I watched Pride and Prejudice again last night while I was paying bills. I bought the DVD last week when it came out, and I also bought Walk the Line and Lady and the Tramp.
But it's Pride and Prejudice I'm compelled to watch, and every time the movie ends, my daughter says, "I want to get married." I asked her, and she agreed that's not what she really wants. She wants what all the women who watch that movie want: She wants a man to look at her the way Mr. Darcy looks at Elizabeth.
In the scene where Mr. Darcy proposes to her the first time with the rain forming a curtain around them, even though she rejected him he still moves toward her. He looks at her mouth and you know he wants to kiss her, but then he remembers he's a gentleman, and he takes his leave of her. And she's left standing there bereft of something she didn't even know she wanted. And I feel bereft of that same thing just by watching.
When I watch this movie and then I look at our culture, I can see what the Sexual Revolution has stolen from us. It's stolen Romance.
The stereotypical relationship today begins when two people see each other. He thinks she's hot. She thinks he's hot. They hook up and end up in bed, if not tonight then soon. And they miss out on so much by speeding up the process. They miss the exquisite torment of anticipation that comes with taking things slowly. And once you've passed or skipped any given point, you can't go back later and capture it.
You miss the wondering if he's going to call, and he won't. Not until after you've given up and decided that you must have misinterpreted the way he looked at you and the low timbre of his voice that you've never heard him use when he talks to his friends.
You miss wondering if he'll kiss you at the door when he brings you home, and when he finally does, and he's gone, you'll lean back against the door or the wall, unable to stand on your own, and relive the moment, until you realize you don't know when he'll call again.
You miss the butterflies and the secret smiles and the wondrous torture of blossoming romance when you do things the way today's culture dictates. You miss so much.
I have got to stop watching that movie.
2 comments:
Hear Hear.
Bring it back. We want romance.
Skye,
I've stopped watching it as my first choice, but if it's on (my daughter has a couple friends who come over sometimes just to watch this movie), then I sit down and watch it to the end with them.
You're so right about meeting people over the internet. You know so little, even if you know a lot. Besides the cases of obvious deception (she sends a photo of her skinny younger sister, when she's really eight feet wide and ten years older), there are qualities you can't know until you meet in person, and any number of them can be show-stoppers. She talks incessantly. His arrogance knows no bounds.
This whole man-woman thing is a minefield. And yet I still believe that if I can get across it relatively unscathed, it will be worth having taken the risk.
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