Rebecca Davis questions the motives and mechanics of Mzansi Magic’s 'Love Back' reality show Are romantic comedies harmful for women? That question might seem like a parody of the kind of thing feminist groups discuss over a goblet of menstrual blood or two, but it was dissected quite compellingly by The Atlantic publication recently.Rom-coms are particularly bad about blurring the line between "romance" and "disturbing behaviour".Men in rom-coms are constantly proving their love by doing stuff that could get them slapped with a restraining order in other contexts: following women around; hiring private investigators to track women down; showing up outside their houses and playing loud music.story_article_left1A study earlier this year found that rom-coms can indeed foster the dangerous belief that stalking - which is a crime, let's not forget - can be romantic.(Please note, however, that stalking is only considered romantic when heterosexual men do it. When women follow men around begging for their attention they are either scorned as desperate, or demonised as insane bunny-boilers.)I was thinking about all this recently while watching Mzansi Magic's reality show Love Back, now returned for its fourth season.The show's stated mission is to "reduce the number of broken hearts" by "reuniting lovers". You write in to Love Back with an explanation of why your relationship with an ex failed, and why you want them back. Then host Thomas Gumede tries to stage-manage an on-camera reunion which will end in rekindled love.Except very often it doesn't, because it's extremely rare in real life for relationships to end without any good reason. Unlike in rom-coms, in real life people seldom break up due to a comical misunderstanding which is later resolved in minutes and all is forgiven. People break up because life is hard, complicated and often boring.On the Facebook page for Love Back, people have posted some applications to enter the show. Here is a sample explanation for a failed romance: "We used to be happy till I fell pregnant in 2014 and he forced me to do an abortion, that's when we started fighting and I cheated, he found out about that and we fixed things then I fell pregnant 2015 and I cheated because I was scared to tell him, we fixed things and he cheated then we broke up, last week we talked things through and he saw that my ex liked my pictures on Facebook and he got mad."Does that sound like a relationship which could benefit from a do-over with a TV camera in their faces?DStv says that the show "pays tribute to the resilience and optimism of romance". I think it's another example of the entertainment industry trying to persuade us that when it comes to love, dogged persistence is all it takes.WATCH: A clip from Mzansi Magic's Love Back..