I Heart Movies

I have a girlfriend. I love her. I love her so much. So how could I ever compare the love I feel for her to the love I feel for media? How could all of media form the same complex and beautiful relationship I have with her?

Love is a very loaded term. Not only does it imply the existence of a special kind of relationship, but it also implies the dedications, efforts, and hardships that come with it. And then there’s the term media; perhaps less loaded, but still equally broad. It encompasses such an intense volume of things – social media, advertisements, websites, movies, music, clips, pictures, data – that there’s no way to keep track of them all.

All this complexity, all these moving parts, all these bits that are so incompatible with unconditional love… I realised they don’t really matter. I don’t believe I am in love with media. In fact I don’t believe anybody is. But I do believe we all genuinely love one – and only one – form of media.

I consider myself an introvert and enjoy spending a lot of time simply thinking, analysing, and categorising things. I’ve noticed that I am a rather neutral person and that it takes something truly special to get me to get emotional – not that it’s a problem, I’m actually rather content with this state of being. But I know that my girlfriend is the only person in the myriad of people I have met throughout my lifetime who manages to constantly give me emotional catharsis. Every time I see her I genuinely feel the most beautiful thing I have ever felt.

But there is another. One thing that isn’t alive that I share this same relationship with.

I have fallen in love with movies.

Whole-heartedly, the medium that is film is the only other aspect of this world that makes me feel the same way I feel for my girlfriend. It immerses me into worlds, into its ideals and incredible moral conflicts, and this has led to something that I suppose can be considered love. I wouldn’t want to phrase it that way, I’d only say I love my girlfriend, but deep down I think we all share that same feeling of catharsis with at least one form of media, so I guess I can say…

I Heart Movies

Justin Hardy – 13610163