your childhood that led you to have this expectations, and it is not in fact the soap operas that have shaped your romantic expecations. Especially given that the story line over 20-30 years hasn't changed much - surely you can't liken soap opera to real life - has your life stagnated in 20 years -- or have you grown and evolved - do your family members still look like they did 10-15years ago - my point is there are so many CLUES in soap operas that wake us up to the realisation that it is just fake - all of it is.
i'm not saying that we dont know it is fake.. i am saying that the behaviour in these shows can be learned by children watching... even if they have an open relationship with their parents, they can latch on to certail behavioral patterns that are visible on television. i am not saying that all television is evil.. certain types of televison are highly educational. but to a 13 year old, who is trying to come to terms with sex and sexual behaviour, certain shows can serve as hassle free education about sexual matters... and yes, we do know better when we are older, but at that young age, it is still quite difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality...
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