A Case For Love Triangles

 

Hi. My name is Becky, and I love love triangles. I've met some who oppose of geometric romance, so I wanted to sit down, and get out some of my thoughts, and subject you to them at the same time. Hurray!

Love triangles are when one person digs someone, and someone else digs them. It's not necessary that two points of the triangle dig each other, but that's often the way. 

In Fight Club's case, he liked Marla, and Marla just liked him back, but he thought that meant she liked someone else. He was a little confused. It's okay.

So, who would say, "I don't like these love triangles!" when obviously it's a smashing happening? I don't know, dudes. But they say things like, "This is a trope, and tropes are evil!" So, is it a trope? Define "trope!" A trope is, according to whatever came up when I Googled it, "a common or overused theme or device." BUSTED! Looks like love triangles are a trope, guys. Shut it down. 

Why are you still reading? We've decided it's a trope, and we all know tropes are bad. Move on with your lives. 

Fine. Okay. Let's divide tropes into two categories, JUST FOR FUN! First we've got our CRAPPY WRITING TROPES. In this section we'll cram all the tropes that aren't REALISTIC, and perhaps are downright insulting. IN YOU GO, ADO ANNIES OF THE WORLD! SEE YOU LATER, KAREN SMITH! References: The Oklahoma! character whose personality is promiscuity, and the Mean Girls character whose personality is promiscuous idiot. Why was there ever more than one of these!? Also, we can say goodbye to the nerd who is passed over in their career, then gets evil, and hot. I couldn't believe it when Wonder Woman 1984 did this AGAIN.

But there's another category, my friends: REALISTIC TROPES. And we should keep these. I'm making this up as I go, and so I haven't thought much about what else fits into this, and maybe we should get rid of those, but let's go ahead and put love triangles here, because - let me ask you a question; have you ever been in love? YOU HAVE!?! And did that person like you back? NO!??! Well, then my friend, congratulations,  YOU HAVE BEEN IN A LOVE TRIANGLE! Wait. What? They did love you back? That's WONDERFUL! Did anyone have eyes for you, or them, while you were jonesing for each other? THEY DID?!?! You know what that means, friends? YOU'VE BEEN IN A LOVE TRIANGLE! I can almost completely 100% guaran-freaking-tee that every single relationship ever, except maybe, gosh, I hope, Adam and Eve's, has been a love triangle. 

My second point.

All the best movies have love triangles. Gone With The Wind, Hunger Games, and not even just romances. There's also Harry Potter, Encanto, Indiana Jones, Les Miserables, X-Men, Spider-man.... We've also got Gladiator and Star Wars which both managed to have love triangles even when two of the points were related! Lord of the Rings? Check! Even your precious Titanic is one big love triangle. So stop bashing on love triangles, when you know you love them! Even if they love someone else.

2020’s Emma

It took me a while to realize what it was about this movie that was driving me nuts. I love this movie, but it drives me nuts. Then it hit me! It’s over-directed. In its attempt to be *interesting* it’s over-directed, which leads us to... UNREALISM! Oh the dread of something not seeming real! I actually don’t get why things have to be real all the time. But I will say when something takes a step away from reality, it should have a reason... stronger than, “Because we’ve heard this story before and now we have to make it different.” It’s a good story as it is, with solid characters who’ve stood the test of time! They don’t need your cleverness! Oh they’re so proud of how effing clever they are. I’m sorry! Okay? (Spoilers.) Emma’s nose bleed. Not needed. Doesn’t add anything to the moment, or the character. The end. Next topic. The social/distanced dance in the street between Emma and Frank! Oh gosh! It’s so cwoot! They’re flirting! They’re bonding! It’s trash! It’s such cleverly directed slosh-bucket. The butts! Nudity is no substitute for wit. (I stole that from the dowager countess of Grantham, but she said, “vulgarity.” Same thing.) Reminding us that people have butts does not improve your movie. Not to boast, but some of us already knew about butts. Where was I? I raged about the nose bleed, the Covid-dancing... oh! The dance at the ball between Emma and Knightley. You know it and I know it, it was sexual! Have you, don’t answer this, ever had sex while dancing? ‘Cause Emma and Knightley have! In fact, that’s how we, and apparently Emma, discovered they liked each other. Whose eyes are those rolling around? Oh. They’re mine. So freaking clever to make the dance so steamy! Do you see how easy it is to be exhausted by the end of such a witty movie? The movie already has a perfectly capable cast, and one of the greatest stories of all time! The script is delightful! The contrived and overbearing, ridiculous, cuteness added in... excuse me. I have to use the bathroom... to barf.

