khaosworks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
khaosworks) wrote2009-03-16 10:05 am
khaosworks) wrote2009-03-16 10:05 am
I'm Just Not That Into The Movie
Now I've got that title out of my system, let's proceed. There be spoilers.
So I watched He's Just Not That Into You yesterday, a movie based on a book based on a premise in a Sex in the City episode, a better example of self-cannibalisation in the media I have not seen in a long time. One may ask why I'm watching a chick flick, and as usual, the only real reason I would is because I'm watching it with someone of the female persuasion, but I digress.
While the movie was superficially enjoyable, I came out of it with a vague feeling of unease. At first, I was thinking that it was because the movie was, at the end, shallow. It's based on a faux-self help book, supposedly offering humorous insights into relationships between men and women, but it didn't come up with any profound insights, even though it tried its damnedest to pretend it had some. I suppose if one could distill any moral from the various stories that meandered through this slightly-over-two-hour piece, it's that one has to basically be honest with the people you're seeing, or want to see, and that one shouldn't over think matters of the heart. Yeah, I know. Big whoop.
On a story level, there are basically four or five different stories that intersect in peripheral fashion. Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck play a couple who have been together for seven years, but he doesn't believe in marriage. Scartlett Johansson plays a yoga instructor and aspiring singer who keeps one guy (Kevin Connolly) hanging on the hook while getting involved with a married man (Bradley Cooper). Said married man is married to Jennifer Connelly, who works with Aniston and Ginnifer Goodwin, a young single who comes on too strong while looking for "the one" and obsesses about "signals" and winds up getting advice from a cynical and hardened supper club owner (Justin Long). Drew Barrymore plays an advertising accounts manager for a gay newspaper seeking love on the Internet.
Between what amount to vignettes are interspersed fake interviews like those in When Harry Met Sally, except that they are much less compelling. There's a lot of star power in this movie, but there's no real heart. Even the big emotional pay-offs to each story seem contrived and predictable. Of course Aniston and Affleck come to a head about the marriage issue, and of course Aniston accepts that Affleck doesn't want to get married in the end... and once that realisation is reached of course Affleck proposes. Of course the married man affair doesn't end well and Johansson and Cooper are left alone (Hollywood movie morality being what it is). Of course Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long get together in the end. And Barrymore's happy ending (with Connolly, who realises that his relationship with Johansson is going nowhere) seems almost an afterthought. There's also the underlying conceit that "signals" or the interpretation thereof are bullshit, although this is somewhat subverted by the idea that there's always "exceptions". The big catchphrase of the movie, quoted by some of my female friends who have watched the movie, is that despite the rules, "you're my exception" and therefore happily ever after will follow.
None of the resolutions surprised me in the least, and I thought that was the source of my general dissatisfaction with the movie. Sure, Terence, I hear you say - it's a formulaic Hollywood rom-com, it's fluffy and frivolous, so why are you overthinking it? Well, yes, initially I was hesitant in trying to articulate my problem with the movie precisely because I thought that was what it was. However, on reflection, I thought about people coming out from the movie thinking it presents some profound insight, and I balk a bit. And when I thought about it a bit more, I realised it wasn't the superficiality and predictability of the movie that bothered me, but the dark streak that runs through it.
Take the anecdote that begins the movie. A young girl is in a playground. She sees a boy. The boy comes over. He shoves her to the ground and tells her she's ugly or somesuch. The girl runs to her mother in tears. Her mother reassures her that the boy only did that because he likes her. And that creates the set-up for years, even decades to come - this masochistic idea that because a man treats the woman badly, he is in reality attracted to her, and explaining Goodwin's masochistic behaviour pattern. To a degree, the movie seems to be saying that this idea is nonsense, and Goodwin should take bad behaviour for what it is, but it subverts this message in the end because despite this rule - that when a guy is disinterested, it means precisely that - she winds up as Long's "exception". So it winds up validating the misconception after all. Put another way, she doesn't really wind up stronger or more independent at the end of it - the lesson she's learned all falls by the wayside because the lesson is invalid: Long treats her with disinterest but in the end, lo, he really is interested.
Next, take Aniston and Affleck. Affleck keeps saying that he doesn't need marriage to commit to Aniston. Aniston thinks otherwise. They argue. She gives him an ultimatum and kicks him out. She then sees her sisters who are married and realises that Affleck is a better "husband" than any of them, so she gives in, goes back to Affleck and tells him that it's okay, they don't have to be married. Then Affleck proposes, giving her the happy ending she's already said she doesn't need, and she accepts. What could have turned out to be a lesson about how relationships are what they are and don't necessarily need legal validation to cement them, as long as the two parties approach the matter as equals, is again subverted because, in the end, all a girl needs is marriage to be happy. Because despite her coming back to him and offering terms for his return, she's just a girl after all.
