We are here to continue the discussion of
ROMANTIC COMEDIES
and why we love them and what they tell us about ourselves!
In this edition, I wanted to focus on the three movies that I think of as the best post 9/11 rom coms. The "ought" years were fraught with fears. And although "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was written and probably filmed pre-9/11, it filled an important purpose for those old enough to have digested high quality romantic comedies pre 9/11. I'll write a little bit more about that when I write about each movie individually, but basically, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (heretofore known as MBFGW) aroused feelings of family and nostalgia during a time when innocence was thought to be lost. After 9/11, a lot of people needed to be taken away to places where there was still the idea of SAFETY (MBFGW) OR, of course, utter and total distraction (reality TV.)
I'm also going to talk about "Monsoon Wedding," which is similar to "MBFGW" and is also beyond beautiful. I have more to say about it as well, and although it is a more international film than MBFGW and offers different qualities (as well as some of the most gorgeous cinematography!) I actually love Monsoon Wedding more, in a way, than MBFGW, although that's like saying, "do you prefer Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie?" That's like saying, "Do you like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights better?" They are so similar and yet so different and both are beloved to me.... I know it's now a musical and wonder how that plays out on stage- as for the film and the way you meet the characters, it's not formulaic at all- one of its great strengths, in my book!
The other film I will talk about is the beginning of a new generation. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" ushered in the new kind of romantic comedy for millennials. The world had changed by then and what we expected of love was different, too. It offered a narrative in which the guy doesn't get the girl, he gets a different girl, and people don't get what they want, mostly, but they do get an awful lot of beauty if they just look at what's in front of them and find the joy despite it all.
It was hopeful, but real-ish... ushering in a new possibility that it was the truth of the individual that could create the romance ("In Time," "Bridesmaids") with an appropriate person (as opposed to a complete fantasy/ impossibility.) I don't think too many movies post 9/11 offer a narrative about realism and truth AND hope at once. They seem to offer boring and hopeless fantasies, and often aren't romantic at all. It's as if so many romantic comedies either haven't caught up with the times and are trying to be relics of days gone by, OR, finally, they are coming around to the hybrid of dramedy that seems more important in the late 2000s and teens.
By the way, I could offer up a little bit of some applause for the takeover of the bromance movies that came outta the 2000s and teens, but this is about romance, so...
Back to love and romance post 9/11, post sexting, etc. I am not going to deconstruct something that has evolved {sic} in a cyclical and systemic fashion, layer upon layer. That's like trying to get to the end of a mobius strip. I just want t say that I think the 2000s were largely about waking up from the great slumber and choosing to stay awake or go back to sleep.
We were, and many are, still, "the walking dead." Many of us go in and out of that slumber. So often we are being lied to and we know it and we might even prefer the perceived safety of the lie (fantasy and hyper-cynicism, in my book, both fall into the lie category) to the danger of being open to the winds of change and chance. Despite our desire for it to be different, our own personal will can only change a minutiae of our lives. All the proof you need is to look around you and see that your own life, while probably more brilliant than most of us ever give credit, is not what you dreamed. Back to our preferred lies (be they fantasy or cynicism.)
Furthermore, we neither live, nor communicate in a vacuum. We live in a culture with context and meaning, and romantic comedies offer an important reflection of our humanity. We are not separate from romance, we are a part of it and it is a part of us, even if we are cynics. We are just seeing it through our own cultural context and our own individual histories...
And so many of our desires turned away from romantic comedies, away from vulnerability and intimacy, and toward "reality" TV. High drama and falsity. Reality, indeed.
But there were wonderful fantasies to be had, and mingling within those fantasies, there were hopes and dreams just waiting to be renewed...
And we learned, through each of these movies, that beauty comes in MANY shapes and sizes, for both men AND women.
I like that a lot!
On to the films:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
2002
Written by and starring Nia Vardalos (one of my heroes!)
Directed by Joel Zwick
Here's a clip of the Best Bits: It's 11 minutes, so watch or no as you like:
Caveat: I love Nia Vardalos. She is my hero. She is an amazing writer and person! I love her. I want to be the next Nia Vardalos, in fact, with "StandUpera." But moving on...
I love this film. It's hilarious!
Okay, now, really, why I think this film is so special... and not just me! It became the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time and grossed $241.4 million in North America, despite never reaching number one at the box office during its release (the highest-grossing film to accomplish this feat). In fact, it's STILL 60M ahead of #2... http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=romanticcomedy.htm
I am SO EXCITED FOR THE SEQUEL!
I could write a blog post all about this film, and Ms. Vardalos' other work in general, but I want to write about why I think THIS movie offers one of the few bright romantic comedy lights in that time between 9/11 and, well, to date...