I’m back. Rant over. Thing is, I really like the movie! I pressure everyone to see it, because NOBODY HAS! The actors are wonderful. If they didn’t all get married by the end, I would have married all of them! The costumes were sometimes a bit too modern-seeming... No. shut up. I’m only talking about good things now! Oh! What the frock was with that score?!?! Sorry. That’s negative again. Gosh darn it! Anyway, you may not believe me, but I really do like the movie. Plenty to enjoy... just... don’t think about it. Okay. That’s all. Bye guys.

Mary Freaking Sue

Here’s why the term “Mary Sue” sucks and needs to die:

Mary Sue’s been around for forever, and nobody cared until the trope was applied to a woman. Novelists have been writing men who are outlandishly perfect for a long time. I give you Westley from The Princess Bride who couldn’t even be tortured and when he actually died, it didn’t take. I also give you The Count of Monte Cristo, who went to prison to get more awesome. These male characters, and many like them, are impervious to everything. They’re inexplicably superior to everyone they meet. They are ridiculous, and unrealistic, and nobody cared. People give Bella Swan of Twilight a hard time for being a Mary Sue and Stephenie Meyers laughed all the way to the bank. Obviously the trope is not keeping fans away. So why bring it up like it’s something anyone should care about? “Rey’s a Mary Sue!” Sorry. Find a different excuse to hate the sequels, ‘cause that’s an unoriginal, boring reason, and history has taught us that nobody really cares about Mary Sues.

So why did someone all the sudden stand up and shout, “Hey! This female character in this fan fic is unrealistically boss! We need a term for this offense so we can shame others and act like it’s a new thing!” I’m having a problem coming up with a reason apart from: blatant sexism.

Am I wrong? I’d love to be wrong.

Klaus

All I hear is, "Klaus is so good." "Everyone should watch Klaus." So, let's talk about it, friends. Let's talk about Klaus.

It's on Netflix.

It's about a mailman whose punishment is being sent to a small town waaaaaaaay up North. The town sucks. Everyone hates each other. Worst of all, nobody goes to school, and nobody mails letters, because of the hate.

Our friend, mail dude, has to mail 6,000 before he can go home, to his life of mailman luxury. He steals a kid's drawing, a drawing of said kid looking sad, and tells the kid she can have it back if she purchases postage. Her parents show up, and he runs off, with the drawing. He runs into a big scary guy, AKA Santa, (or Klaus,) who finds the drawing, and makes the postman deliver to the sad girl a toy. (Klaus has lots of toys.) So the postman does it, and soon every kid in town thinks if they mail a letter to Klaus he'll mysteriously deliver a toy to them in the middle of the night.

Well the kids start getting along, and guess who hates that? A few old people. So they try to Grinch Santa and the mailman. Then everyone finds out the mailman was really just trying to get the heck out of their sucky town, and they're really upset at him.
Here's where I go, "Oh come on. Is that really so bad?" In this movie's hurry to be formulaic, they missed making the mailman's sins against his friends, really that big of a bummer. His girlfriend, the teacher, was doing the exact same thing! Then she holds it against him when it comes out he was doing the same thing? Come on.

Then there's a touching moment, that made me cry, and that's when I went, "Oh. There it is. I cried. That's why everyone likes this movie."

To sum it up, it's okay. It's kind of heartwarming if you like warm hearts and all that. I give it a meh on the Boonie scale. Well... it's better than meh, but it's meh. It's not The Iron Giant. Maybe I'm angry because I expected more.

I liked the kid with the carrot, (above.)

Pixar Movies Sadness Level

Pixar movies rated by sadness.

Now you can do what I do - decide which movie you want to see based on how sad you want to get. Enjoy! (Or don't. If you like sad movies and want to suffer.)

