Care for them.” It breeds friendships of virtue.

True romance says, “Chase the depths of the heart.

Go for it.” It breeds friendships of utility and friendships of pleasure.

Modern romance says, “Chase the moment.

I’m gonna show you how worthy you are.” It focuses outward. I’m gonna show you how worthy of a suitor I am.” It focuses inward. To understand what romance actually is, we have to understand what it isn’t. We need to understand that we are constantly fed stories molded around ideas that are simply not true. In this book, Truby describes the archetypal character - the “Lover” - as someone who “provides the care, understanding, and sensuality that can make someone a complete and happy person.” Writers in the entertainment industry are literally trained to distort what it looks like to be a lover.

John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story is one of the more influential guides for screenwriters. So what is romance? What is actual, true romance? It’s not that they set our expectations for love too high, but that they set them too low. John Paul II said that the “the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.” The same can be said for Hollywood’s depiction of romance.

These things are romantic, but romance is also so much more. Some of us think of that passionate, ooey-gooey feeling that marks the early part of a relationship. Some of us think of spontaneously dancing in the kitchen. When we hear that word, some of us think of a kiss in the rain. Romance evokes a wide range of feelings and images in our minds. “When a movie’s gotcha, it don’t ever letcha go,” as my dad would often say. You can’t escape life today without Hollywood informing you in some way. While Hollywood may have shaped me more than most, it’s safe to say Tinseltown has shaped all of our ideas about love and romance in one way or another. Why watch a sunset when you can watch McConaughey? That was the Kalina way. We never went on any family vacations, but if we had, I imagine there would have been a lot of theater-hopping. Growing up, renting a movie or going to the theaters was how we chose to spend our time together. My siblings and I work in the entertainment industry for a reason - my family loves watching movies.

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