Reading – 4/29

Summary

Klosterman writes about an inability for people to find a relationship that meets their expectations of love. He ultimately blames this on fictional depictions of romance in pop culture (“fake love”) as they distort people’s expectations, and causes people to compare their relationships/lives to the ones in they see in the media. He describes how there is no “normal” as everyone is trying to play out the fictional roles of romantic relationships they see in mass media. There is an assumed need for the type of romance depicted in media that goes beyond what people actually want.

Example

This reading made me think of the movie “The Lobster,” about a dystopian society that forces single people to find a romantic partner within 45 days or else they are turned into an animal. The main character in the movie struggles to find a partner in this system, and eventually rebels by joining a group of outcast singles who live in the woods, where romance is strictly prohibited. He ultimately falls in love with a woman in this group, and they both must escape in order to live out their relationship.

Connection

I think the society depicted in “The Lobster” fits the type of society Klosterman describes, as the rigid expectations of finding love in the movie make it impossible for any of the characters to develop meaningful relationships. The movie plays on the sort of prepackaged and predetermined development of romantic desire that is shown in media these days, and satirizes the assumed the necessity (over actual desire) for romance that Klosterman points out. In most cases, the characters fake romantic attraction and follow the script put forward by the society in order to avoid the dire consequence of being turned into an animal.