That Rivers Cuomo Thing...

Empathy is hard—especially, sad to say, when you are fucking someone and it's not going quite so well as you'd planned. If you add in the whole gender thing, it gets even harder. Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together. They do. And then they call each other bitches and cunts and dumb motherfuckers, assholes and alcoholics and overprivileged Ivy League elitist shits, failed writers, failed people, people with daddy issues and mommy issues and control issues and abandonment issues, just Issues, horrible Issues, Issues that cannot be forgiven; they accuse each other of crimes against God and nature and political engagement; they accuse each other of being just like their mothers (never satisfied) and their fathers (2 bold). And some of them have recording careers, so they take it public. Is that so wrong?

My favorite paragraph from this excellent piece.

I know the basics about Rivers Cuomo--the Japanese girl fetish, the weird sex obsessions, his pathetic emo songs. I never was a fan, purely because I didn't like the music. Some of the stuff here is old, some of it is new, a lot just hasn't been posted in this fashion or in such a high-profile (to some) way. But her points are substantial. The essay does speak to a very specific period/demographic. If I had been older, or a different girl, I might have related to it more.

Very well-written article. My favorite of Sady's. (And she links to Emily Gould! Automatic plus.)

We need more criticism like this, more female-specific criticism. I'd like to be the female Chuck Klosterman (I don't even want the idea of female version to be included here, even though music/pop culture critics desperately need some women in their ranks), but Sady Doyle is on her way.

I Was Wrong (Thank God)

We are all programmed to believe that if a guy acts like a total jerk that means he likes you.

That’s the premise behind “He’s Just Not That Into You”, that women are conditioned to like jerks. “Come on, you like the drama,” explains Justin Long’s Alex to Ginnifer Goodwin’s Gigi, as she patters on again, wondering why a particular guy doesn’t call her back. Alex, a bar manager, knows all about relationships, you see, and schools her in the ways of human behavior.

Gigi is as insane and silly as the reviews suggest, but Goodwin is bright and perky, which balances out the craziness. Cringing at her is unavoidable, as she is such a stereotype; it’s girls like her that give the rest of us a bad name. She has the largest role in the film, and luckily is an actress that always manages to wring out sympathy for unlikeable characters, as her idiocy could overwhelm the film.

The ensemble works really well; no character is really tackily placed, although by the end of the film you realize that you didn’t see Jennifer Aniston and especially Ben Affleck as much as expected. Scarlett Johannson is quite the vixen, as she normally is (“might as well play it while you can”, said a friend), and as such, this isn’t the movie to see if you’re engaged, as it will probably upset you. Like Rachel Bilson in The Last Kiss, she is designed to be every girl’s worst nightmare.

Marriage is indeed one of the main themes, but the urgency is lost on me. Jennifer Aniston’s Beth has been with Ben Affleck’s Neil for seven years, and even though he is by all accounts the perfect boyfriend, his own flaw—that he just doesn’t care about marriage—becomes all consuming. The pressure she exerts on him!

It was the expectations of marriage that intrigued me. Bradley Cooper’s Ben says that he married Janine (Jennifer Connelly) because they had been dating since college and that he essentially felt he had to, because it looks weird if you don’t after a certain period of time. Beth practically used that same argument. But why does this hold such sway? It is that a relationship starts to smell if it hasn’t been tied up properly?

I’ve always had trouble understanding this. In the “Just Say Yes” episode of Sex and the City, Carrie turns down Aiden’s proposal, and the relationship was over. At the time, I was completely floored. Why did it have to end? I guess I interpreted that even if now wasn’t a good time, who’s to say later on it wouldn’t be?

My father, seeing my confusion, sat me down and gave me a lecture (I had watched the episode with him). “There comes a time in a person’s life,” he said, “when you want to settle down and get married. And she wasn’t ready for that.” He continued on, and I kinda got it, but kinda didn’t. It seems to me, that marriage—and the expectation of marriage—ruins a perfectly good relationship.

Of course, I say this as a person who’s as far away from marriage as one can possibly be, and I am nowhere near looking for something like that. Even as this movie tries to shatter some assumptions—starting with the opening line—it still falls into very conventional storytelling. Despite its predictable rhythms, especially at the end, I was surprised to find that I genuinely enjoyed the movie. I wasn’t angry, upset, depressed, or disappointed. Unlike so many other movies that make me rail against love, I didn’t mind that as much as women are told not to believe they are the exception to every rule, one of the last scenes ends with characters saying that she is the exception to said rule.

