The movie industry defines passionate, jealous, and obsessive partners as true love, which has lead generations to have an obscured mindset. Here I have picked 5 movies that I personally grew up worshiping and ranked them from most toxic to least toxic. You may have a rollercoaster of emotions reading this as I bash classic movies, but I do love them and believe me, writing this hurt me too.
1. The Notebook
This is easily one of the most famous movies ever, and honestly it was crafted to make it seem like Ally and Noah are actually in love. The relationship should have never happened in the first place, because when Noah asks Ally out she says no. That should of been the end of the movie, but Noah threatens to commit suicide by hanging off the faris wheel until she goes out with him. That is traumatizing! When they are dating they are always fighting and violence breaks out multiple times. We forget how toxic the relationship is when they get old because no one has the heart to hate on old people love.
2. Miss Congeniality
I know this movie is considered “femenist” because Gracie Hart is a cop and ends up defeating the bad guys (sorry for the spoiler), but hear me out. First of all, her “true love” Eric doesn’t give her any attention until she gets a makeover that takes her from tomboy to runway ready. Gracie has the same personality throughout the whole movie, but Eric only takes an interest in her after her professional makeover that turns her into a super hot chick. Is that really a femanist movie?
3. Clueless
I really hate saying anything negative about this movie because it is CLASSIC. Nevertheless there are some red flags in this relationship that need to be addressed. Cher Horowitz is a 15 year old girl. Her ex-stepbrother, Josh, is around 18 or 19 in the movie. Spoiler alert they fall in love and start dating when Cher is not even old enough to legally give consent… and do we even want to get started on Dionne and Murray? I’ll save their relationship for another day.
4. Grease
The movie Grease has been THE example of true love since the 80s, but both characters change everything about themselves to be together. Sandy Olsson begins the movie as a school driven character who loves her family and is essentially “pure”. Her crush, Danny Zuko, is a bad boy with a Greaser vibe. Danny ends up convincing Sandy that she needs to “loosen up” and become someone else, and by the end of the movie she changed her entire wardrobe and personality for him. He also led her to start smoking cigarettes which is something that Sandy called disgusting in the beginning of the movie. How is that true love if she isn’t her true self?
5. The Devil Wears Prada
Andy (the main character) gets a prestigious job in the fashion industry that changes her entire life. In the movie, her partner, Nate, becomes widely jealous of her success and passion and damages their relationship. He takes out his insecurities on Andy and tears her down for being a strong, independent woman. Nate spends the entire movie trying to make Andy the villain, and he’s so good at what he does Andy apologizes to him…even though she didn’t do anything wrong.
The movie industry continues to glorify toxic relationships that confuse our generation as to what true love actually is. I can confidently say that some of these movies have made me question everything I thought I knew about love, and have led me down the wrong path. Moral of the story: don’t expect your relationships to be like movie relationships, or you’ll probably be in a toxic relationship too.