For the most part, I don't go blaming movies for people's actions, but sometimes I wonder if the super-quick weddings and subsequent divorces are all due to Hollywood's adoration of "love at first sight." Sure, the idea has been around forever, but forever ago, people weren't dating, getting to know each other, and then committing to each other as equals. Perhaps the theme provided a glamorization of life, and maybe a way to appease those young men and women doomed to arranged marriages, but these days, it's a ticket to strife. Yet no matter how much we evolve or regress as a society, love at first sight remains the main thrust of romantic entertainment.

The latest in the bunch: Variety reports that Youth in Revolt's David Permut is teaming with Dave Gross and Jesse Shapira to produce a new teen comedy called Pictures of You (written by Joshua Friedlander). The gist: A teen guy finds a lost camera on a beach in Florida, develops the film (that's got to change), and "he ends up on a quest to find the girl of his dreams, whose picture was discovered inside the camera." The script was on 2007's Black List, with company like Burn After Reading, The Duchess, Duplicity, Eagle Eye, Whip It, and Yes Man for 2 mentions. I can only hope that those pictures had this girl amongst a bunch of her interests, the boy titillated by her doing a myriad of interesting things rather than "Hot bod. *drool* Must stalk now." But I doubt it. (Have you read it? Weigh in below!)

Perhaps this is why I usually enjoy Manic Pixie Dream Girls and quirk like Zooey Deschanel -- most often, they get romance and it's usually do to a whole heck of a lot more than their looks. And what kills me about all of this is that to put aside "love at first sight" won't end romantic films or make them unpalatable to the public. Hollywood can still use the same safe tropes, the same gags, the same swelling music. Just give it a little more depth, a little more interaction, a basis beyond looks. It's not like the masses are going to recoil at the thought of love being based on more than just a picture in a camera. This theme is one extreme that has become mundane from overuse.

But what do you think? Are you also sick of "love at first sight," or does the romantic in you want it to continue on, full steam ahead?