Romance for Real Women

As I was flipping through my stash of hot guy pics, I came across one of Keanu Reeves and thought about that silly movie where Diane Keaton picks Jack Nicholson over Keanu. I said when I saw it and still believe—that just wasn’t right! Keanu’s character was gorgeous, charming, a heart surgeon, adored her, AND he took her to Paris for her birthday for dog’s sake!  Jack’s character was a jerk played by Jack. Was this woman too stupid to live or what?

Based on my vast research over many years of dating, I’ve decided handsome men can be just as wonderful people as the aesthetically challenged.  AND they look so delicious naked. Yeah, yeah, I’m shallow but there’s no way I’ll ever be so demented I think Jack is a better deal than Keanu…ever, ever, ever!

Of course, the Ultimate Perfect Man ever in cinema was Jake Brigance in A TIME TO KILL. Everything a woman could want—brilliant, loving, faithful, funny, a modern day knight in shining armor with a southern accent fighting for justice. It didn’t hurt that he looked like this:

Sigh. Off to the movies…

Aloutte

Real women, like some politicians, don’t wear their patriotism on their lapels and I don’t. Nevertheless, I am invariably irritated when I read condescending and spiteful remarks, however elegantly phrased, about our country.

Such was the case yesterday when I picked up a copy of The Financial Times, a British publication our office subscribes to and read Nigel Andrews’ review of Sex in the City.

The writer first confesses that he’s never seen an episode of the popular television show. He goes on to say “I offer no excuse, beyond my instinctive aversion to shows in which Americans pretend they are or can be sexually liberated. They are always hopeless at it – the Puritan ancestry tells – and so the results are always screamy, garish and winsome.”

Yeah. That got my attention, too.

After offering that insight, he goes on to say of the movie. “They walk, talk, giggle, gesticulate and sometimes fling themselves across a room, leaving their owners suddenly pink, startled and exposed. This is in preparation for what passes in America for a sex scene.”

One can only imagine Mr. Andrews’ delight in himself in penning such a riposte.

But by then I knew, I just knew, where this was headed. Can you guess?

“Here is my theory: the French alone understand eroticism, so they alone should be allowed to depict sex on screen.”

Yep. We got there. The French.

Many real women will remember back in 2000 when the national discussion centered on President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski. Anyone who offered the slightest hint of criticism or showed any distaste for Clinton’s performance, was told “the French think we’re prudes.” Commentators pointed with pride to French Prime Minister Mitterand’s funeral to which both his wife and mistress attended. That cinched the argument, all right. If you didn’t consider that the height of sophistication you were obviously a prude, bore and barbarian. (At the time I couldn’t understand why anyone cared what the French thought. I still don’t.)

OK, I’m not going list some of the sexiest movies scenes in history played by American actors, written by American scriptwriters and produced by American studios. I don’t have time, although perhaps I will in another post.

I’m not even going to defend Sex in the City because I haven’t seen it yet.

But I’m going to. This weekend. First thing tomorrow. Nigel Andrews has made me realize it’s my patriotic duty.

PBS aired the final episode of Canford last night to the applause of real women everywhere.

The Masterpiece series is based on the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, a Victorian novelist who also wrote gothic horror stories. (In fact, if you’re reading an historical romance and the hero makes a snarky remark about the heroine’s preference in novels, he is probably referring to the work of Mrs. Gaskell.)

Cranford, however, is based her 1851 novel of the same name about life in rural Cheshire.

Mrs. Gaskell is what we used to call in college when I thought I had some understanding of these matters a “minor Victorian novelist.” There was, however, nothing minor about this production.

Headed by a fabulous cast including Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins, the series focuses on the relations between the men and women in a rural English village and how those relations were impacted by the Industrial Revolution which brought such sweeping change to England in all matters, large and small.

These things interest me.

As an example, the Judi Dench character, Miss Mattie Jenkins, has been in love for decades with the yeoman farmer, Mr. Holbrook, played by Michael Gambon. However, as the rector’s daughter, it was thought that an alliance with a yeoman was beneath her station. Some of the most touching scenes in Cranford include their reunion and its outcome.

A variety of relationship issues beset other couples. A young doctor with radically new medical theories such as how to set a broken arm is undone by a hormonally driven patient. Duty to family and father drives another couple apart. And, through it all, we are reminded of how terribly fragile life was in England even in the middle of the vast and ultimately beneficial changes leading to the modern era.

Oh, my. I love this stuff.

Unfortunately for me and I suspect many of you, the recent attention by Hollywood to Jane Austin’s work including Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones Diary has snapped my partner’s willingness to sit through what he derided as “another chick film” on his way out last night.

Pay him no mind. Go to www.pbs.org and check it out. Then get the DVD. Curl up and watch it by yourself or with friends.

He won’t know what he’s missed.