One thing that gets me a lot regarding fictional romantic relationships is that they are just so improbable and stupid. It’s not so much the hows and mechanics as it is how the characters relate to one another. Now, granted, "He’s Just Not That Into You" features a lot of characters, and some aren’t developed very fully. The premise worked, though, and I enjoyed how realistic the dilemmas were, even Gigi’s often ridiculous reactions. That kind of understanding worked, and because the movie was grounded in this form of realism, the notions of infidelity and other clichés didn’t bother me.

The final voiceover is very much like the end of Sex and the City, the show that spawned the book that the movie is very loosely based on. Yet no matter how much the movie wants to tell you to ignore much of what you’ve been told, girls, it still can’t resist the lure of the happy third act, of happily ever after. No wonder why we’re so messed up.

More Beyoncé Angst

Emily Gould does a really good job describing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" in her post on marriage:

Since she’s a married lady — married to Jay-Z, duh! — Beyoncé can’t very well sing lyrics like “man on my hips/got me tighter than my Dereon jeans,” anymore, so she has had to create an alternate persona named Sasha Fierce. Sasha performs the half of B’s new double album that’s not treacly, wife-appropriate ballads, and the best of the resulting tracks, ‘Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)’ is not going to start getting played by wedding DJs anytime soon. It’s a feminist anthem! Well, sort of. If you want it to be. It’s a classic post-breakup eff you about being “up in the club” and dancing with another guy to make your ex jealous — “I could care less what you think,” ‘Sasha’ sings, which is always a funny kind of line because, hello, you are making it clear that you’re just acting this way for the dude’s benefit. (cf: “You probably think this song is about you” [MediaMaven note: Carly Simon's "You're So Vain"] or “Thanks to you, now I get what I want.” [Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone"]). And then the chorus: an amazing, jumpropey chant of “If you like it then you should have put a ring on it.” In the video the chorus is accompanied by an amazing hip-twitching dance that’s capped by this move where Beyoncé and her backup dancers raise and revolve their left hands, flashing what ought to be conspicuously ringless fingers — “All the single ladies, put your hands up!” But Beyoncé doesn’t just have her famous 5 million dollar diamond — hey, what happened to ‘Sasha?’ — on hers, she’s also got on a whole metal-plated robot glove that makes ominous and addictive and comic-bookish kriiiing sounds when she twists her wrist.

‘Sasha’ wants to be up in the club, acting up, drink in her cup — but she also, badly, wants someone to put a ring on it, or at least she wants someone to want to.

Emily's onto something. She ends her post in a very Housian way, with "we're all going to die alone anyway"--very cynical and reductive. But I understand her ambivalence, and the onslaught of the current culture, especially if you're single and a woman, is just so damn hard to fight sometimes. I listened to a lot of "Single Ladies" last week (as well as I am Sasha Fierce, since it's available free on MySpace), and while the album was better than I expected, it was still the usual Beyoncé fare. And I felt incredibly guilty and conflicted listening to it. Why? I liked the music, and I actually thought it was good, but it was just that the messages offended me. Do people feel this way when they listen to Eminem or hardcore racist mysogynistic rap? Beyoncé's songs (like so many other pop songs) are reductive. There's nothing wrong with that--music doesn't have to be deep, and I love plenty of music and musicians that aren't. But I just can't figure out why her music bothers me so. One of the reasons I've always loved Beyoncé is because she's a consummate professional--she's just so confident and cool and just so good at what she does. I've never seen her perform, but my brother told me she's one hell of a performer, and her performance with Tina Turner at the Grammys was fantastic, to say the least. I'm tired of her songs being the same two notes--I-love-my-man-so-much-I'll-do-anything-for-him, and My-man-screwed-me-over-I-don't-need-him-anymore. It doesn't fit her life, and if she wants to show audiences a more personal side of her, she's failing (I am Sasha Fierce is not bold and honest). She needs to grow up, look past the simplistic polars of relationships, and stop infusing an entire generation of women with retarded notions of love.

But boy, do I ever wish I could dance like Beyoncé in that video. Hot damn.