Red Flags, Romance, and Representation: What Movies Taught (and Didn't Teach) Us

Raise your hand if your teenage ideas about love were shaped by overly dramatic monologues, makeovers that “fixed” girls, and heartthrobs with... questionable behavior. 🙋🏽‍♀️ Yeah, us too.

One of us is a big horror flick fan. Can you guess who?

In Episode 4 of Listen, Mija, we go deep into the movie vault—from the 80s to the early 2000s—to unpack the real lessons pop culture fed us about romance, gender, and representation. Spoiler: It wasn’t all heart eyes and happy endings.

We talk about the red flags we missed as teens but can’t unsee now, like: 🎬 Love, Actually and its many problematic power dynamics 

🎬 Never Been Kissed — where a 25-year-old goes undercover and falls for a high schooler 🙃 

🎬 16 Candles and Christmas Vacation—full of racism, stereotypes, and redneck tropes 

🎬 She's All That and the “fix her with a flat iron” makeover trope 

🎬 Labyrinth, Cruel Intentions, American Beauty, and other stories that glamorized toxic age gaps and manipulative relationships

And of course, we couldn’t not talk about our problematic faves—those early heartthrobs who shaped our taste and then grew into headlines themselves. (Looking at you, Cry-Baby.)

But beyond the cringe (and there was so much cringe), we reflect on how pop culture deeply shaped our understanding of love, intimacy, and identity. When you grow up not seeing your culture on screen, or watching Latinos only portrayed through caricatures and crime roles, it changes how you see yourself—and what you think you deserve.

We also talk about how a lack of open conversations around sex, relationships, and self-worth in our households led us to look for guidance in films… that were never made for us.

So we ask:

• How much of our early heartbreak was rooted in these false ideals?

• Why did we normalize the red flags?

• And how do we unlearn the messages that no longer serve us?

This episode is part critique, part nostalgia trip, and part reckoning with the scripts we inherited from Hollywood—and how we’re rewriting them for ourselves and the next generation.

🎧 Listen to Episode 4 of Listen, Mija on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream.

 💬 Drop us a DM or tag us with the pop culture moments that you now see differently—we're all about unpacking the myths together.

Listen to the episode: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Podcasts | I Heart Radio

Don't forget to like, rate and subscribe! 

Listen on Spotify here:

Listen on Apple here:

You can also find us on socials here: Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube!