We all know the classic rom-com tale.
Boy meets girl. Boy faces obstacle to be with girl. Boy overcomes obstacle. Boy and girl live happily ever after.
Now one study is trying to warn women that if said obstacle is tackled with a trail of stalker events, it’s time to pick yourself up and walk away.
Julia R Lippman, from the University of Michigan, decided to focus on the impact of male pursuit in the media, analysing whether some of our favourite rom-coms could be damaging our sense of urgency or danger.
In her study ‘I Did It Because I Never Stopped Loving You: The Effects of Media Portrayls of Persistent Pursuit on Beliefs About Stalking’, Lippman showed 426 women 30 minute clips from one of six different films.
The six films were chosen in pairings, with Lippman picking There’s Something About Mary and Management (both focusing on persistent romantic pursuit), Sleeping With The Enemy and Enough (which showed dangerous persistent pursuit) and March of the Penguins and Winged Migration (which were more an adorable comparative showing natural wonders of the world).
Following the screenings, Lippman asked the women to complete surveys – including questions to assess the extent to which women agree with ‘stalking myths’.
Lippman argues that these myths – which attribute stalking to an act that only happens because someone truly loves the other person – are exaggerated in films:
“Stalking myths are false or exaggerated beliefs about stalking that minimise its seriousness, which means that someone who more strongly endorses stalking myths tends to take stalking less seriously.”
Writing her findings, Lippman noted that women who watched the films with the ‘dangerous persistent pursuit’ were more likely to accept stalking as a normal behaviour, while those who watched the lighter comedy pieces which still showed stalking behaviour marking the activity as “a person who is willing to go to the extremes of stalking must really be in love.”
While the trend is constantly shown in popular rom-coms, Lipmann says the practice is dangerous:
“It can encourage women to discount their instincts. This is a problem because research shows that instincts can serve as powerful cues to help keep us safe.
“At the core, all these films are trading in the ‘love conquers all’ myth. Even though, of course, it doesn’t.”
