I hope he knows that I suffer too
And that I want to love him
I watched Secretary the other night. I'd forgotten how much I love that film. Despite initial appearances to the contrary, it is actually another variation on the narrative we're all raised on...
...boy meets girl and they live happily ever after...
In this case the route from A to B is unique, freakish and perversely perfect for who they are. And that's why I love it. It reminds me that everyone's route to Happy Ever After is their own and is made just for them. Of course, sometimes the Happy Ever After doesn't exactly look like a Happy Ever After, no doubt due in part to the capacity of film, television and the media to provide us with a preconceived idea of what Happy Ever After means for us. I suspect that it is women who are spoon-fed this narrative more explicitly than men, being (as we were) raised on romantic fairy tales of one sort or another.
Take, for example, the ring: the dream held my millions of women around the world of the perfect man getting down on one knee, pulling out a huge diamond and proposing marriage in some achingly beautiful location. This is, perhaps, the penultimate epitome of the romantic narrative - the ultimate being the wedding, of course (notably NOT the resulting marriage...)
Recently I've found myself struggling with this age-old vision of romance. Like the majority of young women I know, I've had many a daydream about a proposal with a big fat diamond ring. Details of the daydream have changed over the years (particularly with the ethics of diamonds playing on my mind - the imaginary ring is now vintage, to iron out the moral kinks whilst remaining chic...) but it's something that has always been there as a constant: it's just something that women think about. But now it's started to really irritate me - this ritual of a man offering up what is essentially a highly valuable commodity as payment for another valuable commodity, namely a wife. Hardly romantic...
Hence my struggle. The classic proposal complete with ring is clearly born out of the exchange of women as commodities. And the classic proposal complete with ring is a vision of romance that we were all brought up with, and that we as women in particular are conditioned practically from birth to look forward to. And as much as my feminist beliefs inform me of the iniquities that lie behind a man on bended knee, that doesn't stop me holding on to it as an image of perfect romance.
What I love so much about Secretary, however, is that the love story is far from classic and is basically a tale of two somewhat freakish personalities finding each other. While it may not be a typical Jennifer Anniston-style romance, it presents the most beautiful manifestations of deep love - unconditional dedication, tenderness, fulfillment of each other's needs... And, diamond ring or no diamond ring, I suppose that's all any of us want from a relationship. (Perhaps with a bit of spanking thrown in...)
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