post without a cohesive theme

As a rule, romantic comedies get the least respect of any film genre. That may well be a somewhat dubious distinction. After all, plenty of other shlocky movie genres produce their fair share of filmic excrement. Horny teenage boy comedies, for instance. Movies that are little more that montages of cars crashing into things, for instance. Moralistically propaganda-ish ensemble pieces posing as politically incisive artish things, for instance (think Traffic, Crash, Babel, et al. Yawn.) But somehow, these kinds of movies don't seem to draw the same kind of snorting, repulsed derision that romantic comedies do. Not even from, um, me.

Plenty will argue that the reason your average romantic comedy represents so much despicable-ness is because they fill women's head with unrealistic ideas about love and couplehood and relationships that are both endless and endlessly passionate. And that they are all the more horrendous because they are targeted specifically at women in the first place-- a largely sentimental and impressionable subset of the population who are unable to recognize the achingly obvious fantastical-ness of the rote happily-ever-after ending. Such arguments often end with their authors throwing their hands up in bafflement, deploring the fact that so many of us girls will collectively fork over millions for so much drivelly, drooly, lovey-dovey dreck. And those arguments are not without merit. Truly, it is amazing that all Hollywood can feed the cock-less portion of us is a bunch of brainless, un-nuanced, blindly optimistic, hokey hooey. And even more amazing that we will devour it (SATC, anyone? HJNTIY?) And most of them are formulaic and un-funny and they really are at least as bad as say, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby*.

But just for a second, let's entertain the idea that we cannot dismiss the entire genre without consideration. Although few of us guilty of this sort of generalization will want to admit it aloud (myself included), I worry sometimes that half the reason we all scoff at romantic comedies is not because they are, without exception, terrible, but rather specifically because they are geared towards women and are therefore less "serious." Or something. This article from Salon.com discusses assorted feminist theories that wonder if the reason there are so few female novelists in the canon of English-language prose is because of their subject matter. In other words, it asks whether we don't give adequate credit to women who may well possess remarkable wordsmithing talents because they choose to write of motherhood, wifehood, domestic life and sexuality over things like war, international politics, or professional life-- the stuff of which a preponderance of the most widely-taught literatures are made.

To me, it's difficult to compare "women's" literature or film by these criteria because so little of the work I love written by women pertains only those "female" topics-- most good ones are still politically situated; they can't help but be. And because so few of the books I love that were written by men address only these so-called "male" topics. With regard to literature, this argument presents a classic false dichotomy, as far as I can tell. With film, however, it's true the producers get together to plot out their marketing schema along gender lines. Pretty much every major Hollywood vehicle is designed specifically to appeal to one demographic or another, rather than to comment luminously on humanity and life and culture (a silly ambition best left to those sissified indie freaks with their digi-cams). Chick flicks are, in fact, aimed right at the greater Pussy Posse. And for that reason, it's kind of all the worse that they are, by and large, so bad. It's patronizing. But also, their intended target audience is also part of the reason, I'm afraid, that it's hard to take them seriously. They're meant for silly, frivolous girls. Which means that liking a chick flick is tantamount to proclaiming one's frivolity and intellectual (effeminate) feebleness from the hills. Well, sign me up for that! Wait. Don't.

So, just for a second, I'd like go back to the source and remember from whence the grand tradition of the romantic comedy sprung. When we were all in the 6th grade and had to read Romeo and Juliet for the first time, we were all taught the primary difference between a Shakespearean tragedy and a Shakespearean comedy. Anyone remember what that was? At the end of a tragedy, everyone important is dead. But at the end of a comedy, what happens? Yes! Everyone gets appropriately matched up and there's a big ol' festoony wedding. Nobody ever scoffed at A Midsummer's Night's Dream. Or Taming of the Shrew. No one ever assumed the The Tempest was fit for chicks and chicks alone. However, in terms of narrative arc, those plays really aren't tremendously divergent from whatever the latest unmemorable Lindsey Lohan venture might have been. Now, I'm not comparing quality of text or even depth of characters here--I'm just saying that the plotty skeletons of Shakespeare have an awful lot in common with the bare bones of your average chick flick. And in that light, their tradition seems touched with just a little golden grandeur, doesn't it?

Now, that brings me to a one rare gem of a romantic comedy that I think does just about everything right. I've been known to say, every now and again, that Secretary is the only chick flick I really and truly love. Often, folks raise their eyebrows at that assertion, avowing that Secretary ain't no kinda chick flick at all. But come on! It's got all the genre hallmarks. Sad mousy girl meets well-dressed, if awkward, man in a position of power over her. Man and girl exchange some signs of sexual interest in each other. Man and girl progress towards a sexual relationship until some obstacle arises and they have a falling-out. Girl sacrifices pride to win man back. Man and girl get married. The end. Isn't that the same plot (roughly) as Two Weeks Notice? Classic romantic comedy format. Except...

