This new Katy Perry video for the song "The One That Got Away" is very romantic. It starts off with an old Katy Perry reminiscing about when she was younger. This is already romantic; she is young and innocent rather than old and experienced. In this flashback, she is with her boyfriend at the time. They don't seem particularly well off and are very artsy. These are two more romantic notions, poor vs rich and art vs science. They eventually get into a fight and he drives off, gets in a crash, and dies. In the end, when she's older, she visits the scene of the crash and "sees" a him. He touches her hand while they look into each others eyes for a brief moment. The song changes to Johnny Cash's "You are my Sunshine", a sad yet romantic song about love lost but not forgotten.
This video displays a stereotypical idea about an old love, the one that got away. We associate all of the aforementioned concepts (young, poor, artsy, innocent) with romance. Katy seems to be unhappy with how her life turned out and she can't stop longing for the romance that she used to have. It argues that romance and love are not guaranteed. While the video uses the young, poor, artsy, innocent themes to create a romantic ideal, it also further cements the idea that those concepts are romantic. If those themes exist elsewhere in the right context, then we consider that other thing romantic as well. This cyclical nature reinforces in us how to feel about different themes when we see them around us.
This a very good representation of the romantic. The distinction that love may not last forever is an interesting twist. But its not uncommon. In most Romances we see the heroine/ hero have to deal with some sort of tragic en. So one could say tragedy and romance can go hand-in-hand. Why doesn't love ever save someone from death is a good question, because there is always a short end of the stick, that may be what makes these genre's so appealing.
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