In my last article I wrote about how Pamela Anderson in her Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, discussed Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson who she quoted as saying, “romantic love is not sustainable.” I discuss why the gist is right, but not fully accurate.
Importantly, I question whether this idea that romantic love is unsustainable, may be overshadowed by Robert Johnson’s lack of experience with romantic love personally in his life. This is in no way to undermine the vast body of Johnson’s work.
In this article I want to explore where actor Emma Thompson was recently interviewed by Vanity Fair magazine in an article titled, Emma Thompson says that, “Romantic Love is a Myth.” The short article quickly reminds us of some things like Kenneth Branagh cheating on Thompson and her role in the film, Love Actually where she plays someone who is cheated on. Overall, the article amplifies Thompson’s discouraging words around romantic love, quoting her as saying;
“It’s philosophically helpful and uplifting to remember that romantic love is a myth and quite dangerous.”
Thompson isn’t saying that the concept is born of mythical origins as Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson suggested in his writing on romantic love. In his book, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, Johnson discusses what he believed to be the genesis of “romantic love” as a notion in western culture. His writing is also about how we get hooked into our projections about a romantic partner and may idealize our concept of what love should look like.
Thompson however, is quoted as saying that romantic love doesn’t exist, and that it is quite dangerous.
Statements like may be revealing about the level of hurt someone has received in their romantic relationships, but that hurt is not proof that romantic love does not exist altogether.
If we take this statement at face value, it feels misleading about what Thompson may be trying to say. I believe, that Thompson is trying to say that we have an unhealthy idea in western culture of romantic love, that is based on fairy tale concepts that are far too shallow to paint an accurate picture of love, and worse set young people up for looking at the surface level of a relationship — rather than being informed by things that can inform why someone may be a good choice for a partner.
How can we tell if someone is a good choice for the long haul?
Keep in mind when Charles Perrault and the Grimm Brothers wrote fairy tales they weren’t concerned about the long haul, they were concerned about survival and fitting into high society or writing for the middle class about morals.
If believe what Emma Thompson is telling us is that she is a sensitive soul who believed in an idealized concept of romantic love informed by Disney ideas on what romantic love looks like, fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Disney, after all, can be seen as the third generation of written fairy tales, and the most common touchstone for fairy tales in modern culture.
When Thompson felt betrayed, she experienced real heartbreak which didn’t just feel like a betrayal from her husband and romantic partner, but a betrayal by the makers of fairy tales who create the ideal of quick romantic coupling and the happy ending.
Afterward, if we believe the article, Thompson rationalized that romantic love does not exist and that it is dangerous to believe it does.
Romantic love is dangerous in that it means you are being vulnerable; you are opening your heart to someone and there is a risk to opening your heart. This does not mean that romantic love does not exist, but it may underscore the ideas that have been accepted about what romantic love looks like.
Clinical psychologist and couples therapist Sue Johnson, who developed EFT, (Emotionally Focused Therapy) to work with couples, might argue that the feelings behind romantic love, namely healthy attachment to another person are good and necessary things. She sees emotional attachment as important not just for children who need secure attachment bonds to our parents but continuously throughout our lives writing;
“Intimate relationships are not transactions, they are emotional bonds.”
If love is an important emotional bond throughout our lives, and romantic love is a dangerous myth, how do we reconcile these thoughts?
I would counter that heartbreak is not proof that romantic love does not exist, but rather that for various reasons romantic love can fall apart, fizzle out, or as in the case of Pamela Anderson it can be destroyed in a physically abusive outburst.
What the cheating by Thompson’s husband Kenneth Branagh and the beating by Tommy Lee prove, is that these two men were not ready or capable of stepping up to the next level of romantic love. I don’t have enough information to guess their motivations, but in general perhaps to some men romantic love should be an easy thing, and if it isn’t easy it is abandoned until “easy” is found, which creates a cycle of short-term relationships that are never likely to evolve to a deeper level.
Someone like Leonardo DiCaprio comes to mind when considering someone who continually dates young women and breaks up when they reach an age where they may want a more serious relationship. Whether he does this consciously or not is another question.
MYTH OF THE HAPPY ENDING
Thompson counters her own thinking with her next thought in the article, which is;
“We really do have to take it with a massive pinch of salt. To think sensibly about love and the way it can grow is essential.”
We DO need to think sensibly about love and the way it can grow. These are excellent thoughts, that do not dismantle the notion of romantic love. If it were to dismantle the notion of romantic love, then marriage would simply become a business arrangement, devoid of any emotional connection – but as humans, we cannot be devoid of emotional connections, nor should we be, any more than we should think of raising children as a business venture.