Connelly and Cooper are even weirder. He cheats on her, she wants to make the marriage work, and they start working it out... but then she discovers he's been smoking, and somehow that's a bigger deal - that he lies to her about smoking more than he lies to her about adultery (he came clean with the latter but not the former). Now, I can see where this might be flirting with the idea that, if he was lying about smoking, he's not to be trusted when he says he wants to work it out, but it winds up as Connelly freaking out about the less important thing. Okay, there's the fact that she's really concerned about this because her Dad died from lung cancer, but still.
And sex-kitten Johansson doesn't fare any better. She treats Connolly as a drive-by boyfriend, and loses him. She gets involved with a married man and gets punished for it. Precisely what are we supposed to learn from this? That a woman who doesn't choose between what's in front of her and goes for forbidden fruit deserves to be alone? That she should stay in a relationship that she's not invested in rather than go for a taboo one? That's a false choice - she should be realising that neither situation is for her, rather than exiting the story dazed and appearing to be going to India on some spiritual journey of penance.
I won't mention Barrymore all that much, because essentially, she's trying to find a connection but it just falls into her lap at the last minute. Not sure there's really anything in that.
All the women here are portrayed as weak or crazy. Goodwin is a stalker who ultimately gets together with a stalkee. Aniston appears to have the strength to accept her non-marriage situation but still caves to the proposal. Connelly is a crazy-eyed over-reactor. Johansson is punished for being caught in a false dilemma - you might as well get her to wear a red "A" on her forehead. Similarly, Cooper is punished for... what, exactly? Not wanting to be locked into a marriage he didn't want to be part of in the first place (he married her because she threatened to break up with him if he didn't)? Yeah, he screwed up by committing adultery, but that's not why she kicks him out in the end.
I don't know about you, but none of these women, babe quotient aside, appeal to me, and the way the movie treats them - Barrymore executive producing notwithstanding - is disturbingly misogynistic. Goodwin's behaviour, in particular, because she's cute, seems more ditzy than scary (taking Barney Stinson's "Hot/Crazy" scale into account), but... imagine if she had been played by, say, Roseanne Barr.
Maybe I am overthinking this, but this movie really does disturb me - not just for the way it portrays women, but for the messages that it might instil in women that watch it. Be weak, accept men on their terms, hope that you'll be a man's "exception", grab the apparent happiness that's before you even though it's not quite there because you should be in a relationship. I admit, I'm just as needy sometimes, but at least I don't approve of it in myself. While I realise that there's a lot of people out there who can meet my expectations, it doesn't mean I have to lower them. I still don't want to settle.
And, male or female, heterosexual or otherwise, neither should anyone else.
So I watched He's Just Not That Into You yesterday, a movie based on a book based on a premise in a Sex in the City episode, a better example of self-cannibalisation in the media I have not seen in a long time. One may ask why I'm watching a chick flick, and as usual, the only real reason I would is because I'm watching it with someone of the female persuasion, but I digress.
While the movie was superficially enjoyable, I came out of it with a vague feeling of unease. At first, I was thinking that it was because the movie was, at the end, shallow. It's based on a faux-self help book, supposedly offering humorous insights into relationships between men and women, but it didn't come up with any profound insights, even though it tried its damnedest to pretend it had some. I suppose if one could distill any moral from the various stories that meandered through this slightly-over-two-hour piece, it's that one has to basically be honest with the people you're seeing, or want to see, and that one shouldn't over think matters of the heart. Yeah, I know. Big whoop.
On a story level, there are basically four or five different stories that intersect in peripheral fashion. Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck play a couple who have been together for seven years, but he doesn't believe in marriage. Scartlett Johansson plays a yoga instructor and aspiring singer who keeps one guy (Kevin Connolly) hanging on the hook while getting involved with a married man (Bradley Cooper). Said married man is married to Jennifer Connelly, who works with Aniston and Ginnifer Goodwin, a young single who comes on too strong while looking for "the one" and obsesses about "signals" and winds up getting advice from a cynical and hardened supper club owner (Justin Long). Drew Barrymore plays an advertising accounts manager for a gay newspaper seeking love on the Internet.
Between what amount to vignettes are interspersed fake interviews like those in When Harry Met Sally, except that they are much less compelling. There's a lot of star power in this movie, but there's no real heart. Even the big emotional pay-offs to each story seem contrived and predictable. Of course Aniston and Affleck come to a head about the marriage issue, and of course Aniston accepts that Affleck doesn't want to get married in the end... and once that realisation is reached of course Affleck proposes. Of course the married man affair doesn't end well and Johansson and Cooper are left alone (Hollywood movie morality being what it is). Of course Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long get together in the end. And Barrymore's happy ending (with Connolly, who realises that his relationship with Johansson is going nowhere) seems almost an afterthought. There's also the underlying conceit that "signals" or the interpretation thereof are bullshit, although this is somewhat subverted by the idea that there's always "exceptions". The big catchphrase of the movie, quoted by some of my female friends who have watched the movie, is that despite the rules, "you're my exception" and therefore happily ever after will follow.
