Romantic Idealization in Media for Men

The movie Don Jon states "Romantic comedies are for women what porn is for men." This is an interesting statement to make. It keys on the interests of men and women and classifies them in a very gendered fashion. It relies on the assumption that girls take pleasure in the lofty romantic ideals presented in romantic comedy type movies the same way men take pleasure in the idealization of women in porn. This idea keys on the idea presented by the study done by Hurst, Brown, and L'Engle that found adolescent boys are obsessed with sex and sexual performance in particular. (Hurst, Borwon, L'Engle, 2008)
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a16690/down-with-romcoms/. This is a link to a cosmopolitan article about why boys hate being dragged to romantic comedies. This article details the unrealistic portrayals of romantic relationships and the hardships these unrealistic portrayals force onto guys i general. The article notes that romantic comedy actors are way better looking than average men and that the men in romantic comedies set unrealistic goals for real life men to aspire to. This article coupled with the sentiment of the quotation from Don Jon point to a cultural understanding that men are threatened by media portrayals of romantic relationships because they feel like they have to up their game to compete with the idealized romantic sentiments displayed by actors. This is interesting to compare with the findings of Aubrey and Taylor in The Role of Lad Magazines in Priming Men’s Chronic and Temporary Appearance-Related Schemata: An Investigation of Longitudinal and Experimental Findings that showed men who viewed objectified women in magazines felt a higher need to conform to idealized body types for men to be able to obtain women of he same standard. (Aubrey, Taylor, 2009)
Altogether, these media examples combined with the findings of Aubrey and Taylor as well as  Hurst, Borwn, and L'Engle point to a media culture that places heavy pressure on men to conform to idelaized romantic and body representations.


Aubrey, J. S., & Taylor, L. D. (2009). The Role of Lad Magazines in Priming Men’s Chronic and Temporary Appearance‐Related Schemata: An Investigation of Longitudinal and Experimental Findings. Human Communication Research,35(1), 28-58.
Hust, S. J., Brown, J. D., & L'Engle, K. L. (2008). Boys will be boys and girls better be prepared: An analysis of the rare sexual health messages in young adolescents' media. Mass communication & society, 11(1), 3-23.