seeing the sex and romantic comedic side in "10"

        One of my first thoughts about watching romantic comedies from the 70s and before compared to the romantic comedies that I see today, was that the comedy element in the 70s movies focuses more on real life problems or incidents that if they happened to you, you would only be able to laugh when looking back it.  To where the comedy element in today’s movies tend to be these obvious jokes that most often the characters (and the viewer) recognize as funny as soon as the happen.

Even thought the movie and story elements have stayed the same over the years, the type of humor and comedy has changed making it hard to see the relation and the similarities between the movies made back in the 70s versus today.  However, after learning and understanding the characteristics that are a part of the radical romantic comedy, it is clear that the characteristics are still there, just in a different form.

        One of the main characteristics I saw throughout the movie “10”, was the “masquerade” element.  In comparing to the article, the movie “10” has the male lead, George, take on the masquerade elements as he knows he is unhappy with his age, and has his mid-life crisis.  His girlfriend and friend/partner know that something is wrong with him as he shares a little about how he’s feeling.  But when he up and flies to Mexico in order to hunt down Jenny, they do not know about his whereabouts, or what he has been feeling with jenny.

        As far as “self-reflexivity” goes, I believe it shows up in George, Sam,and Jenny as the characters display it in different areas.  I think George shows it as presenting a complex problems that’s still an ongoing battle with individuals today.  Many people have mid-life crisis’ and George getting this idea in his head that he has to have his perfect women, yet when he does get her, he realizes it was a mistake to go to such great lengths to pursue her.  This holding the ‘modern and more realistic form of romantic comedy’, seeing as that we still see this in rom-coms today, and as well as it being an actual struggle for some.

        The women of this film are interesting in contrast to one another, yet still viewing them both in the aspects of self-reflexivity.  Both Sam and Jenny find sex to be an important part of a relationship, but Sam’s views are more traditional seeing that sex should be just between the two people in the relationship and neither of them lusting or desiring anyone else.  Jenny however clearly sees that the importance of sex is for showing love and appreciation even if it’s not with the other person you are in the relationship with.

       Unfortunately, I could not find the film anywhere online, so I didn’t see what happened, but I did look it up and read about the ending.  I thought it was an interesting second have of a movie because I would not have expected for Jenny and her new husband’s romance to have allowed George to sleep with Jenny.  That’s not something that’s common in today’s romantic comedies typical...yes, we sometimes see a lost and confused character have a crisis, and maybe even go on the chase, but it is rare for them to be chasing someone who is already married, and for them to get that married person.  By having George realize what he’s done and how outrageous it was for him to make the decision to chase newly wedded Jenny we return to the same formula that we see in sex and romantic comedies...it ends with boy getting girl.

old fashion rom-coms

        It’s funny that one can think that something is such a new genre and that my mother, for example, wouldn’t understand why “Rom-Com”’s are so appealing to me and my friends.  I sometimes get this idea that sticks that my mom (or other elders) can’t ever think of relationships or sex as comedic.  I was raised to respect love and the sanctity that marriage holds, but I guess because of this, I subconsciously thought that my mom never saw or understood that sex, romance, or relationships with various people could be made light of, or enjoy as they were made light of.  I guess what I most lacked was the understanding of what elements, or characteristics sex comedy holds...and because of not being aware of this, I failed to understand that sex comedy has been around for quite some time, and that my mother is well aware of what it is.

        To be totally honest, I don’t think I can name one romantic or sex comedy I’ve seen before the 90s, but I know they exist.  However, even when I do think back to the earliest 90s rom-com I’ve seen, it does hold the same characteristics that I see in the Jason Segel, Jennifer Aniston rom-coms that I find myself excited to see today.  I love this idea of “battling lovers” that The Sex Comedy talks about, because it seems to be a conflict issue that could literally be around for years to come (and if I saw a good old fashion romantic comedy, it would be believable still if it was part of the plot).  Men and women have their differences, obviously, and no matter what amount of time goes by, I think that biologically men and women will have different views on romance and sex.  This can bring forth the “hierarchy of knowledge” element into discussion which in a way leads us right to hegemonic masculinity arguing that men know more than women, yet “we” the viewers of said movie or situation, know more or better than both.

        Over all I think one of the things that grabbed me the most in the readings was that time doesn’t change reality.  Yes, true that there is mostly a specific image branded to romantic comedies, and that it can be easy to quickly judge that genre of book or movie as fictitious but in reality, regardless of the exact situation portrayed, all of the elements and/or characteristics discussed in the reading could easily take place in a relationship today.  People in relationships still experience emotions other than love before love itself, there tends to be a hierarchy of knowledge in almost any romantic or sexual relationship, “battle of wits” often shows up in relationships commonly before one really gets going or as one is ending.  As much as I’d like to think that relationships aren’t so textbook, it becomes clear to me that relationships are a comedy that whether or not I like it, have certain elements that don’t just change or disappear over time.

Casino Royale Presentation

        When it came time to pick the text for the presentation, I was completely torn.  Half of me wanted to do something that was closer to current times (the movie or social networking site) and the other half of me wanted to take a chance to learn about an older text and it’s relation to pop culture, structuralism, post-structuralism, etc.  I ended up choosing Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale because the fact that was written some years back still holds a great amount of popularity (movies that I enjoy today), not to mention the fact that this story and it’s main character has literally lasted generations, intrigues me.

        There are a few things that went into the preparation of this presentation,  the first of which was discussing the book as a whole and as a group.  We met a few times discussing the reading and the (possible) correlations that Casino Royale has to the class material, but after a few of those meetings I felt that we needed to break down what it was exactly that we all wanted to talk about and ask to get the class discussions going.  I set up two different meetings for the group so we could use this time to make sure that our subjects would not overlap and then asked the rest of the group in which style they would like to present.  During these two meetings we decided to composed a power-point as an outline for our audience to help keep them on track.  We each designed our own slide (shout-out to Nick for putting all the slides together/letting us use your computer!) which would contain what main points we wanted to talk about, along with pictures and clips that we felt demonstrated the points and ideas we wanted to bring up.  I am leading the discussion on Vesper and other topics containing women that interact with Bond and how the text Casino Royale’s elements differs from how women “should” be treated by a man in pop culture today.  In addition to setting up the meetings and designing my slide, I came up with the classroom activity idea.  We all discussed different ways to split up the classroom into groups, but I thought it would be fun to have trivia questions in between the different topics that we wanted to cover to break up the deep theory-relation thinking, and add a little fun, basic text (and movie) reference thinking.

        I seriously could not be happier with my text choice, but I have to say that I don’t ever think I’ll hear “James Bond” and not think about all the analyzing that I did in relating it to everything we’ve been learning in class.  I think it’s great that I know I have the ability and the desire to view things in a deeper, more objective way than I would have before.  I know that this is all part of learning but one of my favorite things about deconstructing a certain book, movie, or play is that the story resonates with me differently and every time I hear the title or plot being discussed I’m please that I know more than just the story.