American movies which are highly ‘educative’, give a moral lesson and usually tend to end happily. But are happy endings in American movies always happy? Although it may seem so while watching the film, however after they are over, we are left with a strong feeling of unfulfillment.
Movies play an important role in the message conveyance and emotional manipulation as they involve both of our most important senses: the sight and hearing and thus have a greater impact on us.
Children are most prone to be influenced by what they see on the screen as they experience everything more vividly. Most of the fairy tales have happy endings, although some parts of them are sad. From them a clear lesson it transmitted: no matter how hard it may be in life, if you will be good, brave and strong, and will keep on trying to achieve your goals, you will manage and life will be fair to you. Some of them are based on the original fairy tales by, for example Hans Christian Andersen. These stories were modified by Walt Disney, so they end happily. One example of such a story is Andersen’s the little mermaid. In such stories not only the endings were changed to be happy, but the drastic scenes were cut out as well.
Also the tendency of creating happy endings can be observed in movies for adults and teenagers. Such movies are, for example, most of the American romantic comedies. The idea of idealized worlds in movies is mostly common in the USA and very influential on other cultures.
As previously said, the message from happily ending movies states, basically, that ‘no matter what if you try you will manage’. This can encourage the audience to keep on trying to achieve their goals, however, I think that such endings cause more harm than good. In my opinion they rather discourage the audience, as their message can be understood as: ‘no matter what you’ll manage, so why keep on trying?’. This can be destructive especially for children, who start getting to know the world and are not aware of its dangers.
As it comes to adults, it is less harmful, but creates an illusion of life how it is not in reality. For some naïve people they can have similar impact as the illusions created by Photoshop, etc. Nonetheless, happy endings are not completely destructive and should not be seen as such. Sometimes it is healthy to get detached from reality. Movies are, all over, for entertainment.
It still is a topic of many discussions, whether children should be presented only with happy endings or if they should be informed about the truth, in order to be prepared for the tough future awaiting them. Sometimes it is nice to reach for the ‘American movies’, to relax and recover from reality, but they should not be taken very seriously.
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