it’s no good

It’s No Good – Depeche Mode
Tonight the Red Queen and I watched 27 Dresses, the romantic comedy about a woman who was always a bridesmaid, but never a bride. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit the film was entertaining, and ultimately, that is the only standard by which a film should be measured.

But the one thing that kept me from truly enjoying the film was knowing that the film was developed for the sole reason of tapping the biggest cash cow in the industry: Women who have unrealistic expectations of relationships and love. They are legion and they are powerful. Some day, when the world ends, you can be sure that a woman, depressed about her romantic life, will be behind it.

To just gain an insight into how well Hollywood understands the idea of women as consumers, one of the highest grossing films of the year is a movie based on a popular cable show about a gaggle of materialistic shrews living, working and fucking in New York. Any woman with even a microbe of self respect coursing through her veins would avoid such role models, but unfortunately, we live in a world that values fame over substance. Hollywood does its part to promote this culture of celebrity, but still, they are only selling what people are willing to buy. And women stand in lines blocks long to be saturated with visions of perfect love and perfect shoes.

The highest grossing film of all time, Titanic, is a romantic drama. Not a movie about aliens destroying the Earth, or cute robots joining a rebellion to fight an evil empire, or adventurers racing to uncover the mysteries of the universe… its about a rich, lonely, white woman falling for the roguish, but handsome lower class hero. This is the fantasy that all women want… they want to be swept away by the passion and emotion of the Hollywood fairy tale without any of the day-to-day rigors of maintaining a healthy relationship. Which is essentially why most women born after 1960 will have at least 2 marriages in their lifetime. While I have no empirical data to support my hypothesis, I bet I am not far off.

Most of the women I know around my age have been married at least once, quite a few of them twice, and as many as four of them have been married three times. I don’t believe it is because they are not good people. I believe the reason why they fail is because they have incredibly unrealistic expectations when it comes to relationships. Most of them like the idea, the concept, the fantasy of a marriage, but lack the mental bandwidth to understand that a marriage isn’t roses and champagne every day. In fact, I would argue that any adult, sexually exclusive relationship is 360 days of mundane experiences, and 5 perfect days per year. Anything more than that would be an amazing accomplishment.

As you can probably tell, I am anti marriage. I believe that no relationship is improved by marriage. A wise man once said that a marriage is union forged between a woman who thinks she can change her man, and a man who thinks his woman will never change. I doubt truer words have ever been spoken/written.

And just because I like it, here is a picture of a waterfall on the other side of the island…