1. Inside Out: Cried the entire time. Never not crying.

2. The Good Dinosaur: Bawl fest 2015

3. Coco: Day of the Sad

4. Up: Oh hello. Would you like to be sad?

5. Toy Story 4: Sad Story 4

6. Toy Story 3: The Toys Start Getting Sad

7. Monsters Inc.: Just thinking about the ending is making me tear up. Don't think about it!

8. Toy Story 2: Jessie's past life in Sadville.

9. Finding Dory: I haven't even seen it all the way through because it's more boring than anything else... which is sad.

10. Finding Nemo: Every parents' worst nightmare.

11. Wall-E: No tears, but super depressing.

12. Cars 3: Sad Cars

13. Brave: There are moving moments

14. Ratatouille: another nightmare

15. Cars: it's kind of sad that Lightening McQueen doesn't win... right?

16. A Bug's Life: Sad that it doesn't have more Heimlich

17. The Incredibles: Hardly sad at all.

18. The Incredibles 2: Even less sad.

19. Monsters University: Not sad even slightly. Downright freaking delightful.

Spider-man: Far From Home

Yay! Go see it.

Aladdin

I was not expecting to completely love this movie. These live-action Disney remakes have been disappointing crap-fests. (Search your feelings. You know it to be true.) The Jungle Book was dark and stupid. The best parts of the original were the songs! Take that away and you've just got a big, Christopher Walken monkey. Nobody wants that. Hermione and the Beast was absolutely horrible. Emma Watson's voice made me want to burn my ears off, and she turned Belle into a snob. Belle wasn't a brainy snob. She was brainy, but her big brain didn't make her head bigger. Also, I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't care for that Evermore song. Just give us, "If I Can't Love Her!" from the Broadway version. That song's amazing. Like sit in my room and not do anything but listen to that song amazing. Cinderella was okay, probably because it wasn't trying to be a sad carbon copy of the original. But it was still slow... and still sad. But you know what gave me chills, was exciting, and not a depressing suck-fest?

I'm not saying it's perfect. Beware of spoilers. (Yes. I know you've seen the original. But still.)

Here's what didn't work.

1. The ending didn't have a, "I'm a street rat, remember? I'll improvise." moment. Who cares? Well, I'll tell ya. He had to be who he was in order to win. When it mattered, being who he was was better than being a prince.

2. Adopt a voice trainer. I'm sorry. But flat notes have no place in Agrabah. Jasmine's voice sounded good during her new, modern, songs, but "A Whole New World" needed a whole new singer. But it's tough being compared to the great Lea Salonga! Meanwhile, during the musical numbers, Will Smith's energy would go on vacation. But this is me reeeeeeeeeally nit picking. No performance was as bad as Emma Watson's was. The best singer was the woman with one line, "Still I think he's rather tasty." Hello there, random citizen with a beautiful voice!

3. Let's talk about Jasmine's story line. It was new. It was unrealistic, except in a modern, or magical, setting. (Which it was, so we're good.) But did we lose our "I'm a street rat," moment because Jasmine was having her, "I won't be silent" moment? I think we could have had both. It stayed true to Jasmine's original character. They just took it a step... or 900 steps, further. But it might have been nice to see a change there. If the movie had started with her keeping silent, and being scared, THEN she embraced her voice at the end, that would have been more effective.

So what worked? I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED! I'm not even gonna number them. Let's go!

Okay. I'll number them. We'll keep score.

1. Will Smith's Genie. No. He's not Robin Williams. Of course he's not. No one is. But you know who he is? He's FREAKING WILL SMITH! He's the Fresh Prince of Ababwa! So shut up about it and get off his back. Come on, people. Seriously.

2. Aladdin. He was great! I loved that during One Jump Ahead you could tell he loved being the Robin Hood of Agrabah. It was wonderful to see this side of Aladdin that really enjoyed who he was, and what he was doing. 

3. The differences. The little things. The removal of the dungeon scene. The removal of Jasmine running away. Gone. Gone. Gone. Thank you!

4. Iago. 

5. The beginning. HOW SWEET WAS THAT!?! So cute! Of course, knowing everything, I knew what was going on. The kids behind me didn't. At the end of the film they were like, "Oh!" Silly youths.

6. I'm out of things to say now. But I want to add numbers because I said we'd keep score earlier and I really enjoyed this movie. It kept giving me chills! It was so much fun! 

7. I don't want to leave out Jafar or the Sultan. They were great. Carpet. Great. Abu. Really great. Is great a good word to use when eloquently critiquing a movie? Nobody cares! (Nobody being me.) 

8. Seriously. I'm done now. Just go see the movie. I'm sorry I didn't list anyone's names except Will Smith's. Check out IMDb. Don't make me do all the work.

9. But let's make this an even 10.

10. Go see it.