For all the times Secretary follows the rules, it breaks just as many. It's a story of two fucked up people who just happen to have matching baggage -- which is why I find it legitimately touching, rather than corny. Plus, it lends credence and autonomy to the choice to be a submissive woman. Lee isn't an abused woman. She isn't the enemy of female empowerment. She's just a girl seeking sexual transcendence through what are, for many of us, the necessary vehicles of degradation and ravishment. And bless her heart for that. In our post-Girl-Power era, it's still tough for even the most pluralistic feminist definitions to account for a character like Lee-- much less for real-life women who identify both with her and as feminists. Admittedly, I get her. Man-o-man-alive, do I get her. And I don't think I ever found James Spader so sexy, multiple kinky movies though he may have done (Sex, Lies & Videotape, the other Crash, et al), as when he jacked off onto the back of her silk blouse. Gnuuhh. Regardless, all their kink and all their hot, twisty battles for power don't change the fact that theirs is essentially a sugary, tender love story. With a happy, sexually fulfilling marriage at the end to boot. We should all be so lucky. (Ugh, Marjorie, even this romantic comedy is still a fantasy. Snap out of it.)

And now I come to my recent reading of Mary Gaitskill's first short story collection, Bad Behavior. Gaitskill's getting almost as much publicity as Flannery O'Connor right now, due to her upcoming release of another collection, entitled Don't Cry-- but I'd had Bad Behavior sitting on my shelf, unread, for a while now. It's the book that contains the short story on which the film Secretary is based. And I must say, it really is a lovely little book. The film diverges rather drastically from the short story "Secretary"-- which is not comedic at all, but rather stark and unmitigated in its description of that luscious sexual margin that wavers between that which arouses us and that which horrifies us, territory that resides squat in the middle of one of my favorite cerebral terrains. In my opinion, this disparity detracts from neither story nor movie. I recall, at its release, the movie took some shit for being touching, romantic and sexy while the story is difficult, ambivalent and ill at ease. But really, they are two very different entities. Both good, just not in the same ways.

In general, though, I found myself feeling oddly at home in this book. Gaitskill's got a reputation for writing characters on the sexual fringes. Her books are populated with part-time whores, folks with STDs, submissives, public masturbators, and people who osmose back and forth between the all-too-porous membrane that exists between the homos and the heteros. And though these narratives are suffused with a sort of angsty, uncomfortable sexuality, she has a very light, very frank touch when it comes to actually describing sex. No, these are not stories of sex. They're stories of social awkwardness.

I think I've probably written a little here and there about my distrust of the self-identification model of literature appreciation. Every once in a while, I've caught a clip of one of the Oprah's Book Club discussions-- you know the ones: all the women sit around and say they liked the book so much because they really saw themselves in it. Um. Yuck. This always rubs me the wrong way. Looking to literature to be a mirror of the reader is such a solipsistic-- though occasionally unavoidable--project that I think it really cheats the text of a proper discussion. Besides that, most of the stuff I read is, by design, fairly outside of my own frame of reference, so identifying with fictional character is just not something I do often. So, when it does happen, it's pretty unnerving. Enter here my experience reading Bad Behavior.

I grew up the younger sister of probably the most socially adept, golden charmer ever. When my brother graduated high school, he got voted "Most Likely to Succeed," "Class Favorite" and some other superlative like "Most Congenial" that he had to turn down because he was only allowed to accept two. The superlative that appears in my own yearbook hurt my feelings so badly that I can't quite bring myself to repeat it here-- not because it was true (it wasn't-- far from it) but because its lack of truth reflected just exactly how little my classmates knew me. Years beyond my adolescent gracelessness, I continue to feel edgy at family gatherings as the inevitable comparisons between the my brother and I play out in my own head, even if they aren't happening in anyone else's. He's the laughing, assured goofball and I'm the sullen, moody, self-absorbed troll. In other words, regardless of table, you can always find me sitting behind the name card reading "Socially Awkward Kid Sister." This seems to be an intractable part of my self image.

So, when Gaitskill writes of people who bear much contempt for arty pretentiousness and yet can't seem to help participating in it themselves, I think, "oh god, I know." When she writes about the aspiring writer/prostitute who gets off on her lover's ascribing to her a certain "exoticism" and outre charm that she herself knows she does not possess, I cringe a little with recognition. Some characters talk a little too loudly, some overshare, some default into annoyingly psychologizing dialogue. And none of them seem to feel particularly comfortable in the company of other humans.

All of that is itchily familiar. So much so that I'm barely aware of Gaitskill's lilting and exact writing. Her artfulness is subtle to the point of subliminality and yet it is no less arresting than some of the best language-forward poetics I've read. It feels like it's been quite some time since I've read much fiction that didn't fall within somebody or other's definition of "experimental." As such, this 20-year-old books feels refreshingly straightforward in its diction and style.

I did try to read Gaitskill's novel Veronica a couple of years ago, and though I responded to its style, I put it down-- it was winter and that is one bleak book. I think it's about time I try again, though, and I do hope to find the same taut muscularity in Don't Cry as there is in Bad Behavior. Short stories are preferable for on-the-metro reading anyway. To that end, I've also just finished Rikki Ducornet's new book, One Marvelous Thing and am currently picking through Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God. Both entirely entertaining, both parceled out in blessedly brief bursts.

Unlike this weird, meandering post. *sigh*

* N.B. The blogger behind this post would like to acknowledge that she has never seen The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and is quite likely to be talking out her ass. To the fine folks behind the production of that film, this blogger sincerely apologizes if you have, indeed, made a film of the highest artistic caliber. It's just that she has her doubts that this is the case.