Musings, tips and the occasional rant from the world of online dating.
I know the movie Must Love Dogs came out a while ago but I just caught it last night on HBO for the first time. It is an OK movie but while watching it all I could think about was: What was PerfectMatch thinking? Why would they want to be associated with this? Not because the movie was bad but because the portrayal of online dating was.
I understand the marketing and promotion idea behind getting your name out in a big screen flick with great actors like John Cusack and Diane Lane. Yet everybody in the movie is lying on his or her profiles or other people have set them up for them.
I thought PerfectMatch was similar to eHarmony or Chemistry.com but that is not what it looks like. You would think it was just like every other dating site out there after watching this movie. You surf through a bunch of profiles looking for someone to strike your fancy not that you are matched via some type of personality compatibility matching system.
Speaking of compatible none of her matches were. If I were PerfectMatch I wouldn’t have wanted to be portrayed in this way. Diane Lane’s character Sarah is signed up by her sister, so, hopefully the sister knows something about her. Otherwise where is the compatibility? Then when Sarah meets these people they are made up of every dating cliché out there. Like the guy who wants to date much younger or the weird guy who cries and can’t understand why he never gets any second dates. These are the matches she got from PerfectMatch. The ones she didn’t go out with were even worse.
Again I ask why would you want to associate yourself with this crappy portrayal of online dating. The only good thing about the movie was John Cusack’s character Jake and his assertion that two people should just put a lot of the small talk by the wayside and be open and honest with their dates. Giving each person a chance to learn about and get to know the real person. If they don’t like it then “you shake hands after dinner and never see each other again.â€
Anyways that is my take on this. Have you seen Must Love Dogs? What did you think how online dating was portrayed? If you were PerfectMatch or any other online dating site would you have wanted to be attached to this? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
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July 10th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
The impression that dating sites are filled with bad apples is already pervasive in our society. The demographic that this movie is targeted at (divorced baby boomers) has already made this assumption. Some of them have chosen to join a service despite this assumption, but this movie is really aimed at the millions of people who have not joined a service because they feel ‘they are not the type of person who would do that.’ They feel that they are different, better, or above the fray. These are the people that identify with the characters of Jake and Sarah. The movie affirms that, yes, you will have some quirky dates with oddballs, but in the end PerfectMatch.com will help you find the other ‘I dont fit in here, but will try it anyways.’ perfect partner. Everyone (especially Boomers) wants to believe that they are the exception and the unique one in the crowd and that they will be the ones who find the other ‘unique exception’. PerfectMatch.com benefits because people see themselves as being just like Sarah and Jake, who obviously benefited from using PerfectMatch’s service.
July 10th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
[…] Recently the online dating blog eWooing.com posted an article discussing the question: “Why would PerfectMatch.com want the publicity generated by their placement in Must Love Dogs?” […]
September 25th, 2006 at 8:17 am
I think the simple exposure in being spot-lighted in a major film was more benifital, from a business/matketing perspective, than the negative stigma attached to on-line dating.
Any publicity is good I suppose.