And they lived happily ever after?: Romantic love in scripts of commercial movies

Abstract

Romantic love refers to a sociocultural construction that serves as an idealized and prescriptive model of love relationships. This
model instigates heterosexual unions, is based on a mythology about love and gender stereotypes that can lead to disparities and
even justify domination and violence, especially against women. Following a qualitative approach, the scripts of a depurated
sample of 22 commercial films exhibited in El Salvador between 2015 and 2017 were analyzed. Among the main findings, highlight
the simultaneous existence of certain myths of romantic love (e.g., predestined couple, durability), gender stereotypes and messages that support control and violence against women. Marginally, also some antagonistic content to the romantic love ideal were found. Discussion proposes that the marriage myth seems to function as a narrative articulating core of what has been label as mythological semantic network of romantic love. It is recommended, among other things, to continue exploring the romantic love model in other products of cultural consumption (e.g., soap operas, series) accessible in the Salvadoran context.