I always fall for the wrong man... Part 2: Snow White

I'm not going to lie... I was really excited for this film, and I have really mixed emotions about having seen it.

After reading this review by James Franco hailing Stewart and kinda, sorta condemning the writers... I can see his point. Most of my qualms have to do with the writers... I will admit that.

The film was visually stunning, as it promised. I really enjoyed the forest, the dwarves, the castle... everything was a menagerie of terrifying, mystical and whimsy animals and creatures.

I enjoyed the menacing paradox of the Queen... locked into a lie and a spell as a girl. I felt like they spent a lot more on Ravena's character development than on Snow White's... She barely has any lines, and while her actions speak, and while others speak about her, and her "effect" on people speaks... she sort of jumps into a very dramatic speech at the end that falls a bit flat. I really wanted her to be the inspiring character that she was meant to be, but... I felt like I was being TOLD about her inspiration rather than seeing it for myself.

Likewise,... as with all films and tv, I fell for the wrong character again. I was supposed to fall for the Huntsman... he's the other title character, but I was too taken by William.

With the rise of the Hunger Games, the underdog guy has been on the market... Peeta, or more broadly, Team Peeta, has taken the world by storm... and with it, Team Gale.

William was a childhood playmate of Snow White and is madly in love with her, fiercely dedicated to the idea that he abandoned her when her father's kingdom got taken. With this new idea has come the stereotype of "The faithful guy"... He's very different than the whipped guy or the wimp guy. The faithful guy may or may not be tough. He has one driving passion... you. In any other context, he'd be considered a stalker, but in this case, he's the one. (Inspired, no doubt, by Edward Cullen... watching girls sleep... creepy)

Or in this case, he's NOT the one... since the Huntsman's kiss wakens Snow White. Here is where my real criticism comes in...

Snow White gets lured to her death by the Queen masquerading as William. Snow White loves William, kisses him... remembers him... William isn't unworthy, he spends his life trying to revenge Snow White. He tracks her relentlessly once he discovers she's alive... but somehow, Hollywood has decided the drunk, heartbroken Huntsman who had a wife like Snow White once,... He's her true love... umm... no.



The Huntsman may be a more masculine type of sexy, he may be tough and have his own issues,.. sure, he really loved his wife... sure, he might come to love Snow White... but we never get the hint ANYWHERE in the film that he thinks of her as more than a comrade or the Princess till he kisses her after delivering a speech about his dead wife and how the Queen took her.

He may believe in her... but that doesn't mean he loves her. William wants to defend Snow White--he's spent his life dedicated to her... the only possible thing I can imagine Hollywood to be thinking is that William was dedicated to his own imagining of Snow White, not who she really was... but, again, we don't see that... we see pure, loving dedication.

I don't know why Hollywood took away the kiss from William... It doesn't make sense to me. I never got the idea that the Huntsman was in love with Snow White. The closing scene where he's not at the coronation and he walks in late, she's looking for him... he seems like close friends rather than soul mates or lovers or true loves.

I'm not saying the Huntsman didn't love his wife or wasn't a good man... I'm just saying... he isn't for Snow White... not because he's a commoner or because he was married previously... just because he wasn't for her.

For the record, I've already stated my ideas about the entire Team Peeta/ Team Gale catastrophe here...

I don't know why Hollywood keeps trying to push one image of masculinity down our throats... and one kind of romance for that matter... but I wish they'd stop. Souls don't look at rippled abs and chisled jaws quite so much as Hollywood does... but the soul remembers love...

I would just like to say...

that the Birds Eye Polar Bear is super creepy...

The deep voice, the awkward head movements, and the terrified looks of the women in the commercials make him seem like a sex offender in training... SUPER CREEPY...

On the other hand...
I <3 the PG Tips Monkey...

First of all, he's knitted! He knows how to make proper tea. He understands English weather. He isn't rude and doesn't tell you off like the creepy polar bear. He makes tea for you... Basically, he's just all around a superior hand puppet spokesperson... the best one on TV unless Elmo is trying to sell something.

The Social Network and Women

So I'm not really one to follow fads. In fact, I usually look the other way. Feathers in my hair... ummm no. Self-tanner... Pale in the new tan, says the Vampire Freaks... Jeggings... Give me a break. As a side note, it's easy to look too thin or too thick in leggings, so be careful.

So when The Social Network came out, I looked the other way, but sooner or later, aka, free at my parent's house, I watched the "sexiest geeks alive" complete their internet domination.

It's "cute" really, the way they framed the story around a woman... a woman who rejected geek Mark Zuckerberg and therefore inspired his drunken revenge. The only intelligent woman in the entire movie is the one who rejects him. Let me rephrase that, the other women in the film could be intelligent, but they are only portrayed as objects who lavish their attention on the newly rich geeks.

From Eduardo's psycho girlfriend, Christy, to the girls who give them blow jobs in the bathroom of the club, to the sexy waitresses in LA who look the other way as Sean Parker orders appletini's for obviously underage college kids, the women in the film fulfill part of the male fantasy of "being cool." The entire premise is that "if we're cool, everyone will love us, women will lavish us with affection, and we'll be rich." Even after Sean Parker admits he's poor from all the law suits, he uses his "cool power" to mooch off of businesses and sneak his way into the facebook company.

Erica, the only character (maybe besides Eduardo) with integrity, dumps Mark when he expresses disdain for the "obviously stupid" BU students, brags about his perfect SAT score, and obsesses about the social superiority of final clubs. Later in the film, Mark tries to talk to her and she still refuses, spurring him on to expand the facebook network until she can see how amazing he is. In a conversation with Sean Parker, Sean tells him that he'll get over it and won't think about her anymore, but till the end of the movie, Erica, aka, the only woman who stood up to him, remains in his mind. Towards the end of the film, Mark looks up Erica's profile but resists the urge to "friend" her.

In talking to a few guy friends, they expressed this romantically, as if Mark had done all this for her... but revenge and the desire to show off, or to prove that you're better, that you're the one she should be looking at, isn't romantic. The need to be the biggest and most bad-ass would just overshadow her if she gave in to his peacock preening.

For Mark, Erica acknowledging his fame would have just been another feather in his hat. He didn't love her, although perhaps he could have, but I do believe he respected her opinion and her intellect. His conceited bragging reminded me of the first proposal of Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. He wants to adopt her into his world and shield her from other's prejudice, but what he doesn't see is his own pathetic, demeaning heart. Erica, like Elizabeth, and, I hope, all women, scoffs at the superficial and self-centered nature of the relationship.

Instead of transforming into a nurturing partner like Darcy, Mark settles for superficial relationships and status, in the end, still pining for the admiration of the one woman he can respect, perhaps only because she rejected him.

Throughout the film, women are portrayed through the eyes of college boys as either bitchy, ugly, controlling, and/or easy and attracted to fame.

While I acknowledge that the status of women isn't really the point of the film, the projection of women's affections and attention as the impetus and motivation for success and creativity is in this case a bit revolting, but also intriguing. It both raises and lowers the status of women to the inspiration for all art, and the most manipulated and naive of humans. What then is the power of beauty that it can even penetrate to the heart of the most seemingly sterile horizons of programming and business? How naive is she if she falls for the shallow lovers of popularity and hype? Sigh...  (Sorry business and IT geeks--the artistic nature of your vocation will have to be another post for another day).