Contents
Why do we get “butterflies in our stomachs” when they kiss in movies?
Psychology
Love stories are a type of storytelling with which, due to our experiences, we can easily identify with
It is said that love moves mountains, but not only that: it also moves masses. And there are few who can resist a good love storyWhether it’s a gossip from a friend, a novel, or a movie. The latter have something special: Romantic comedies, the stormy romances or simply the representation of any form of romantic love on the screen, delights viewers. In the end, behind many of the most famous films in history, the only thing in the background is a simple, and also complex, encompassing and immeasurable, love story.
To understand why there are those who enjoy these stories so much, it must be explained
that, when we watch a movie, we have the ability to identify with what we see on the screen, not to empathize. Ifeel’s psychologist Rafael San Román explains that if we speak of «empathy», this is the ability to realize what is happening to someone, and act accordingly. «When we watch a movie or a series, we are moved, not so much because we are empathizing (since we cannot interact with the character in the strict sense), but because we feel challenged by what happens to himWe feel that history represents us: we identify ourselves », explains the psychologist.
The fine barrier of fact and fiction
On the other hand, in this identification mechanism, the “Mirror neurons”. Aída Rubio, coordinator of the TherapyChat team of psychologists, comments that these are the ones that help us to feel, even if we are only watching a movie; we are the ones who live what the characters live. These neurons they make us put ourselves in the shoes of another, to feel what they are feeling, and are at the base of learning and imitation, “he says.
Also, Rafael San Román insists on the idea that, in reality, «the barriers between the real and the unreal are not so clear in fictional narratives, such as a series or a movie ”. He explains then that, because the stories are “fiction” it does not mean that we do not perceive them as “real”: “They are representations of reality and, although we know that they are stories that have not occurred” as is “, we assume them as plausible, so they are not real but they could be: we could be them.
May our life be “like in the movies”
If we focus on love stories, the psychologist refers to what he talks about: we like them so much because, in general, “they have to do with us.” We see on the screen a representation of our wishes, frustrations, fantasies and projects. Aída Rubio says that it is “a good way to disconnect from reality and dive into other possible interesting and exciting lives”, to which San Román adds that, in some way, it is as if we were “the one they are looking for on the ladder of fires with a bouquet of flowers and a limousine. «It is me because my fantasy, my memory or even my current reality is materialized through characters that allow me to see everything from the outside. That is to say “as if it were a movie” … but without that “how”, sums up the psychologist.
Also, such a story can “mark” us more or less depending on how it fits our life. Not only will we feel more attracted to those that are nourished by experiences that we have lived, but, explains Rafael San Román, we will also do it for those stories similar to things that we have not experienced but we would have liked, we were about or we are pending to live. “Our experience is lived reality, but also desire, fantasy, imitation, learning … That conglomerate is everything when it comes to interpreting a story, in this case one of love,” he says.
The phenomenon of series pairs
Although there are romantic films that remain forever in the imaginary collective (from the comedy “When Harry Met Sally”, to the indisputable “Titanic” or the most recent “La La Land”) it is in the series, audiovisual products that make the viewer get involved for longer and learn more about the characters, where this “feeling” that is generated by watching a romantic fiction story is enlarged. «Through observing a character, understanding him, and identify with him, we are generating a mental representation, that is, an imprint in our mind as we do with flesh and blood people “, explains Aída Rubio, and continues:” These traces are stronger the more we observe these characters; a bond rich in nuances and with more emotional details. After all, we spend a lot of time with them, more than with some real people.
That is why another very repeated phenomenon occurs: when it is, not in itself a love story, but a fictitious couple, the one that generates great passions. This was the case with the nineties Mulder and Scully of «The X-Files» (for them the now «common» term was created shippear, used to refer to when you want two characters in a movie or series to end up together), the coffee growers Lorelai and Luke from “Gilmore Girls” or the recent (and controversial) Jon Snow and Daenerys in “Game of Thrones.” «This usually happens when there is an over-involvement with these characters. It’s a very great exercise of identification with the life, surely idealized, of the other. Through these characters, the person lives a very intense story that they probably do not have access to in real life », comments Aída Rubio, who also talks about when, seeing the stories of this model of fictitious couples, or other love stories , you can get to experience physical sensations.
Butterflies in the stomach at the movies
An example is when two characters kiss on the screen, and they get to feel “butterflies in the stomach.” «This is an example of the mirror neuron effect. When these are activated, it is as if we were carrying out the action that triggered their operation: in this case we feel what we would feel when we kiss ourselves », he points out and adds, that not only is this sensation possible, but also disappointment can be experienced. , sexual arousal, and endless emotions that, although we feel, who is really experiencing is the fictional character.
To sum up, Rafael San Román talks about the two great pillars that make us like these stories so much. On the one hand, he says that it is common for them to attract our attention, because in the cinema “everything is more beautiful, easier and more concrete than in real life.” «We are not stupid: we like the beautiful and we like the easy and, although we may be fascinated by a stormy, unhappy or heartbreaking love story, the one that we are going to like, the one that will make us dream, the one that we are going to wish for ourselves, is the beautiful and the easy one ”, he says. On the other hand, he talks about how, ultimately, “series and movies talk about us (of what we are, we were, we would like to be, we could be), of the people we know and of the worlds that interest us.” Therefore, we do not need truth or veracity to move us with a story, it is enough that it is plausible. “In general, it is enough that he talks about us, that he alludes to an issue that is important to us, that’s all,” concludes the psychologist.