What does it mean to be bound by love? Sometimes, the bonds of love supply bliss, and sometimes they demand sacrifice. Sometimes, experiencing love saves people, and sometimes it kills them. Being bound by love often engenders moral responsibility; in other cases, it enslaves and imprisons the soul. American mythologies—especially those presented in film and television—perpetuate love as the central narrative of one’s life; the search for a connection forged by love permeates every facet of human existence, from our desire to be accepted, or our longing to be needed, to our fury at being rejected. Sometimes love is the stuff of happiness, fulfilling in every regard. But there are also times when love makes us do things we should not do; sometimes it turns us into people we do not want to become.
The commonality between love that satisfies and love that destroys is the bond between people who open themselves to the vulnerability of love. Examination of the theme of familial bonds in film and television explores how the process of forming and maintaining those bonds complicates, revises, and reproduces ideas about love. The chapters in this book explore how the nature of bonds and familial responsibility inform a popular cultural dialogue about the changing nature of the American family over the past sixty years.