One of the reasons I think this film is so important, even though we didn't know it at the time, maybe, is because it's SO much about accepting and even finding a way to love what is DIFFERENT, culturally DIFFERENT, about people. The WASPy Ian and the Greek Toula.... their families MUST find a way to love each other, despite the fact that there are a few fundamental differences in their world views and ways of life... and that is a story that has been lived and relived in any and every immigrant family throughout the world since the dawn of time, at least, when the families are loving and try to find a way to accept the new-to-them person...
The world is smaller now in 2015 than it was in 2002. I myself am with an Italian born Italian and there are still some of those cultural differences present whenever I go visit his wonderful family (who happen to be from Naples, aka Napoli.) Carlo's siblings are all post-Internet and therefore while not Americanized at all, they are still part of the global/ western understanding... but I LOVE that his mother really does make me eat twice my weight in pasta and dotes on all her children. She's incredible and delightful and definitely WAY more hands on than my Scandinavian/ Scottish/ Welsh Minnesotan family.... example... When I met Carlo's mom for the first time, she literally hugged me for 20 minutes. She would zip my coat up for me. When Carlo met my parents, they told him they were very happy to meet him and hugged him- MY DAD HUGGED HIM! Are you kidding me? My Dad barely hugs me! And when Carlo asked, later, "Did they like me?" I was like, "Oh my god. Did you see them hug you? They hugged you!!!! They love you!" Then I realized he doesn't have the translator... If a Minnesota Dad hugs his daughter's boyfriend, that's code for "Get married and have lots of babies right away." Whereas, if he says that the daughter's boyfriend is "different?" That's Minnesotan for "that guy better never touch my daughter and I can't wait til she finds someone else!" Maybe I should write a romantic comedy about Italians and Minnesotans.... in fact I think I will, after I finish the next slate of projects.
ANYWAY I know I just talked a lot about myself and the parallels between my story and my life and MBFGW, but I think that's one of the reasons it's so wonderful, at least from the point of view of the USA- ultimately, except for a very teeny tiny small percentage, we are all immigrants.
I also love that this is a movie about real people. Nia Vardalos is gorgeous, but she also is willing to look frumpy and then pull herself together. Ian is a high school teacher. I know we all loved "Pretty Woman," and the value there IS the fairy tale, but this is a fairy tale that can actually happen. Real people can actually meet and fall in love. And 30 isn't old! Haha! At least, it better not be. ;-p
Monsoon Wedding
2001 (2002 release in the US)
Mira Nair
This is, yes, another movie about families blending and the idiosyncrasies of family and big feasts at weddings...
And it is so beautifully summed up by this:
What I love about Monsoon Wedding is that even though these people are across the globe, it is so beautifully written, acted, directed- we KNOW these people. Not only do we know these people, we (mostly) love them, and through them, we believe in the possibility of leaving behind what no longer serves us and moving forward with new love.
But what I also love is that this movie goes far deeper than the usual comedy foil of "oh my God, my parents are conservative, too!" "My aunts pressure me to get married, too!" (Not that I don't love that stuff. I DO! (see my raves for MBFGW.) THIS movie delves into some of the tougher stuff of families (for example, incest) that weddings and funerals can bring up. When do we speak up? When do we believe? When do we not believe? When do we avoid and when do we confront? There is no "right" time for any of that stuff, there is just the time when it finally happens.
"Monsoon Wedding" actually paves the way for the newer era of possibility (by which I mean the rest of the aughts.)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2008
Nicholas Stoller, fir. Jason Segal, writer. Judd Apatow, producer.
For the record, I don't mind a bromance, but I'm still not the biggest fan of TOO much raunchy comedy. Oh, yes, I loved Bridesmaids, but not because of the pooping in the street scene. No. I loved it because of the female friendships. The Fem-mance? The Sis-mance? I don't know. Rah, rah, Sis Boom Bah, it was great. And in general I feel that Judd Apatow has brought forth a fun, raunchy set of comedies that really spare us from too much squirming.
My favorite alum of the world of "Freaks and Geeks" is Jason Segal. In fact, I recently heard him on Marc Maron's show and thought, "that's a surprisingly enlightened dude." I wasn't really surprised, though. He's great. And I feel Sarah Marshall has enough of the raunch and the right amount of tenderness and hilarity to work for everyone. It's like it has taken the rom-com and the bromance (shades of that with Russel Brand's character) and raunch and melded it all together in an amalgamation of Hawaiian wonder and puppet musicals. Say what? Exactly.
It's a new world, and one that doesn't forget the old world.
People have sex! People have affairs! People are conceited and narcissistic but lovable anyway but not necessarily worthy of the right relationship! Everyone is pretty much just being themselves and deserving of the love they ask for and believe they can receive!
To me, the magic is that Segal is so fresh in this film.
And, it has-
A Puppet Musical...
About Dracula.
Incredible.
