BOY MEETS GIRL — on the Screen

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 6

BOY MEETS GIRL — on the Screen

| A survey of screen behaviour, based on an |

1| examination of 300 feature films, by the N.Z. |}

| Government Film Censor,

GORDON

MIRAMS

PYAHIS is a_ serious subject, although it is more often than not treated as a joke. Indeed, it is difficult not to ridicule the manner in which the topic of meeting and mating is so frequently portrayed on the screen. Yet the patterns of behaviour and the standards of value which the movies present as normal and acceptable in courtship, marriage, and boy-girl relationships generally may be likely to have a deep influence. on real life-largely for the very reason that these patterns are so remote from reality. The 1950 Report of the Departmental Committee in Great Britain on Children and the Cinema puts it like this: The most dangerous aspect of bad films, from the children’s point of view. is the repetition and glorification of false patterns of life. . . Less harm is done by crime films, or even sexually suggestive films, than by films which depict life as grossly different from what it is. . . It stands to reason that the moral values, social habits and standards that are dinned into the public by film after film, must make a mark if only by repetition. Assuming this viewpoint to be correct, and that the reiteration of patterns of ‘screen behaviour does have some effect on the outlook of susceptible Picturegoers, particularly juvenileswho lack the experience and knowledge of life which can enable them to recognise the artificiality of much screen "realism" and put it into proper per-spective-exactly what sort of guide does the cinema offer to young people

with reference to the circumstances. in which they are likely to choose their life-partners, and the way in which they should behave towards one another? And _ sec-

ondly, supposing that they do not meet the right person or do not, for some reason, choose to marry, will the cinema give them any reason to believe they are not abnormal in this? In other words, to what extent is life without "exciting" love regarded as worth living? Almost anybody who sees even a few films could give answers in fairly general terms to those questions. Yet to talk vaguely about the ‘average film" is now not enough. Having the official opportunity as Censor to see all films, and being interested in carrying out unofficial but fairly intensive research into the content of the motion-picture and its trends, I believe I am in a positionperhaps for the first time-to answer the above questions precisely, and even with statistical accuracy. I would suggest that, as a basis for any attempt to assess the real influence of the cinema, it is essential to know these answers. For the purpose of this survey, I have taken "300 feature films from America and Great Britain which came into this country two or three years ago-not a selected sample of British and American films, but. all those imported here over a period of about nine months. In a way it is a pity that they are not new films. Yet any influence they exerted

could still be relevant, while they are far enough out of date to be unlikely to cause embarrassment by being cited. I would add that recent observation does not suggest any appreciable variation in the petterns revealed by analysis of these 300 films. Let us dispose of the second question first: to what extent is a romantic interest deemed essential for a screenplay? In the 300 features-250 American, 50 British-under survey, only 48 (or 16 per cent) contained no love element» involving the leading male and female characters-for our purpose let us call them "hero" and "heroine." Other characters, even ,villains, do often lead love-lives of their own; yet when it is a question of social influence through conscious or unconscious emulation, it is obviously the heroes and heroines who are by long odds most important. There is almost no difference in the compara- © tive percentages for American and British films in this regard; but account should be taken of the fact that the 250 Hollywood films included 60 Westernsa type of entertainment which, largely because of its appeal to smail boys, is traditionally less interested "in lovemaking than other types. Among the 84 per cent of all. films which contained some leve element,

there were a fair number in which the main characters were married, engaged, or already in love when the _ story opened. Leaving these out of account, we find that 73 per cent of all the films examined dealt specifically with the topic of boy meeting girl and falling in love. In breaking down the data on the films showing romances between the leading characters, I have divided them into cases of "Love At First Sight" (L.A.F.S.) and "Love As a Growth" (L.A.G.). "Whoever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?" asks Phebe in As You Like It. Clearly the average film scenario-writer would agree with her. For in 68 per cent (more than two-thirds) of the films affected-British and American com-bined-it is a case of love at first sight, if not at first glimpse: Let it also be frankly recognised that, for "love," it would frequently be more appropriate to read "lust." This is inevitable in a prevailing atmosphere, by no. means confined to the cinema, where men and women are adjudged attractive, and suitable as mates, almost solely on the basis of their sexual allure, with emphasis on physical details in close-up. The most frequently-encountered for- mula is for the girl to be kissed by the boy at their first meeting. Thereupon conflict is likely to develop; and a case of L.A.F.S. can almost invariably be diagnosed from the ‘bickering and bad manners (love at first slight?) which accompany the unfolding of the romance. Characters in American films show a greater tendency towards _hair-trigger romantic reaction than British onesthe comparative L.A.F.S. figures for films from the two countries are 70 per cent and 55 per cent. So we come to the films in which love is depicted as a growth, or gradual development, arising from frequent meetings and propinquity--stories in which perhaps the hero and heroine have grown up together and belong to the same social group, or have been thrown much into one another’s company’ at work or in recreation. This is probably the usual pattern in real life. In films with situations of this type, we find again that British characters are slower to succumb than are American characters. In the total of all romantic meetings involving heroes and heroines, the percentage of cases of L.A.G. is 32 per cent, as against 68 per cent of L.A.F-S.; but the comparative figures for American and British heroines to whom "love is a growth" are 30 per cent for Hollywood, and 45 per cent for British films. It is possible to probe a little deeper still into the private lives of movie heroes and heroines. As I have said, love at first sight can be love at first glimpse, in which case it is classifiable as "L.A.F.S.-extreme." However, love may dawn as a-result of only two or three meetings, and still be accurately described as a case of "L.A.F.S.-de-layed." On this basis the figures for the films of Britain and America combined, within the L.A.F.S. pattern, are 68 per cent "extreme" and 32 per cent "delayed." Seventy per cent of American cases are "extreme" as against 56 per cent in which British characters went

straight off the déep end, indicating again that the British are slightly more sluggish than their U.S, counterparts in responding to the mating-call of the scenario-writer. Or perhaps it merely indicates that British screenplays, in general, approximate rather more closely to real life. However, the time element is not the only factor to be noted in analysing the boy-meets-girl situation in the cinema. Just as important are the circumstances in which the meetings are shown taking place-whether the divine spark is struck as the result of a_ purely accidental or unorthodox or casual first’ encounter between hero and heroine, or is the outcome of a first encounter in normal and "unglamorous" circumstances, for example, by the boy and girl being introduced to , one another by a third person. To meet in some way by introduction (carried out with varying degrees of formality) is, after all, probably still the basis on which the majority of real-life romances begin. But it is altogether too mundane

and unexciting a starting-point for the average scenario-writer. He prefers to launch his characters on their course toward matrimony from much more unorthodox rocket-sites. When one studies all cases of the hero-meets-heroine situation in the 300 films (whether L.A.F.S. or L.A.G.), it is found that 69 per cent of them depend on unusual meetings-that is, situations, such as the boy rescuing the girl from danger, which the average young person would have little chance of encountering in real life-while only 31 per cent arise from meetings in normal or probable circumstances. It may also be noted that, in Hollywood films, 83 per cent of cases of love at first sight between hero and heroine occur in unusual circumstances, the corresponding figure for British films being 67 per cent. The British were ever more formal and more likely to insist on a proper introduction even when instantaneously smitten. To a surprising extent the Love-At-First-Sight formula is not merely implicit in the majority of screen plays: it is explicitly acknowledged and, of course, approved of, in 10 per cent of all cases. The hero himself admits that he was smitten when his eyes did see Olivia first-or Jane or Mary as the case may be, Here are a few random examples of L.A.F.S. from the 300 films: — In Tension the hero accidentally knocks the heroine off a ladder, catches her in his arms. Love is born on the spot. In On the Town, one of the sailors sees in a newspaper the photo of a beauty-con-test winner, falls in love with it, estimates his chances of meeting her in person in New York, and the next moment bumps into her. A case of love at first impact.

In The Lady Takes a Sailor, the heroine is thrown into the sea and rescued bythe hero when his one-man submarine ‘surfaces underneath her yacht. Inside she is jolted into his arms. Later he confesses his © instantaneous love for her, while. thinking’ she is unconscious. In Stage-Coach Kid, hero rescues hexdine from stage-coach hold-up; immediate bickering does not conceal mutual _attraction.In Key to the City, the heroine, a public official, enters the hero’s private apartment, thinking it is a committee-room; the hero mistakes her for a night-club girl, and starts meking passes at her. Later they fall into each other’s arms as the result of an accident, In Singing Guns, at first meeting, the hero knocks gun from heroine’s hand; at second meeting he grabs and kisses her; she burns his neck with cigarette, then passionately reciprocates embrace. In Gay Lady, the boy drops. into backyard of girl’s house from a balloon. In Diamond City, the hero Wack into and upsets the collection-box of heroine, a missionary. In The Great Lover, the first sight of the heroine takes the hero’s mind’ off: the girls of Paris, and indices him to follow her on to a liner for the U,S., to pursue he romance. In The Dancing Years, the heroine, an opera singer, walks into an inn-yard, hears music composed by the hero. and starts to sing it. Tuey admit that under the influence of this music they fell in love at first hearing... In Captain China, the heroine is: greatly attracted by the hero when shé sees him in a violent fist-fight; he kisses her hard to annoy villain; she pretends to be annoyed, but obviously isn’t. In Holiday Affair, the wai "poses as ‘the hercine’s husband to get her»out of a jam in a shop, and kisses her. "Ys engage be married to a nice, subi type-"‘a wonderful fellow but not- On ‘the other hand, the hero is charming. bel erratic, a rolling-stone, The whole emphasis of this film is on the merits of romantic and ‘exciting love as opposed to. ‘sensible’ marriage. The hero says, "It is impossible to be safe and secure when you are in love." * Pains aro oma HIS survey has established, then, that love (and marriage) in the movies is usually a matter~entirely of impulse — something you can, nd should, have no control. over. It has demonstrated statistically that in every two out of three films containing a fomantic element the heroes and heroines fall in love almost literally at first sight, and in romantic circumstances likely to be outside the experience of the average member of the audience, The general emphasis is certainly on the unorthodox, the glamorous, and the physical However, the purpose of this article is not to draw conclusions, pass judge ments, or suggest remedies, That wil possibly occupy tHe attention of others, and of myself, in another place, Yet one point needs to be stressed here,. To single out the cinema for criticism would be grossly unfair. Because of its easy accessibility, because it is this country’s major form of entertainment, and because of its direct visual impact, the cinema has special powers and therefore should have special responsibilities to its audiences. Yet when this factor is taken into account, the treatment of the boy-meets-girl situation in the movies, and the assumptions on which it is based, are no different from those of a good deal: of "respectable" fiction as well as of comics and pulp literature, of radio serials, of television, or popular songs, and of many forms of advertising. All of them reflect-al-though often in an exaggerated form+ the underlying attitudes and habits ‘of our society, Therefore, when we accuse any of the mass-media of communication and entertainment of inculecting and fostering a false sense-of values and wrong standards of behaviour, we are really putting 20th Century Western civilisation itself on trial.