Movies provide a wide variety of things that paint a picture – you can choose from a variety of genres including horror, comedy, drama, romance, and sci-fi. They tell a story and have a deeper meaning behind the screen. However, as great as movies are, they can give us false expectations in life. Movies are all concentrated stories that took time and money to create – stories that were made for our pure entertainment, nothing else. Everyone has a story to tell, whether or not their childhood was plain.
We don’t read off scripts, and most things in our life aren’t planned. Things just happen, and you can’t change it. We don’t get to alter our lives, unlike in movies.
Life choices are much more difficult to make compared to choices made in movies. Every choice you make can dramatically change the outcome of your life without you knowing it. Movies are great entertainment and can give us great ideas, but we should not model our relationships or our actions based off of them.
With movies, we tend to believe that perfection will always occur. It will not. Movies mostly have happy endings, but we can’t assume that our lives will be modeled after movies. With that being said, it is possible to have a happy ending in life – however, you must work at it. Relationships only stay strong with enough commitment and work. We are not the same characters; we don’t have the same lives. Not everything will turn out well.
You may not get that promotion at work. If you work hard enough, you may have a chance, but that’s not to say that you will get the job for sure.
You won’t meet someone that makes your life perfect all of the time. There are ups and downs, and that’s what life is. You may have perfect moments or movie-like moments, but not 24/7. Mistakes, experiences, and work make life what it truly is, a process. You put work into your job, your friendships and relationships. You make mistakes and you learn from them, and maybe not everything is okay at the time – but you are still living.
Love is shown quite differently in movies than in real life. For example, buying gifts to gain that girl’s heart may not work. That hunk isn’t going to just give you one look and magically fall in love with you. Relationships will require more attention, and you might have to sacrifice some freedom for it. Stalking your crush doesn’t mean they’ll end up liking you or falling in love with you eventually either (like in Twilight and Wedding Crashers). Your best friend that you’ve been secretly in love with might not ever see you in that way. It’s possible – but don’t expect it.
Movies specifically affect our expectations and hopes. We tend to believe that life will always work out and have a happy ending, but that's not always the case. The way we think about the future has been altered due to the previews and portrayals that we are given when we watch films. This can especially change the way we see relationships, and love in general. According to the Huffington Post,there's a new study that proves the fact that movies have changed the way people view romance and the way they behave in relationships. It can make us believe that "love will find a way", and that this idea can overcome any obstacle in life. If you haven't seen how to do something specific, you won't know how to do it, because you haven't been given anything to model after it. With movies, you can see how characters act in their relationships, which might make you more likely to act similar to those characters in real life.
Films give us false expectations in life, where we think everything should happen as they do in movies. We can’t have these false expectations, because then we lose hope. You should take charge in your own life, and if you want something, go for it and work for it. Unrealistic ideals of romance, friendships, and so forth should not be what you aim for. There also isn't always going to be a clear "revelation" or "solution"; sometimes you will have a lot of things in your life that will be left unanswered. Nothing is ever perfect; it's what makes life... life.
