Is Disney's Love Language Universal?

Even though it’s a genuine feeling and a natural part of being human, love is heavily influenced by cultural, social, historical, and even commercial factors.

At this point, I bet everyone here has heard of the whole "Disney romance" concept, which basically trains us from a young age to believe in a kind of love that’s explosive, pure, light, easy, and, sadly, completely unrealistic. For those who've already woken up from Sleeping Beauty's nap, it's clear how these beliefs negatively influence the way we see relationships and create expectations about how they should work. Besides being unreal, it's destructive (self-destructive, even).

But hey, just because it’s not real doesn’t mean we can’t hope or wish for something like it. It works more as a clear example of how we've been (and still are) influenced by the media to believe in a fantasy version of love, all for commercial reasons. We bought into the idea of a person who perfected something that is sweet, fun, special, and unique, but we turned it into a standard that is impossible to replicate and doesn't apply to the social, historical, or even commercial contexts of our current society.

Okay, long intros first, straight-to-the-point goals later. So, let’s get right to it: with so much cultural diversity and different media and products being consumed, does Disney still manage to make the language of love universal?

This “Issue” comes from a personal experience. Before I turned 20, I moved to a country with a culture totally different from mine. I met people with completely different customs and sociocultural backgrounds, with just one thing in common: Disney.

Commercially speaking, Disney is a global brand, which means, at least in theory, the whole world knows its stories, characters, beliefs, and of course, its take on love and how to make people believe in it. To put it plainly, I lived in France for a while around my 20s, and there's even a theme park in Paris. So, in the city already famous as the "City of Love," with all its romantic lights and stuff, there was still that Disney charm in the air to complete the picture. But despite the country's already romantic vibes, what truly made my heart race and gave me an even more special and incredible experience was falling in love. Like, for real. FOR. REAL.

Okay, I’ll admit it, the lights were magical and the tower pulled me out of reality so much that I wondered if I ever really knew what living was before seeing it for the first time. But nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience after seeing the bluest, most drownable eyes of my life. At that moment, no part of Paris held more love than I did. Deep? I hope so, but I promise I'm over it now and there are no such strong feelings left. I just checked some stuff I produced back then and made this inference (I'm an aspiring artist, so please be nice).

I easily checked off the first step in the Disney lover's handbook: Love at first sight? Check. Prince Charming? Check. It was mutual? Surprisingly, check.

The thing is, as each day went by and our love seemed to grow, we appeared to be forgetting something—kind of like an elephant in the room that we didn't talk about before we ran out the door to live our lives, locking it inside without food, water, or any chance of survival. All while we were out living on cheap wine that felt like champagne bubbles.

Any guesses?

Yeah, when you get romantically involved with someone from another continent, all the factors we mentioned earlier come into play. Like, ALL of them.

Our relationship didn't last long enough for this to really mess with our dynamic, but it was always weird how some jokes would just fly over one of our heads because they didn't make sense. And even though we were always willing to compromise to embrace each other's differences, you couldn't deny it created some challenges. And of course, how could we not talk about... the tongue.

No, I'm not talking about kissing—Brazilians and the French have that in common. I’m talking about the mother tongue (yep, I had to use the word ‘tongue’ to make that land as cool as I imagined). As much as we spoke a common language very fluently, we still weren't fluent in each other's native language. And even if we were, do you really think fluency can capture the full weight of a language's complex cultural baggage — a language that is alive — without a proper immersion of at least, say, 10 years?

Not to brag, but I'm pretty comfortable with English (boo, English is not my first language for those who didn't know), and I know a lot about its historical context. But here we're specifically talking about a language that's spoken worldwide and is, with all due respect, pretty easy to learn, which makes the whole cultural immersion process way easier. Plus, we consume English daily almost everywhere in the world with movies, TV shows, books, social media, and music. Yep, Taylor Swift was my English teacher. Wasn't she yours?

So, moving on, let's just agree that there are several hurdles to overcome when you get romantically involved with someone from another country. But for now, let's focus on language and culture, both tied to the idea of cultural baggage.

Like I said, we didn't necessarily have major problems with everything I'm mentioning, but the elephant was there, ready to wake up and maybe put us on alert about certain aspects of our relationship. I don't believe that every relationship should be solely focused on ending in marriage. Sure, the goal is to be with someone for life, or at least for a long time, but when you consider our age, our society, and life's famous learning curve, I think it's also valid to see relationships as experiences that help us grow, prepare us for what's next, and build us into human beings who understand our own desires, goals, and frustrations.

Furthermore, being in a relationship with someone from a completely different culture is, to say the least, an interesting experience. Personally, I had so much fun that I decided to create a platform for people from all over the world to share their experiences (yep, this basically turned into the NM4u origin story). Turns out, one of the things I love most about humanity is our ability to discover new things and reinvent ourselves based on those discoveries EVERY SINGLE DAY. In my eyes, nothing is more amazing than that. Of course, I also appreciate the people I know who share super similar opinions, tastes, and cultural backgrounds, because deep down, part of living is also finding surprises in what you already know.

My takeaway is this: even with all the commercialism embedded in global culture, when you step out of the Disney fantasy-love utopia and into a real relationship, if you haven't let go of those concepts sold to us since childhood, anything — literally anything — can shake your foundations. And no, I'm not pretending I'm someone who's over it, because I'm not even close. In fact, it feels like I'm heading in the opposite direction, and sometimes, that scares me.

Now, I want to hear from you! I'd be so glad to read your thoughts and experiences on this 'Issue' in the comments. On second thought, if you guys don't get sick of this story too soon, I’ll use it for an episode of “Small Conversations.” OOPS. You don’t know what that is yet, right?

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