My life is full of messages. From the daily to do list, the panapoly of problems presented by the media to the ever present crises of everyday life, I do not need more. They are ubiquitous. Movies demand that we attend to the infidelity of gay cowboys or contemplate the secret evil conglomerate that controls petroleum supplies. Movies are being planned about hurricane Katrina.
Are there darker clouds on the horizon? I can still hear the words of the Kingston Trio as they sang, “They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran. What mother nature doesn’t do to us, will be done by our fellow man.” I am therefore climbing up on my verbal soapbox and saying, “I’m sick of this and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Better put, I will attend to those things over which I have some modicum of control. I will seek to find solace in times out, in entertainment that doesn’t extend the reach of the mountains of problems that endlessly demand our attention into my “get away” time.
When I seek out entertainment, I do so to escape. It is not that I will lose my mind and forget the border between the real and the fantasy, it is simply that I need, and I think we all need, time to let our minds rest, a kind of virtual vacation to allow us to deal with the messages that confront us every day.
I am not interested in movies about illness, about man’s inhumanity to man, about
one director’s version of history (my teeth are clenching at the last) or even movies about animals, large, small or in herds. I reject the latter subject because there is an inevitable sad part that affects the said creature(s) I am still the small child hiding under the seat until the bad part goes by. If the theme of a movie generates a serious discussion, I am not interested. I have my work, my newspapers and the laundry to do that.
Give me a 1930’s fantasy complete with mansions with 20 foot ceilings, women dressed in chiffon and diamonds, elegant cars, luscious romance, full orchestras and tinkling laughter and I am a happy girl. Show me a 1940’s or 50’s Film Noir with its rain drenched streets, blinking neon signs, the tough, jaded detective and his beautiful but hard as nails female lead and I am ecstatic.
I adore musicals. OK, so Les Miserables isn’t what you would call joyous, but all that singing helps lift your soul. Let me watch Ginger Rogers and Fred Astair, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor or Ann Miller and the many unknowns who danced and sang their way through musical comedy escapist fare. No one does this in real life, but maybe they should. Sitting at a restaurant the other Sunday morning, I couldn’t envision the patrons breaking out into song or the waitstaff doing a snappy tap dance the way such things happen in the movies, but heck,. I know that there are those of you who are reading this who sing in their cars. You sing at the top of your lungs, full of the joy of the moment and I would bet that when no one is looking, you try a few dance steps yourselves.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy against lunacy; that we are all under some pressure to think serious thoughts at all times and to find among our down time, dour time.
And books, wonderful take me away to mysteries on Majorca, a train ride through China, a sappy romance in Vermont…travel at home.
I taught history. I know about, or at least I think I know about, the awfulness of life. We teach it everyday. I would be hard pressed to find places in our curricula where the triumph of goodness wins the day. Sure we win battles, wars, etc. That’s how we get to write the text books, but I am speaking of the essential goodness of people that is never given its rightful place in history books or the cinema. The closest we get to that are the guilty pleasures of truly entertaining movies and plays.
Life is sacrifice, it is hard, it is sometimes, inevitably sad but it is also an E ticket ride. Climb aboard!
