Dialectics: Love and Reality (Once)

Even as I am just beginning this blog post, I know I've made a major implication, just in the title: that love and reality are mutually exclusive. And I believe they are, but mostly in an inorganic portrayal; that is, in movies and television shows and popular books. I've found that these mediums used to express strong physical and emotional love rarely approach it in a realistic way.

For example, the lovely and intellectually-written Twilight novels... What Stephanie Meyer accomplishes with these books is effectively injecting Bella and Edward with every single fantasy she's ever had about love, most of which obviously would never come true. They're unrealistic, not just in the fact that a human and vampire are dating, but in the way their love is so overwhelming to their lives that they literally cannot function without each other. Now I'm not saying that this amount of passion and devotion doesn't exist, but rather asserting that it doesn't exist very often in the real world. It just seems silly and gratuitous to me. Maybe it's just my taste, but I'd like to be refreshed with something actually feasible once in a while. I hope that's not TOO much to ask.

Now when we look at love in real life, we find that it is rough and obscene and very unlike you see in the movies. Most people fail many times at trying to find love, and then we have the people who were paired up by computer programs (match.com, anyone?), and then it all ends with more than half of all marriages failing. Where do we find this in big Blockbuster love stories?

My proposed solution to all this actually already exists. Once, the movie starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, which was released a few years ago, is probably to most mature and realistic approach to love in a movie that I've ever seen. It doesn't sugar coat love by putting in on fairies' wings to lightly sail across the eyes of movie theater audiences everywhere. It shows love in the abrupt and imperfect way it really is: with a Hoover vacuum trailing faithfully behind. I know it's another Hollywood creation, just like Valentine's Day or Dear John, but this movie is so unlike those that it can make you open your eyes to the corniness surrounding you. Sure, chick flicks have their place in our lives, and they always will. But a realistic portrayal of love like Once is something to admire.

Blogging Around

This is in response to Alex's post about the use of the "-thing"s in the short story, Cathedral.

I'm with you on this one, Alex. The one thing I took away from Cathedral was the importance of the idea that epiphany doesn't have to be a grand spectacle that uproots someone's life. And you've showed me that his simple word choice in his descriptions emphasized the normality of his experiences. I also never realized how much I use the word "chose" in french class. But it's true; French is a foreign language to me (no pun intended) in the same way the language of epiphany is foreign to the narrator. Well said, Alex. xD


This is in response to Chelsea's post about the lack of intimacy in Cathedral.

This is interesting, Chelsea, but I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation. There's no doubt that the couple in the story has no intimacy: that much is very blatantly outlined. But I think relationships in real life don't need profound displays of intimacy to be quantified. And your choice to look for a lack of intimacy, in my opinion, is a little "glass half empty".
I think you may be having trouble finding intimacy in relationships because you're seeing high school relationships, which last an average of two months and consist of a lot of texting and not much else. I think once you move into a bigger world as you transition to college and your adult life, your views may change.