How and in what ways do romantic movies shape females’ perceptions of love and partner choice?

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how and in what ways romantic movies affect young Maltese females’ perceptions of love, romantic relationships and partner selection. The mass media, in particular television, has been described as providing the best access to social learning for the public (Boelman et al., 2010). A qualitative research approach, Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) was adopted and six Maltese undergraduates aged between 18 to 25 years old were selected through snowball sampling. The data was gathered through semi-structured interviews following data analysis, three overarching themes were found; “Romantic Movies: A Preferred Genre”, “Romantic Movies Linked with Real Life” and “The Perfect Romantic Movie”. Findings indicated that the participants were not highly influenced by romantic movies when looking for love and a partner. However, they were still influenced in other ways. In particular, some participants explained how the younger generation might likely be more influenced by romantic movies because of their lack of romantic relationships due to their age.