I believe the "Big Lie" that romance novels and films present to women is how the journey of the love actually goes. In the books and films, the male and female characters have either just met, and it is love at first sight, or they have known each other for quite some time and realize they are meant for one another. They get together, date and have a relationship, something climatic happens that causes them to have a disagreement and break-up but then in the end, they realize they actually do love each other, so they get back together, and the film or novel usually ends happily. Not all romance films follow this diagram because some have endings where the two characters do not end up together; however, audiences do not like these endings, so if an author, producer and/or director wants something successful, they will follow the diagram. These stories give women hope, but it is more of a false hope and not reality because it hardly happens that way. Romance films give women high expectations of how men should be, so when a man is not actually romantic, loving and caring, the woman gets upset.
I have never really thought of it this way, but the function of the "Happily Ever After" narrative is mainly for the women viewers. In terms of gender relations, the film or novel ends how a women would picture a love story ending, but that is not entirely the case for men. There are some men out there who are romantic and somewhat similar to characters in films and novels, but the majority of men are not; therefore, the "Happily Ever After" narrative is meant to be leave a feel-good feeling after viewing the film or reading the novel, but it just so happens that that feeling is left in women.
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