If anything, we must try to understand some of what drives us as humans, and some of what may cause emotional ruptures. In these modern times we have better language to express these things, and we have the psychology which has grown in the last hundred and twenty or so years to understand more of what may undermine our romantic love, and attachment theory stresses the importance of being connected to our children, and to each other as adults.
EXPECTATIONS FROM FAIRY TALES
This is where Thompson shifts from talking about romantic love as a myth and begins to use fairy tale language as being in part to blame for shaping some of her expectations around romantic love. Thompson says;
“Long-term relationships are hugely difficult and complicated. If anyone thinks that happy ever after has a place in our lives, forget it.”
I don’t disagree with what Thompson is implying, but these are unfinished thoughts.
Relationships are hugely difficult and complicated, and the idea of the happily ever after makes me bristle whenever it is used, just as phrases like “it was a fairy tale wedding” make me pause. I wonder to myself which fairy tale are they talking about, the one where Hansel and Gretel are abandoned by mom and dad and almost eaten by a witch? Perhaps it was the story of Sleeping Beauty who was 11 years old in the original version and taken without consent by the prince? Maybe it’s the one where a poor girl Cinderella, puts on a fancy dress and catches the eye of a prince who obsesses over her.
The lack of depth in the trope of the happy ending is the problem that Thompson is implying – that the story ends happily when Cinderella rides off in the fancy carriage with the handsome prince. There really is no time for the heroine to get to know herself or the prince in the timeframe of the story.
The fairy tales do not show the real life that follows where a couple must learn to live together, how to navigate disagreements and hurt feelings. It doesn’t explore how they navigate finances and the everyday problems that every couple encounter. This is because these early stories were collected and then amplified to emphasize what the writers like Perrault and the Grimms thought was most important and living a life that was virtuouswas one of the main takeaways.
WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
This entire idea of the happily ever after was something begun in the 19th century by the Brothers Grimm in their first edition of fairy tales. In this first edition, it only appears twice and yet as the brothers went through collecting as well as editing the fairy tales they continued to amplify it. The happily ever after became more pronounced, their ideas on morals and ethics became more accepted and then Disney turned up the volume.
We do not have to whole-heartedly buy into the happy ending though.
What fairy tales have done over time and partly why they are different from mythology, is that they truncate the story of the heroine individuating and coming into herself.
They truncate the story of self-discovery.
For instance, in Greek mythology, we may see the myth of Psyche and Eros, which is a myth that is about the individuation of Psyche. It is a story about the heroine journey.
Fairy tales that often involve the heroine like Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty often have the feel of being truncated soon after the first act. We are led to believe that when the heroine marries the prince this is when the story ends … but in the myth of Psyche and Eros, this is when it just gets started.
What this all means is that when myth became fairy tales, is when the stories became edited, truncated and amplified by new writers and editors who had their own ideas they wanted to impart to the new class of people who could do something novel, they could read.
We as modern readers need to look at fairy tales and amplify them again in ways that incorporate modern psychology, equality of the sexes, and new ideals that may not have existed in the time of Perrault or the Grimm brothers.
Disney though is in the process of overhauling fairytales, where we are now seeing the concept of individuation of the feminine taking center stage again. We see this in stories such as Frozen (which is based The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen). In Frozen we see healthy explorations of where one sister projects the fairy tale prince onto a soon to be revealed villain. We see love slowly evolving, and the individuation of the main character Elsa, as she comes into her power instead of fearing it.
This is one example of the evolution of fairy tale ideals and how they can still stay relevant in our modern culture, another is one amplified on Amazon Prime’s 2021 version of Cinderella written and directed by Kay Cannon, which has Camila Cabello as Cinderella and a non-binary “fabulous” godmother played by Billy Porter who crushes it.
Fairy tales can still be relevant and effective ways to explore our ideals, share them, and even smash old concepts of the “happily ever after.”
These new fairy tales challenge us to look at new men who portray thoughtful and sensitive substitutes to the entitled prince (Frozen’s Kristoff represents the new ideal non-prince in my book). They show us that the ideals of fairy tales don’t have to be dangerous for us to believe, as long as we call them into question, re-evaluate what we wish the takeaway to be, and do it all together in the open.
New interpretations of fairy tales can also help us to reconceptualize what we believe romantic love means, so that it reflects a healthy relationship, full of the ups and downs of real life instead of the perfection of a happy ending.
Life doesn’t have a “happy ending” it is punctuated by happy moments, as well as hard moments, loss as well as triumphs. It is marked by crossing important thresholds, as well as personal failures. There is health and there is illness, and there is no guarantee for anything.
If anything is true it is that life’s beauty is intermingled with loss, which is part of what makes everything special.
Follow Your Myth 