ANSO 15
"It's a love story, baby, just say yes": Media, messages, and healthy relationships Winter 2025

From the time we’re small children, we’re inundated with media about romantic relationships: who to have them with, how they unfold, what the should look like. But what makes a relationship “healthy”? Are romantic relationships the pinnacle of what kinds of relationships we can have? How do we end relationships we don’t want to be in anymore? Using a range of popular media–reality TV like the Bachelor/ette franchise and Love Is Blind; animated movies; rom-coms; short stories–as a lens to examine healthy relationships (romantic and friend): what stories are we told and do we create about how relationships form and deepen? What are the “right” and “wrong” reasons to be seeking and staying in relationships? How did first reality TV and now social media shape our notions of public and private in relationships? How do we have healthy relationships across identity differences? In addition to exploring the messages we receive, we’ll have the opportunity to construct our own answers to these and other questions.