The Business of Love

With the Bachelorette having chosen her husband to be, I know many of us are thinking of love (at least me anyway) and what that really is.  Is love just tingly butterflies in your stomach or the sense of security and stability you feel when you’re with that special someone?  Or just a jumble of negotiations?  Is there a business of love?  Take a look at this quote from Alfred Hitchcook’s film Rich & Strange.

 

“Love is a very difficult business…it makes everything difficult and dangerous. I don’t think love makes people brave like they say it does in books. I think it makes them timid. I think it makes them frightened when they’re happy and saddened when they’re sad. Everything is multiplied by two; sickness, death, the future…it all means so much.”

What do you think?

Real Love or Real Fake?

REALITY TELEVISON.  Mark Burnett (TV Producer) would like to say that he started it with Survivor, but for us fortunate enough to remember the first season of the Real World, we understand how well crafted and unoriginal a lot of ‘reality’ tv is today.  But one trend that has absolutely exploded in recent times has been the dating reality show.  Of course one of the most notable in this category was Flavor of Love with Flava Flav.  Fortunately, that show has finally ended.  Unfortunately, whether these people were being themselves or not, a byproduct of this show was that it showed America some really ignorant behavior from mostly people of color and I think it safe to say that was a disservice to us all.  I say all this knowing it was a guilty pleasure of mine.

                                  

This whole trend has also been marked by self-identified bisexual Tila Tequila.  My initial thoughts about this show were that it had a great gimmick and marketability, both MEN and WOMEN competing for the “love” of a woman.  GREAT, now we are seeing a fuller representation of sexuality in America.  But, now with A Shot at Love and Flavor of Love and their sequels, it all seems counter-intuitive to the idea of finding real love on a reality show and makes me question the real sincerity involved.  This brings me to, I Love New York and The Bachelorette.  With the exception of Tila’s show, it seems that all the women who have had these reality shows seem to develop serious relationships with their partners from the show.  Remember, Trista, the first bachelorette?  She’s married to the man she met on that show still and they have child together, with no apparents signs of a split.  Also, consider Tiffany from I Love New York, her show was mostly absolute hilarity and foolishness, but last I heard she’s engaged to man she met on that show.

 

Now, with the new Bachelorette finale looming in the coming week, will DeAnna follow this trend of the women on reality dating shows maintaining a serious relationship?  But, what seems to be the greater issue is, what does this say about the representation of our men on those shows?  It seems sad to me, that there seems to be no record of a “bachelor” on one of these shows maintaining a serious relationship.  Is it possible that this specific sampling of men simply do not really seek the “love” they claim?  AND, are men being misrepresented here, all the while continually playing into our macho stereotypes?