Nowadays, marriage has been redefined by our media. It is often the empty shell that represents doing what we're expected to, or false hope, or foolish, immature escape from real love - that of course exists outside of marriage. Movies, both comedy and drama -- "Little Children," "The Hearbreak Kid," "Notes on a Scandal," "Spanglish," "Finding Neverland," "Closer" to name a few -- directly or indirectly attack marriage as a B.S. institution.
Cable TV's new sensation, "Californication" does the same. Today's modern family can be seen in David Duchovney's on-again, off-again relationship with a woman and their child. The first season's climactic ending leaves off with her leaving a man at the altar and running off with Duchovney. Although I haven't seen the show, it all sounded very "General Hospital" to me. A friend of mine recently told me how his watching of the show made him really question the purpose of marriage for the first time. "Is the point to blow a lot of money on a fancy wedding, or to marry rich and get a good lump sum when the marriage ends? Or is it just for the facade of security with someone you don't really love? I don't know about marriage..." was his sad, jaded conclusion.
The problem with making mass media our guide to living (don't get me started) is that though the fantasy worlds of TV and movies are so persuasive -- with their hot actors and so-called happy endings and all -- we don't seem to pick up on the fact that our problem is our obsession with finding that happy ending in a person. In Chris Rock's "Never Scared" HBO special, he expounds on the dilemma of "married and bored or single and lonely," saying there's no happiness anywhere. Although I don't quite agree with the hopelessness of this diatribe, I appreciate the honest treatment of a subject matter that often has all its hopes lumped into one category or another. As our generation awakens to the reality of the difficulty of marriage -- that it's not what will make all of our wildest dreams come true -- we are now putting our hopes in extra-marital affairs to make it all better. The problem is, people are still people whether you are married or single or having an affair. We are all one big, hot mess.
I wonder what the next wave of TV and movies will bring when we realize that that wasn't the answer either.
2 comments:
Mixtine, so good to see you blogging regularly. I enjoy your writing so much. And so I felt compelled to comment on this topic of marriage. I'm not sure where or how our idea of marriage as a B.S. institution started, but I agree with how it's been defined in our society by the mass media.
As a hopeless romanitic, I've always held close my idealistic nature to find my soul mate. But there was always the flip side and that this ideal also turned into fear. Fear of not finding that one true love.
Both ideal and fear stemmed from a broken marriage, seeing my parents fight one last time as a child and then remembering them not being together anymore. Blaming myself for years as the direct result of their divorce, then finding peace as a teenager when confiding in my mom about what I had seen as a small child and why I blamed myself. It was obvious that it wasn't my fault. I just needed to hear someone else say it.
I still held onto my ideal as I got older. Turning 30, I let go of the fear and started settling into my own skin, but not letting my ideal run away with my actions, not chasing down the first sign of affection that came my way.
And when I least expected it (so cliche, but it really happened that way) I found my lifetime love. In the exact opposite of such movies you named, I found true love and happiness and a sense that marriage will be a blessing and something sacred with this young woman.
We've always talked about what we have, and that others see it too as something to strive for in their lives. The stuff of movies, where true love is found and people do live happily forever. That's not to say it was easy. We had our bumps along the way. Just getting her was hard enough. But it was all worth it.
I think I could have easily let myself get jaded by my parents divorce, and let those notions get reinforced by the mass media that marriage is a dead institution, or that it's a lot of smoke and mirrors.
I guess in the end, maybe the ceremony itself is just a guady, flashy affair. But for me and her, it's the act of committing oneself to another for life. In some ways, it's a test. If I believe and feel that I can live through anything with this woman, why should I not proclaim it to my family, friends and to God (if He is included in the audience)? And if I'm afraid to do so, then maybe I shouldn't be up at that altar.
And as for the difficutly of marriage, we've shot ourselves in the foot with how easy divorce can be. It's hard to find living examples of marriage bliss, but maybe we shouldn't be looking for that. Instead, maybe we should look for what works for couples who've been married for years, but also draw on their pitfalls they've sustained.
It is tough to hold dear the sanctity of marriage when, as Rock examined, people like Nelson Mandela, who survived years and years in a political prison, are finally set free and then we read about him getting a divorce. What's that say about living the rest of your life with someone? That it's easier to be imprisoned than commit to one person.
I'm not disagreeing or agreeing, just blabbering on. I have no point because I've seen both sides. I'm now on the other side of that coin where I can actually see my future, see my kids in her eyes. So I don't want to sound like a sap (too late), but I'm also a realist. An optimistic realist. I know that nothing comes easy. Maybe we need more stories like that. Where people find true love and happiness, but that it's not without hard work, and bring it to the forefront where we can shed some light on it.
-- JV
thanks for the post jv -- i don't know that i was stating my view on marriage anyhow. just pointing my finger at the media's sad portrayal of where true happiness is found. i agree with most of what you say here. marriage is no fantasy, nor is it meant to be a nightmare, but in my estimation as a single person with many married friends, it is real life just like being single is: you deal with your mess, with your spouse's mess and the difference is you've committed to do so for life. it's a beautiful thing, but also rightfully scary in it's own way -- or maybe not so much scary as realistically large. :)
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