None of the resolutions surprised me in the least, and I thought that was the source of my general dissatisfaction with the movie. Sure, Terence, I hear you say - it's a formulaic Hollywood rom-com, it's fluffy and frivolous, so why are you overthinking it? Well, yes, initially I was hesitant in trying to articulate my problem with the movie precisely because I thought that was what it was. However, on reflection, I thought about people coming out from the movie thinking it presents some profound insight, and I balk a bit. And when I thought about it a bit more, I realised it wasn't the superficiality and predictability of the movie that bothered me, but the dark streak that runs through it.
Take the anecdote that begins the movie. A young girl is in a playground. She sees a boy. The boy comes over. He shoves her to the ground and tells her she's ugly or somesuch. The girl runs to her mother in tears. Her mother reassures her that the boy only did that because he likes her. And that creates the set-up for years, even decades to come - this masochistic idea that because a man treats the woman badly, he is in reality attracted to her, and explaining Goodwin's masochistic behaviour pattern. To a degree, the movie seems to be saying that this idea is nonsense, and Goodwin should take bad behaviour for what it is, but it subverts this message in the end because despite this rule - that when a guy is disinterested, it means precisely that - she winds up as Long's "exception". So it winds up validating the misconception after all. Put another way, she doesn't really wind up stronger or more independent at the end of it - the lesson she's learned all falls by the wayside because the lesson is invalid: Long treats her with disinterest but in the end, lo, he really is interested.
Next, take Aniston and Affleck. Affleck keeps saying that he doesn't need marriage to commit to Aniston. Aniston thinks otherwise. They argue. She gives him an ultimatum and kicks him out. She then sees her sisters who are married and realises that Affleck is a better "husband" than any of them, so she gives in, goes back to Affleck and tells him that it's okay, they don't have to be married. Then Affleck proposes, giving her the happy ending she's already said she doesn't need, and she accepts. What could have turned out to be a lesson about how relationships are what they are and don't necessarily need legal validation to cement them, as long as the two parties approach the matter as equals, is again subverted because, in the end, all a girl needs is marriage to be happy. Because despite her coming back to him and offering terms for his return, she's just a girl after all.
Connelly and Cooper are even weirder. He cheats on her, she wants to make the marriage work, and they start working it out... but then she discovers he's been smoking, and somehow that's a bigger deal - that he lies to her about smoking more than he lies to her about adultery (he came clean with the latter but not the former). Now, I can see where this might be flirting with the idea that, if he was lying about smoking, he's not to be trusted when he says he wants to work it out, but it winds up as Connelly freaking out about the less important thing. Okay, there's the fact that she's really concerned about this because her Dad died from lung cancer, but still.
And sex-kitten Johansson doesn't fare any better. She treats Connolly as a drive-by boyfriend, and loses him. She gets involved with a married man and gets punished for it. Precisely what are we supposed to learn from this? That a woman who doesn't choose between what's in front of her and goes for forbidden fruit deserves to be alone? That she should stay in a relationship that she's not invested in rather than go for a taboo one? That's a false choice - she should be realising that neither situation is for her, rather than exiting the story dazed and appearing to be going to India on some spiritual journey of penance.
I won't mention Barrymore all that much, because essentially, she's trying to find a connection but it just falls into her lap at the last minute. Not sure there's really anything in that.
All the women here are portrayed as weak or crazy. Goodwin is a stalker who ultimately gets together with a stalkee. Aniston appears to have the strength to accept her non-marriage situation but still caves to the proposal. Connelly is a crazy-eyed over-reactor. Johansson is punished for being caught in a false dilemma - you might as well get her to wear a red "A" on her forehead. Similarly, Cooper is punished for... what, exactly? Not wanting to be locked into a marriage he didn't want to be part of in the first place (he married her because she threatened to break up with him if he didn't)? Yeah, he screwed up by committing adultery, but that's not why she kicks him out in the end.
I don't know about you, but none of these women, babe quotient aside, appeal to me, and the way the movie treats them - Barrymore executive producing notwithstanding - is disturbingly misogynistic. Goodwin's behaviour, in particular, because she's cute, seems more ditzy than scary (taking Barney Stinson's "Hot/Crazy" scale into account), but... imagine if she had been played by, say, Roseanne Barr.
Maybe I am overthinking this, but this movie really does disturb me - not just for the way it portrays women, but for the messages that it might instil in women that watch it. Be weak, accept men on their terms, hope that you'll be a man's "exception", grab the apparent happiness that's before you even though it's not quite there because you should be in a relationship. I admit, I'm just as needy sometimes, but at least I don't approve of it in myself. While I realise that there's a lot of people out there who can meet my expectations, it doesn't mean I have to lower them. I still don't want to settle.
And, male or female, heterosexual or otherwise, neither should anyone else.