Why I hate Chick Flicks.
Nothing makes a guy want to bash his brains out with the nearest blunt instrument than hearing from his loving princess-of-the-universe, who previous to this day had only his best interests at heart, these words - “Darling, shall we go catch that new Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie, it’s so rooooooooo-mantic, you know!”Implicit in those disingenuous words are the thoughts, ” You fat in-bred mongoose, when was the last time you did anything romantic for me - sprinkle rose petals on my boudoir, serenade me in an oh-so-adorable-off-key rendition of ‘I will always love you’, rush through rush-hour traffic on your motorbike to stop me leaving the country/city/continent once you realised that our love was pre-destined and that you had to do anything to reunite our love.”I have always wondered if there was a conspiracy by an elite bunch of female hollywood screen-writers to make life for us average-joes, an eternal series of leaps through loops of circus-rings. “Jump, jump…jump now…there’s a good boy! there’s a good boy! Now go pamper her in every way imaginable and no, no no no…don’t ask for anything in return. You don’t love her if you do and she’ll think you think she’s got a fat bum.”
I wonder if it’s basically a self-fulfilling prophecy on their part - women want to be treated this way so they make some movies about getting swooped off their feet by some strapping scandinavian lad with more pecs and money than sense. Soon enough, every woman is walking around thinking, “Hey, waitjustanimit, my man should be treating me like that too! Heck, that should just be the baseline, gimme jewels, gimme romance, gimme gimme gimme, more more more.”
Yup, pretty soon hollywood became realised actual reality and we simple blokes were left running around in circles, vaguely buying her this or that to meet up to some imaginary movie standard of romance. I’m not saying that women should not be pampered, but that these chick-flicks have permanently damaged us blokes - leaving us impossible standards to maintain throughout our lives.
In these movies, you see a particular snapshot of their lives. Jeez, how much of their lives can be covered in 120 mins. What’s delightfully absent is well, uhmm….. the rest of life. So what’s the usual cliche` driven plot for these movies : guy meets girl, guy pisses girl off cos he’s rich/spoilt/arrogant/a cyborg from the future or girl pisses guy off cos she’s rich/spoilt/bitchy/slept with all of his best friends. 20 mins of why they both can’t stand each other neatly segues into some romantic interlude where they’re forced to work/sleep/live/save some historical landmark together and they discover that they’re falling for each other.
That normally takes about 30 mins or so. Now we move onto the bit where due to some carelessly thought out plot device where they realise that their attraction is wrong cos - they both made a bet at work to make someone fall in love with them/his ex-gf wants him back/she feels that he’s not commited enough/he wants to name the dog Krull and she FiFi.
That’s about 30 mins of crying, reflection, male lead’s buds helping him make a difficult decision which really isn’t a decision cos if he chose to go bonk his next-door neighbour , we wouldn’t have a full movie so we’re back to where we started - in what is only a surprise to a nihilistic pessimist from mars - the two leads live happily after.
And now leaving the theatre, I can feel the eyes of my girl boring into the back of my skull as I nonchalantly suggest that we grab a bite to eat somewhere. I can hear her thinking, “It better be a posh place, there better be violins and hell, there better be a menu with unpronounceable names.”
So in the spirit of satire, let me suggest some good sequels to these movies which have done more irreversible damage to males than when the Chinese Emperor decided he wanted a court of eunuchs.
- You’ve got Mail 2 : Email from Debra. Debra, Ryan’s and Hank’s daughter in college emails them asking for more money and that she’s pregnant. Don’t worry about anything folks, cos the father Rico, an illiterate dung-trader from Guatemala, has promised to marry her and raise the child up back in his shanty-town.
- Sleepless in Seattle 2 : Tom Hanks is sleepless in seattle cos Meg Ryan is bonking russell crowe in miami. Need I say more.
- Titanic 2: Back from the Deep. DiCaprio ain’t really dead, he was just hibernating in the cold waters. Perfectly preserved, he’s found when they raise the Titanic from the sea-bed and convert it into a massive space-going vessel. Prettyboy Leo suffers from permanent brain damage due to ice crystallisation in his blood and wanders the decks stark raving mad. Meets and falls in love with circus midget on board. One-palm-on-car-window scene later, finds out she’s already betrothed to the bearded lady. Gets shot in the face and dies horribly. Never did like that Dicaprio fella. Hey , but everybody else lives happily ever after.
