" Love as an ideal was far from new; it was already held by Victorians as a supreme value. What was new was not sentiments per se but the increasing visibility of romantic behaviors such as petting and kissing in the public settings, often opulent and glamorous, represented everywhere through the collective and ubiquitous mass media, and the merging of these behaviors with values opposed to the sexual and moral reserve of Victorians. Mass culture did not create the ideal of romance, nor did it inspire it in the actors of the period. What it did do, however, was transform the old romantic ideal into a 'visual utopia' that combined elements of the 'American dream' (of affluence and self-reliance) with romantic fantasy. "

― Eva Illouz , Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism