WATCHING a ‘Love Team’ in the Philippines is like cheering for the couple next door. Their chemistry isn’t just for the screen. For many Pinoys, it feels personal— a part of their own story. 

From iconic pairings like Sharon Cuneta and Gabby Concepcion, Claudine Barretto and Rico Yan, and Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin, to more recent ones like Alden Richards and Kathryn Bernardo, as well as Barbie Forteza and David Licauco, Love Teams are undeniably one of the strongholds of the Philippine pop culture. 

Some of these star-crossed pairs have captured our hearts from their teenage years, growing up in front of the camera. We’ve seen them fall in love on-screen, sometimes even off-screen. On rare occasions, we even witness them find their happily-ever-after. 

When this happens, they become a beacon of hope for Filipinos dreaming of their own love stories. 

But while it’s tempting to see Love Teams as fairytales come to life, they are often nothing more than a carefully constructed ideal of love—a make-believe romance designed to launch careers into stardom. At their core, they are commercial products crafted to fuel the industry and fill the pockets of those who orchestrate our illusions of love.

In a capitalist society, Love Teams serve as examples of how abstract notions such as ‘love’ have been commodified. They use our emotions to become part of a larger cultural production that sells us ideals that align with the values held by the reigning power in our society. 

Love Teams are carefully packaged romances, wrapped in kilig and sold as the ultimate love story. They may not seem dangerous—at least not in a physical sense—but as brutal fandom wars online have shown, where words become bullets and speculations ruin reputations, their impact extends beyond the stars themselves. They also affect fans who develop parasocial relationships and become deeply invested in a love story that was never truly theirs.

This shows how modern love can be shaped not by genuine intimacy, but by what is consumed and marketed in a society.

Emotional Capitalism

Eva Illouz, an Israeli-French professor and one of the most successful sociologists today, has conceptualized Emotional Capitalism as a framework that examines the intersection of emotion, culture, and capitalism. 

In this, she explains how emotions, especially love, have become commodified and industrialized under capitalist systems. 

For example, romantic films, TV shows, and advertisements often portray idealized versions of what love is. These depictions aim to elicit emotional responses from the audience that would affect their consumer behavior— that is their desire to buy products to enhance or perfect their romantic lives. 

In the context of the Love Teams, the pairings are manufactured by the entertainment companies, where celebrity couples are promoted as idealized romantic partners. The emotions they generate are consumed by the audience through mass media, social media, and the merchandise. They often appear in advertisements or campaigns that promote products that profit from their romantic image. 

Audiences are often encouraged to believe that the emotions portrayed by Love Teams are genuine. This is why actors and actresses in these pairs are sometimes discouraged from pursuing relationships outside of the spotlight or with individuals who aren’t their on-screen partner. 

This, along with the fan service performed outside the movies and television shows, is what Illouz calls manufactured authenticity, where emotional labor is performed to maintain a certain image of love. 

Consequences of commodified love

But what happens when love is commodified? What are the dangers of subscribing to the Love Team culture?

Well, love— something that would have supposedly provided us with an intimate and private experience— turns into something that can be sold and consumed. And when that happens, it becomes more of a transactional relationship rather than an authentic one. 

In her 2011 book Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation, Illouz said that modern societal structures that are defined by the culture of individualism, commodification of romance, and influence of consumer culture have redefined love, which makes them sources of anxiety and dissatisfaction rather than providing affective gratification. 

A transactional view of romance is also often idealized, leading to unrealistic expectations of how it truly works. Audiences begin to expect relationships that mirror the perfect scripted moments that are enacted by the Love Teams, where conflicts are resolved smoothly and romance is always about the excitement. It compromises the reality which requires effort, reciprocity, and good communication to maintain a healthy relationship. 

It can also put pressure towards the actors in the Love Team to maintain a specific image of love that their fans expect. For example, they might be pressured to break it off with their real-life partner to maintain the trajectory of their career, or to protect the latter from experiencing harassment from the viewers who are obsessed with them. 

Meanwhile, if they become involved in a real-life relationship with their on-screen partner, it would be harder for them to break it off when the time comes as they would probably be pressured into staying so as not to disappoint their fans.

This can lead to emotional manipulation of both the actors and the audience, where personal lives are sacrificed to sustain the narrative sold to the public.

For the audience, they can be sucked in by the illusions of intimacy as their emotional attachments to the Love Team becomes deeper. This creates a dilemma because, as we know, the image of love that they are subscribing to is not real, but a market-driven ideal meant to keep the profit flowing. 

A love lesson

Love Teams are not inherently bad— you can even say that they’re the product of artistic intentions that are meant to reflect our beliefs about the things we hold close to our hearts. 

It is not bad to try to escape your world sometimes and delve into the fantastical versions of the things we want to experience, romance being one of them. 

But we must also be aware of where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. As we watch the on-screen Love Teams, we must remember that we do not know it all— what is presented to us is a curated idea of what love is supposed to look like. 

Love is not something that can be manufactured or sold— it’s built on real, imperfect connections, a messy and beautiful connection that goes beyond the glow of our screens.