The Unrealistic and Realistic

Janice Radway’s article, Women Read The Romance, Radway explains and analyzes an interesting point that women enjoy reading romance novels as an escape from reality and every day responsibilities. Romance novels are a way for women to put their life on hold for a little and dive into the perfections of a love story. One woman explains about romance novels, “They always seem an escape and they usually turn out the way you wish life really was” (69). The book becomes a special moment reserved aside during the day when the woman can separate herself from everyday chores and taking care of her family just to be independent and alone. These novels allow women to abandon the real world and get absorbed into a perfect world of imagination, where women’s emotional needs and escape from reality can be found within the context of a love story (one with obstacles and a declaration of love in the end).

Many know Jane Austen’s famous book (and now movie) Pride and Prejudice, a book that involves many obstacles and twists and turns throughout, but this book is worth reading every line until the perfect ending of a proposal and marriage of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. This book is one that has captured the hearts of so many women and even young girls because of the perfectly portrayed love story. It is a natural need to want to escape from reality sometimes and just dive into an imaginary world where you do not have to worry about any responsibility, but placing yourself in the shoes of the love story. These romance novels and even romance movies provide an escape from our everyday lives, which is a huge part of their attraction. Nowadays we use many different forms of media to escape the real world, books, movies, TV shows, worlds where everything is too perfect, too unrealistic, world that will forever remain unreal and unreachable in our lives but are fun to escape in for moments at a time.

Daytime talk shows nowadays are delving into a more personal level especially as seen in The Oprah Winfrey Show, which is widely famous around the world. Moorti’s article, Cathartic Confessions or Emancipatory Texts?, explains how Winfrey’s show plays out more as a confrontation between an individual and their problems, whether then a general big issue topic that everybody could participate in. Still, Winfrey finds a way to open up the discussion to the audience and address the crowd as a whole. Through these individualized stories Winfrey acts sort of like a psychologist delving deeper and deeper into important topics such as rape. She identifies the problem, includes the crowd, and then gives solutions. Topics such as these though she delves deep down with the individuals, she asks for more detailed descriptions such as “What kind of stuff were you thinking, feeling, doing?” (524). Winfrey focuses on realistic situations that many other people in this world have faced, but do not speak up about to better our society. Look for example at this youtube video of Winfrey’s discussion with Naomi Campbell, Winfrey delves into her personal life about her drug addiction, many other people in society have addictions too and watching this show can maybe somehow relate to Campbell's problems. By being more personalized it brings more of a human touch and less or a fake entertainment purpose only vibe. Within in this video pay attention the way Winfrey asks her her problem, discusses it, and asks her what were her solutions.