Pop culture can impact our behaviours and worldview. It forms what we perceive as cool or normal. From current fashion trends to how we conduct conversations, the media plays a significant role. When pop culture adds a dramatic edge to relationships and sex, it can create unhealthy behaviours that can be seen as normal.

Romance stories often use persistence as a way for the hero of the story to accomplish a battle. The pinnacle of this is The Notebook. In the drama directed by Nick Cassavetes in 1994, There are countless moments of gaslighting, threatening and even verbal abuse, yet still the film is wildly regarded as a beautiful love story.

A less modern example would be the story of Sleeping Beauty and other princess fantasies. The original fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, written in the 1600s depicts a prince kissing a sleeping princess.

“And when he saw her looking so lovely in her sleep, he could not turn away his eyes; and presently he stooped and kissed her.”

The concept of true loves first kiss saving the princess from the 1959 $6 million Disney animated movie was not in the original tale. Instead, the idea is that Sleeping Beauty would awake after 100 years. The prince just happened by at the 100th year.

Music has its own number of criticisms. Songs like blurred lines by Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I. and Blame It (On the Alcohol) by Jamie Foxx and T-Pain depict sexual assault as something to be proud of. Blurred lines is based around the idea that singer Robin Thicke can’t understand the fact that a girl doesn’t want him. The song is pushy, repeating the phrase “I know you want it.” The song is still played on the radio and was number one for 13 weeks on the Canadian hot 100.

When the Twilight saga kicked off in 2005’ its coming-of-age love story was controversial due to the nature of 17-year-old Bella Swan’s relationship with Centenarian Vampire Edward Cullen. Edward was 17 when he was turned into a vampire thus, he appears to be that age. Dismissing the age difference, Twilight still has its share of problematic themes. The relationship began with stalking as Edward watches her sleep without consent then follows her to another town. Edward isn’t the only problematic monster in Bella’s life: in the fourth book, Jacob, a past suitor of Bella, discovers he has imprinted on Bella’s just born daughter. In Twilight imprinting is a supernatural way shapeshifters discover their soulmates. Over time the shapeshifter, who knows this process, becomes closer and closer with the imprinted individual until it is a full-blown romantic connection. Humans do this as well, but it is known as grooming. Readers of Twilight are aware of the problems. One fan Megan Moline watched the movies and read the books as a youth.

“People talked all that time about how unhealthy the relationship was, so I had that in mind when I read and I watched it. I didn’t realize completely how toxic everything was, but I wasn’t ever interested in having a relationship like theirs,” she said.

Moline at first romanticized the relationship and others’ but was aware of the authors overlooking of the problematic themes.

When consuming media it is important to not romanticize red flags, to bring a voice to recognizing rape myths and to support awareness about sexual assault, stalking and harassment.