That was my reaction when I saw the trailer for Valentine's Day:
I suppose it doesn't help that it looks like a weird-ass knockoff of Love Actually set in Los Angeles. It doesn't help that it centers on Valentine's Day, which to me has always been more about romance than actual love.
What really chafes my hide is how everyone in that trailer is whining about wanting to be in love and how it's so damn wonderful. Maybe I'm a pragmatic loonie, but I think that they're missing out on what love means.
Love is fucking hard. When I think of love, I think of U2's One. It's bitter, angry and also optimistic in that no matter what you don't leave a relationship. It's not just the roses, the walking-on-air feeling of new romance, the discovery and the fun. It's also the sleepless nights of uneasy silence when you battle with someone. It's taking care of sickness, fighting to get your voice heard, making compromises and oodles of insanely hard things.
What I've always hated is how people will always paint love as a magical cure-all that will somehow make you feel better and make life all sunshine and lollipops. It does make things sweeter, but it also makes the hard stuff harder -- BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BE A SELFISH DICK AND DO YOUR OWN DAMN THING. You have to take into account other people and their wants and needs.
And it feels like no one really addresses that these movies. Which is why I can't deal with most romantic comedies. It just makes me want to punch love in the face.
2 comments:
And that is why I loathed Love Actually. The ONE long-term relationship in that movie failed by the end. Now maybe the writer was trying to make a comment about the end result of all the lovey dovey goop, but the rest of the stories praised love-at-first-sight and the first glow of new romance. Few romantic comedies really capture anything like real love, so I agree, I want to punch them in the face.
It's not just the roses, the walking-on-air feeling of new romance, the discovery and the fun. It's also the sleepless nights of uneasy silence when you battle with someone. It's taking care of sickness, fighting to get your voice heard, making compromises and oodles of insanely hard things.
Oh, you with your crazy sense-making and life experience!
Post a Comment