The Lost Innocence of Love
- 1 August 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Theory, Culture & Society
- Vol. 15 (3-4) , 161-186
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276498015003008
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between `mass media' representations of love and a model of love which we commonly view as more `realistic', that is more compatible with sharing everyday life with another. The article offers three arguments: (1) the postmodern claim that everyday life in general and romantic love in particular have been colonized by the empty `simulacrum' of mass media resonates with a long-standing Western discussion of the problematic relation between fiction and reality; (2) the relation between mass media representations of love and realistic models of love is reconceptualized as deriving from two conflicting bodily experiences of love; (3) postmodern love is defined as being characterized by a particular crisis of representation in which signifiers and signifieds of love do not match.Keywords
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