Allright, now of course, we guys have our own genre of idealised romance. Where the women are gorgeous, men are strapping behemoths and there’s an occassional german shephard somewhere. Thank god for porn.
Why I love stupid people
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell.
In a perfect world, that would have been my post and I could have left it at that and moved on towards my other must-dos for the day, namely shaving my cats to make `em look like Yoda. But far be it to leave you hanging there just like that, every good jerk deserves a wet wipe. So let me flesh it out for you.
You. Yes, you reading. You're probably wondering whether I think you're stupid and you're also probably wondering if you're gonna leave here thinking dark, nasty thoughts about sweet ole me. Don't be schizoid - firstly, you're likely my friend, so you're intelligent by association, secondly it's christmas time and i want my pressies, thirdly it took six months for the stab wound to heal the last time I called someone stupid to their face. So allright, you guys are `effin geniuses allright. I'm talking about all the other morons in the world...uhmm..other? heh heh. I mean, everybody save you.
So what's wrong with the world today? Too many stupid people in charge. Now stupid doesn't neccessarily mean , George Bush stupid or Paris Hilton Stupid, although that would be a good reference and starting point. Oh no no no no, my dear reader. Stupid means refusing to think for yourself and merely parroting and repeating any ideology that solidifies the beliefs one clings ever so desperately to in an ever-changing world.
I hate these goddamn either-or people. Either-or? You know, either you're this or you're that, either you're with us or you're against us. What kinda 'effin way is that to live life? You're either one of two things at any one time? To that I say - go sniff some jock-straps, fool. To these mindless rigid arse-scratching zealots, the entire world is cast very neatly into black and white. That might be generalising things a bit, but let's see how it applies to certain real world scenarios.
Religion : bloody absolutist belief systems. Either you're a christian or you're a- disbelieving satan- worshipping- heathen- who's- going- straight- to- hell. Now they won't say that out loud, but you know that's what they're thinking when they try to "save you". The question here, is save you from what? They're all thinking the same bloody thing, this pagan is going straight to hell and it's his divine mission to save my indian ass. Dude, the only reason hell is at all attractive is cos if heaven's where you're gonna be hanging out all of eternity, I'm pitching a tent outside Zhenghua Primary and giving out cigarettes to the kiddies - getting a headstart on that whole sin thing.
Politics : Ahhhh, politics - from the greek word 'polis' for city. A noble and magnificent thing it was back in those days. Serpico, Socrates- bunch of dudes in robes sitting around the agorapolis discussing philosophy, whether they should rustle up some homeys to pull down the skirts of their neighbours , the Spartans- ahh, those were the days. What do we have now? Bunch of pansy, yellow-livered, crotch sniffing charlatans intent on defining absolutes to ensure that their bonking with their "PR" assistant goes uninterrupted.
Sex : Since I've gotten started, let's continue attacking our most cherished beliefs. You're either male or female, right? Wrong-O! Just take a walk down Orchard Boulevard, he-she central of Singapore. I see the way Singaporeans avert their eyes when they walk past , like these people somehow fell out of a strictly defined code of human existence. Few things are absolute in life, they wanna explore other avenues of life, other experiences. Hell, we want more mavericks in singapore society? Can't get any more maverick-y than that, can we now? These guys(gals) are the pioneers, the trail-blazers. Let's give them their own contingent at the National Day Parade.
What else on this. Oh yeah, we're absolutely straight or queer. Bollocks to that. For all our veneration of Roman and Greek Culture, the underpinnings of western philosophy - it was perfectly acceptable for well-to-do men with families to have young male lovers. In fact, it was encouraged. How's that for all those nut-job conservatives perpetually harking back to the good old classical days of the city-state. Not so attractive now eh, you bible- thumping right wing freakshows.
So it's basically this, life isn't this wonderfully defined pattern we just move through where everything is neatly ordered. We constantly move around through a cultural matrix which presents us with new dilemmas and solutions. No issue is ever all that simple, no solution ever solves anything without creating new needs for new solutions. Life is bloody complex, and only a stupid sunnava-mutanttoad would tell you that life is a walk in the park. Sure, we could live life on a very superficial level, engage in nice hedonistic pursuits and you simplify life that way - earn more money, spend more money, buy nice coffin. But what's the fun in that? Why live life with blinkers on?
So why do I love stupid people?
They keep me thinking.
God, I love stupid people.