In Which Romantic Comedies are a Distressing Microcosm

So, the other evening, My Dear Old Friend Cat and I went and saw that current Sandra Bullock romantic comedy, “The Proposal” which, I grant you, was in a sense our first error {also, this post carries a definite Spoiler Alert: if you feel that in watching this movie you will be otherwise able to suspend disbelief and be surprised by it, as long as it isn’t “spoiled” for you, don’t read on until you’ve gotten that done}. First up, though, a caveat emptor, I know these movies are trashy, and it’s clearly foolish to read too much into them, and also knowing this, I sort of love them for what they are. In the same way that one might know that a McDonalds Sundae is bad for one, and unfulfilling, and very probably made of pig fat or something, but still occasionally you just… you just really want one. Ultimately, I know that I was sort of asking for it, seeing a movie like this, but I swear that sometimes it’s ok.

[Um, this is the point in the post where I’ve reread this before posting, and have cut the next three paragraphs on the grounds of being an excessively in-depth critique of a movie which no-one else is ever going to see anyway. If you feel that your life would be improved by the reading of these paragraphs, let me know.]

I know we all know how it goes and all: they hate each other, blah blah blah, they fall in love, but here’s the thing: the whole point of the movie is to fill in the “blah blah blah” blanks. Going “you know how this works, guys, let’s just take it as read, shall we?” is totally cheating. We can get the beginning and the end from the poster.

This is all kind of by-the-by, though, really. This is just my failure to properly suspend critical thinking. (Which is the feeling I so often get in PopMed lectures, more on which another day). The thing that was really quite odd, and which seemed like maybe it was indicative of more wide-ranging weirdness was this: in one scene, the Heroine Opens Up and confesses and number of slightly embarrassing personal things to the Hero, and one of them is that she hasn’t had sex in a year and a half. The Hero, ‘naturally’, is amused and a little disgusted. “Eighteen whole months?” he cries (well, queries) “Are you serious?”. Um what? This is supposed to be an intensely private woman who’s been on her own for a very long time. Here’s a thought: 18 months is hardly long enough for this sort of lull.

Leaving aside the character problems again, (even ‘what kind of jerk reacts that way to confidences?’) this seems to be very much a broader issue. People are really weirded out by the idea that other people are not shagging basically any time that they’re not with us. Whenever it comes up in movies, people are horrified to learn of each others’ spells of celibacy - spanning sometimes almost whole months! It’s really almost like it’s grosser than some kind of pustulent sore or something. Now, I don’t want to bring my baggage to the fore, here, and I’m not trying to say that people who have sex with people whom they neither know nor much like are a bunch of skanks, or anything, but…. (I have no way to satisfactorily finish that sentence). But really, c’mon!

How is it that we could find it grotesque to not sleep with someone, anyone? I consider myself very lucky to know a wide range of interesting and attractive people. I have literally hundreds of lovely friends and acquaintances. But there is not a single one with whom I currently have the slightest intention of sleeping. No offence. I mean, I’m sure there are one or two whom I could grow to lust after, but seriously, am I expected to just shag one to “keep my hand in”? Because, uh, I’m not planning on it.

What’s the worst that could plausibly happen if I (or anyone) should fail to sleep with randoms so as not to let there be a long lag time? Oh that’s right, terrifyingly, people might judge me, people using a measure to which I absolutely do not subscribe or buy into the validity of. I would be considered maybe a bit prudish and if worst came to worst, maybe someone would speculate that I was “frigid” for some awful reason, and that no-one could ever want to sleep with me. That is seriously the very worst case scenario (and also it’s clealy bollocks).

Conversely, if I shag randoms to keep my numbers up, the worst case scenario involves bits of me falling off, itchily. This worst-case is exactly as likely as the other one, which is to say, still not very, but it seems pretty clearly worse to me.

Far more likely in the ‘chaste’ option is that after a non-specified while, a period of time I can certainly deal with, I meet someone I like enough to want to sleep with, and everything works out for the best in this best of all possible worlds. This is eventually basically a certainty: there’s nothing repulsive about me, and I’m at least passably lovable, and lots of people are pretty cool, so I’m bound to reach a negotiated mutual-liking-type compromise at some point. Conversely, I am certain to feel trashy and regretful if I sleep with someone I don’t much fancy just to zero the meter.

Also, where does it end? Once you zero a count like that, it starts ticking again straight away! The constant pressure must be awful, and surely you’d go slowly mad, trying to stay ahead of your own mounting (hah) paranoia tickticktickisamonthtoolongtickticktick, tickticktickmorethanaweekmaybethere’ssomethingreallywrongwithyoutickticktick, tickticktickit’sbeenthreedaysnow,maybeyou’lljustgrowoveristhatevenpossibleticktickticktick…

Um, essentially what I’m doing here is not advocating chastity as the one true path to happiness and calling anyone who sleeps with people a crazy skank, but I really do kind of resent this thing in movies. It is perfectly valid not to be currently sleeping with anyone. Now I think about it, you even get it in otherwise high quality TV shows like Firefly (actually, now I think about it, the line in question is in Serenity, the sequel to the show, which was a movie, but it’s still totally canon, so it counts as both, so there). Kaylee is all “it’s been nigh on a year since I’ve had anything twixt my nethers ‘tweren’t run on batteries!”. Well, I mean, yes. You live on a spaceship and you have sexual tension with one of the few people you even meet, basically, in an ongoing way. Even leaving aside the of-course-you-haven’t-slept-with-anyone-it’s-deep-flipping-space point, you’re on task anyway . Having sexual tension should totally give you points for effort. Not many, maybe, but some.

So, I was going to write this whole post at this point about sexual tension and crushes and stuff, but this post is already pretty long, so it’s time for bed instead. Especially since there’s enough stuff there for a lengthy post all on its own, so it’d be better not following a post which scares away all the readers by starring Sandra Bullock in the opening paragraphs.