"Not Like The Movies"

“Someday my prince will come,” yah, looks like that day isn’t coming anytime soon... From the very moment we saw our first Disney movie, our imagination and perception on “true love” soared in ways we never thought possible. Children movies, like those created by Disney, have been centered on the idea of true love and romance. Girls are introduced to a non-realistic view of love at a very young age. Little did we know that this idea of fantasy and true love would eventually mold our minds to think that such a thing could actually exist. In the article Romance: Sweet Love, Bell Hooks quoted novelist Toni Morrison, who identified the idea of romantic love as one “of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.” She explains that such an illusion as love can quite possibly stand in the way of both understanding the act of love and learning how to love. The idea of “love at first sight” is a thought every girl has had at one point in their lives. Are we wrong to believe that there is such a thing as true love? Katy Perry wrote a song called, “Not Like the Movies,” where she talks about how a relationship doesn’t always have to be like what we see in the movies, life isn’t a fairytale, and our “prince” isn’t going to end up exactly how we had envisioned. She sings, “They say you know, when you know, I don’t know. I don’t feel the fairytale feeling, no. Am I a stupid girl for even dreaming that I could? … Snow White said when I was young, ‘one day my prince will come.’ So I wait for that date. They say it’s hard to meet your match, find your better half. So we make perfect shapes.” Katy Perry is explaining that since we were young we’ve created the perfect fairytale in our minds; so much to the point that we believe someday it will come true. We have in our minds that the man of our dreams will soon come around, yet at the end of the day we find ourselves still waiting for that wish to come true. Oh, if only love wasn’t so complicated. If I could have it my way, I’d skip reality and jump right into happily ever after!