Erin Brown weighs in with a timely look at the promotion of Mirage Man Syndrome in the movies with her blog "Hollywood's Current 'Romantic Comedies' Heavy on Hook Ups, Light on Romance".
She observes that Hollywood is redefining romance as casual sex among acquaintances, marital infidelity, friends with benefits, and random hooking up. She declares "2011 is the unofficial year of the raunchy Hollywood movie in which loyalty, sexual self-control, and marital commitment are fodder for comedy and where the idea of f**k buddies reigns supreme." "Love and Other Drugs," "No Strings Attached," "Hall Pass," and "Friends with Benefits" are just four current examples of Hollywood pushing Mirage relationships where attractive 20-somethings are cast as either "glorified sluts" and "man-whores". Let's look at each movie:
In "Love and Other Drugs" Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal play two young professionals who discover the benefit of a sexual hookup between the two attractive professionals without the "burden" of a formal relationship. To understand why this movie is so destructive, you need to know about the landmark study "Hooking Up, Hangin Out and Hoping For Mr.Right", which showed that modern women are given two extreme choices of romantic relationships: hooking up" or being "joined at the hip." The hook up involves casual sex without commitment. Meanwhile joined at the hip is where a couple of strangers commit to a sexual relationship and spend all their time together. Neither one is likely to lead women to their goal of an intelligent, long term, committed relationship that might lead to marriage, but it is custom made for the deceitful man who wants immediate gratification.
"No Strings Attached", originally title "F**k Buddies", was, incredibly, the first post "Black Swan release for Oscar-winning actress, Natalie Portman. Talk about the Oscar Curse! It also featured currrent Demi Moore husband and former Brittany Murphy boyfriend Ashton Kutcher. Erin Brown describes Kutcher's character, Adam, in the film as" handsome and charming and entirely uninterested in long-term relationships with women because his role-model, his father, has spent his life moving from one sexual liaison to another." Thus the destructive mirage man model is passed down from father to son in the last century.
"Hall Pass" features Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikus, who Erin Brown describes as "a couple of dopey middle-class husbands who, after being caught by their wives discussing sex with other women, are granted a week-long 'hall pass' from their marriages, families, and responsibilities. This week of "no rules" means the restless men can engage in immature, promiscuous and lewd behavior without consequences from their wives." This is definitely the Misery phase in the final stage of Mirage Man Syndrome known as Resigned Compliance when everyone knows something is wrong with the relationship.
We have another mirage man film to look forward to this summer in "Friends with Benefits", starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis as attractive 20-somethings that use each other to fulfill their sexual desires. Movie critic Michael Medved observed that "even if you see people doing things you know to be horrible, you know to be irresponsible- if those people are pretty enough, those things look attractive." There are few things more irresponsible than practicing Mirage Man Syndrome, but if it is a handsome man like Justin Timberlake, and beautiful Mila Kunis doesn't seem to object, then the audience concludes it isn't so bad.
All four of these films promote the idea of relationships based on artificial intimacy and approval seeking with no emphasis on first determining if the couple have any shared values or goals or have compatible personalities. With adolecent boys and girls looking to the media for guidance, is it any wonder the concept of long term marriage itself is being phased out of American life?
