Monday, January 28, 2008

Gimme the perfect ... character

How do you compare against and rate up to characters in movies? If they set the benchmark so high, real humans like us would never be able to match up in any way, and any attempts to do so would find us lacking, obviously.

You know who is doing the greatest disservice to the male gender, around the world? That is, besides ourselves and the bad behaviour of some of our brethren, obviously.

It is the movie makers and directors n script writers of all those romantic movies and dramas. And even though girls don’t admit it, I think unknowingly much of their expectations and demands of guys/romance/relationships are shaped or influenced at a sub-conscious level by these movies. And invariably, when they think of their dull real life boyfriends, they will encounter some sort of ‘accepting less than the 100% ideal’ feeling, which in some ways is akin to settling for.

Put it this way. Imagine a movie industry that has as its biggest customers a predominantly male demographic. These guys age from 12 to 32. And this genre of movies has as its hallmark the following characteristics:

1) The ordinary guy who is stumbling along on his ordinary life
2) Then (and they have people who do nothing but dream up such scenarios) amidst a very romantic situation they bump into/meet a very pretty girl under the most romantic of circumstances.
3) The girl turns out to be very pretty, appropriately shy, has the right amount of mystery and charm, possesses the right quantity of playfulness and thrill seeking behaviour, and is funny, smart, has a great job to boot.
4) Then everything falls into place, they go to lots of wonderful places, do lots of wonderful things, amidst a very romantic soundtrack, lets have some snow and winter clothing please, there is a very exciting period.
5) She is great, she is wonderful, she is perfect, she is flawless, she does not snort or fart or go to the toilet, she is never seen without makeup and great designer clothes (on her body that has of course had specialized personal training for due to the fact that she is a professional actress), she has never had an ex boyfriend, she is never jealous or whatever, the whole movie just seems chock full of situations that emphasizes her niceness, sweetness, funniness, how much she loves him, etc.
6) They never show the “ever after” part of happily ever after. They never show the day to day life. Them being caught in traffic jams. Them cleaning their toilet bowl. Them mopping the floor. Having a stomach ache, having a flatulent day, having morning breath, etc.
7) The whole movie is about how wonderful she is how she loves him so, the wonderful times they have, how she does sweet wonderful things for him, and never talks about paying the bills, life, and work and career seemingly is not an issue and everything is hunky dory and their jobs are either super glam or the pay seems to be enough though they don’t do much work.

Now imagine a whole generation or 2 or 3 of guys growing up to such shows. Can you imagine what this would do to our expectations of girls? It’d be a shock to realize they do have morning breath, that they do have armpit hair, that they blow their nose, salivate in their sleep, get flatulent, use perfume or air fresheners when they leave the toilet, that they throw tantrums, that they have mood swings, that life is not all hunky dory and all we do whole day long is shovelling snow at each other snow motion with happy smiles on our faces together with a romantic soundtrack in the background. Or dressed in clothes that cost 3 times our monthly salary while we hop around town laughing and taking photos and laugh on top of topless busses with the wind whipping our hair around our faces.

We’d expect girls to be totally different, and then we’d look around and realize hey these girls that are available in real life…are so not what we want. Then we’d hold out until we ‘meet the right one’ and then when what we thought was the right one comes along, we’d compare him to that ideal girl in the movies, and then where she falls short, as she naturally would, we’d just ‘have to accept it’.

And then we’d lament our fate in life, why are there no good girls around.

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