Sadly, I must admit that last week when I was flipping lazily through the TV channels, I happened to stumble upon Sweet Home Alabama. I left it on for a few minutes, mainly out of the frustration I was having at finding nothing better on the other 200 channels my house has. Within 5 minutes of watching though, I realized that I had my first blog material. Melanie Smooter (Reese Witherspoon) is bringing her mother up to speend on the current happenings in her life. While I do not know the names of the men they discuss, Melanie relaties her current love life. Apparently, she is dating a guy who seems to be according to both herself and her mom little more than trailer park trash. Her mom laments this situation, and asks what happened to an old fling. Melanie quickly dismisses that as a lost cause and nothing more than a memory. Saddened, her mom laments that their relationship would have been a "match made in heaven," continuing on about how he had political power, a revered and rich family, and a law degree.
What I found most interesting about this besides the "match made in heaven" quote that automatically made me think about fairy tales, was the reversal in the normal fairy tale plot. Rather than lamenting this loss of the "perfect guy," Melanie instead dismisses him as the wrong guy, and makes it quite clear that he was the wrong guy, and that those "great" characteristics her mom described are irrelevant in love. I just found it quite interesting that the things usually described in the fairy tales as prerequisites for love - money, good looks, fame - were actually looked down upon by Melanie. I did not watch the movie all the way through, so for all I know that could have just been to set up the plot and she madly ends up falling in love with him anyways, in which case my whole argument would be severely weakened. However, at the very least, I can definitely claim that the characteristics described in most "prince charmings" of our fairy tales were not enough for Melanie in Sweet Home Alabama.
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I was watching 500 Days of Summer with my girlfriend last week and noticed that this, too, was a sort of fairy tale reversal. I found it amusing that it was the guy in this tale who believed in the fairy tale endings. After first meeting Summer in an elevator (a very brief meeting), Tom was convinced that his new office mate was “the one” and that they were destined to be together. On the other hand, Summer hardly even believes in love, making comments to suggest that while the entire office was out for a party, when she and Tom finally had an actual conversation. They date for a while (about 500 days), but it is interesting to see the juxtaposition between their thoughts about love. Normally, one might expect the woman to believe in fate and destiny and all the fairy tale-like shenanigans, not the man. This story reverses that, and portrays a strong woman, more of a picture of modern culture.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, however, when Summer breaks up with Tom and then marries another man shortly after, his thoughts about love are crushed. He no longer believes in destiny and the fairy tale love. He runs into Summer a short time later and she now tries to convince Tom that fate and destiny do exist. She felt something for her husband that she didn’t feel with Tom, and if she hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, she never would have met him. The story ends “happily ever after,” though, since Summer is happy with her husband and right at the end, Tom meets an attractive young woman named Autumn…
The reversal of dismissing the man with the Prince Charming qualities automatically made me think about the "nice guy/bad boy" dichotomy that exists for men. Much like many stereotypes of women can be boiled down to Madonna/Whore, I wonder if male stereotypes can be distilled into Prince Charming/Villain...
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