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Contemplations on love
I recently watched a really good movie that reminded me of this internal conversation I’ve been having with myself lately. The movie was Before Sunrise (my mom’s a huge Ethan Hawke fan) and one of Celine’s lines really struck a chord in me:
“Celine: I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?”
This seems to be my constant dilemma. My urge to be a woman independent from love is always in conflict with my desire for a romantic love. I scorn weak girls in movies and around me who will pine after the one guy, the Romeo to their Juliet, the Edward to their Bella. And yet I am such a hypocrite. I am really a romantic at heart. As Celine puts it, “being loved means so much to me.”
I would love to be Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. That kind of slow, intricate and unique love appeals to me very much. No matter how much I bag on Disney princess movies, I still sing along to their pining, pitiful songs, and I get teary at their union with their Prince Charming (whom they’ve only met once.)
I started wondering if maybe this idea of a romantic, pining, effortless love was implanted in my mind at an early age by the media surrounding me, painting over my original ideas of love. If I hadn’t grown up with Disney, would I have different opinions on “true” love? Or maybe it’s vice versa. My urge to be an independent woman may have been implanted, and the Disney notions are true.
Or maybe it’s neither. I wonder what I would think of love if I hadn’t been raised around sappy romantic stories and educated, independent women. Would I naturally have some notion of love that is more deeply implanted in the human psyche, or would I form my own notions?
Maybe I’m just over-thinking the whole matter.
Maybe the best plan of action is to just let it go, let it happen.
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112471/quotes
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This article has 4 comments.
Hmmm, perchance, madame, have you ever heard of CLAMP? They're a group of 4 intelligent, independent women who write and illustrate Japanese manga, and despite their background, they've been praised for writing some of the best love stories in manga and anime. And no, it isn't as you said a "romantic, pining, effortless love". By gum, CLAMP's characters have to WORK to get their happy endings. Like what Hideki Motosuwa (the main character in Chobits, of which I thought the anime had a happier ending than the manga) said: Love won't be easy. There'll be hardships, you can't help that. But in the end, it'll be worth all those hard times, all that pain, all that burden. Because so long as you keep on working at it, love won't die.
Syaoran and Sakura, Renton and Eureka, Tomoya and Nagisa, Ryuuji and Taiga, they all had to work through hard times. They had to regain lost memories, battle an authoritarian govt., deal with serious health problems and poverty, and overcome their crippling backgrounds. But in the end, they got their happy ending, and it was all the more enjoyable because they had bled for it. That in my opinion is the best kind of love. The kind that is messy, effort-exerting, and a thousand times better than any pristine, sterilized ideal that you might find. But enough of my rambling, you probably have no idea who all the people I was talking about even were. I hope that the message came across though, and I hope you didn't think that I was just some creepy internet-troller or something.
