I don't think I've posted on a Tuesday night before. D is already in bed, curled up with a copy of Woman in White, an insipid Victorian novel I made him read. And he loves it.
I'm listening to Asobi Seksu, my new favorite thing, and closing the night with a cap.
We went to the movie house tonight and watched "Notes on a Scandal." It was scandalous. I had some reservations: another version of SWF, but with an old biddy? But I liked it. And if I haven't admitted this publicly before, I am in love with Cate Blanchett. It's very distracting, my love for her.
Other than that, I have to finish my topics. Still!
I (or was it my advisor) have decided to push my exams back a month. A good idea, although I would like nothing better in the world than to have this thing over with so that I can enjoy my life. I'm 31. I need to be, you know, gettin' out there! Showing the world what I'm made of! Givin' it my all! Not settling for less. Isn't that what thirty-year olds do?
3 comments:
Xstina, you are not alone in your love for Cate Blanchett. (And heavens she looks hot in that movie.) I too had some problems with the film--it's the predatory lesbian again, a typical homophobic/misogynist character. But Judi Dench was so creepy! I loved how she was portrayed as totally self-delusional (though, again, problematic); she didn't really know what she was doing, or couldn't fess up to it. Yeah, that movie was trash-ay, but I kind of couldn't get enough of it. Oh, and I got into a word-tiff with Di when I said, "Cate Blanchett has an affair with a fourteen-year-old boy." Di said, "Affair? You wouldn't say she molested him?" I said emphatically that I would not, I thought it was an affair, and she asked if I'd still feel that way if the genders were reversed. I think I would. I think. See? For a prurient movie, it gave me some stuff to think about. Or maybe it just gave me Cate Blanchett to think about. Sigh.
You know, i kept thinking about the movie all night and some of today. About the way it's not exactly like SWF, or Fatal Attraction or some other blatantly trashy movie. Judi Dench is scary in that movie, but she's also a writer who's narrative is obviously fantastic, which becomes apparent to us as her cynical voice-over describes Blanchett's perfect-seeming family. Blanchett lives in a world that she thinks she can believe in, and refuses to acknowledge its fictional quality (she's shocked when she discovers her little boyfriend lied about his family), nor will she fess up to her own delusions, about her "lost" siouxie past. so i was thinking the movie wasn't so much about the horrors of lesbian love, but more about the dangers of middle-class, mid-life delusions. which is why i kinda liked it.
It's true that both women are delusional. Cate is far too quick to allow herself this "treat" of an affair because she feels she's played the martyr by being the good wife and mother for the past several years. And yes, she doesn't fess up to her Siouxie past, although we must assume her husband remembers it ("I knew what you were when I married you," he says). I thought that scene when she's staying with Judi Dench and she dolls herself up was pretty interesting; what exactly is she trying to reclaim there? I think you're right--it's about the dangers of middle-class life, the stories we tell ourselves, what we won't admit. The husband could have handled her having an affair, I think--she was the one who couldn't admit that she wanted it. It's interesting. I'm going to read about the book it's based on.
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