Grand Gestures

date night in Lady and the Tramp (1955)

In high school, I used to be one of those females who hated it when guys paid for meals. I never wanted to be seen as or act like a gold digger (or as Gloria from Modern Family calls it, "coal digger"), and I still don't. It never seemed right to me for guys to be the default person to pick up the tab. I suppose it's the song and dance of dating in the heterosexual world - like how peacocks show off their pretty feathers to peahen to get their attention (see below). 

Then I dated someone who wanted to "take turns" paying for food, which was supposed to be a modern take on relationship spending but turned out to be a guise for the guy to be greedy by picking out the largest, most expensive portions of food whenever it was my turn to pay for things. I was unlucky enough to be smitten and blind as a bat; smoke definitely got in my eyes.

This one experience most likely set me up to appreciate it when/if a nice man goes out of his way to pay for me to be comfortably full and indulge my sweet tooth. We all have bills to pay (unless you're rich, then that's another story) and so it's a doubly nice and grand gesture when someone treats you to a nummy meal. Last week I've been obsessed with Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" song and this line of lyrics from that song sums up what men who do pay go through: "being in love with you ass ain't cheap." If a man opens the door for me, or pulls out a chair for me to sit in, I would probably be thrown off balance and have to take a long minute to realize what just happened. To be perfectly blunt, I am so used to men without manners and lowering my standards in this regards that I'm flabbergasted to find out that men who open doors or pull out chairs for you do exist when such things do happen. I only wish I could be as poised and charming as Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn, but I'm not - I'm actually quite loud (indoor voice, Jess!) and I wouldn't be surprised if strangers catch amusing (and sometimes shocking) sound bites from me.

Grace Kelly in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955)

 

January Jones as Grace Kelly-esque Betty Draper in a Vanity Fair Mad Men photo shoot

"Suddenly feel like a screen goddess in manner of Grace Kelly" -Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

I'm hoping that whoever ends up with me will find my clumsiness and somewhat self-deprecating awkwardness to be endearing - because there's probably no way I can transform myself into Pretty Woman (1990) like Julia Roberts overnight; we can't all be like "Cinder-fuckin'-rella" like in the movies.

(Before) Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman (1990) in hooker mode

Etiquette training: "Elbows off the table. Don't slouch."

(After) Voilà! Cinderella going to the opera.

It's not like men with manners are some kind of extinct species (i.e. dinosaurs) or mythical creature (i.e. unicorns, or special horses with horns); it's like finding a four leaf clover when you least expect it. If you're a gentleman who has manners, take a bow please... but don't be so cocky about it ;) - you're not a peacock, sir.

Chicks, and Birds, and Sirens, Oh My!

Natalie Portman as the Black Swan (2010)

When it comes to animal representations of females, why is it that women are so closely associated with birds? A sexually attractive female is often referred to as a "bird" in British slang (i.e. "That bird is fit!"). Young women are also called "chicks" (as derived from "chicken"). In fact, in Cantonese, the word "chicken" could be used as a slang for "prostitute." A group of loud and possibly gossipy women (or in How I Met Your Mother's case, "woo girls") is sometimes referred to as a group of "cackling hens." For some great examples of cackling hens see/read Clare Boothe Luce's The Women (1936), but please don't watch the 2008 remake with Meg Ryan in it; if you want to watch a remake of The Women (1939), you can watch the musical remake The Opposite Sex (1956).

Before there was The First Wives Club (1996), there was The Women (1939).

In Greek mythology, the Sirens are lethal half-women, half-bird creatures who entice men to their island with their irresistible songs, only to lead men to their demise. To me, these females are a few of the original femmes fatales - way before Rita Hayworth did her "Put the Blame on Mame" striptease and Glenn Close and Michael Douglas were caught in some Fatal Attraction (1987). Sirens are often confused with harpies in Greek mythology who are also winged bird-women. Usually there are 2-3 sister sirens, who are also daughters of the river god Achelous, and the Harpies (Aello, Celaeno, and Ocypete) are sisters of Iris, a messenger to the gods, and daughters of the air nymph Electra. In terms of beauty and temperament, I always got the implication that sirens are fair but deadly maidens while harpies are scary, vicious scavenger-like bird-women, especially after having read Sartre's play Les Mouches (The Flies) which warrants a slight shudder.

John William Waterhouse's Ulysses and the Sirens (1891)

François Perrier's Aeneas and His Companions Fighting Harpies (1646-47)

 I was honestly a tad afraid to Google images of harpies, knowing how grotesque some representations of harpies are. It's interesting how some people imagine harpies as ugly female gargoyles.

Going along with the idea of sirens, I love how my favorite feminist author Margaret Atwood wrote a poem called "Siren Song." She is one witty Canadian :0). My favorite part of her poem is when the siren speaker lures her readers with "Shall I tell you the secret / and if I do, will you get me / out of this bird suit?" as if that siren could feminine masquerade out of being a winged temptress. I would talk about females represented as winged sphinxes but I could easily go on a long tangent on the topic of women represented as felines. Let's not deviate from the main topic... I'll save the discussion on sphinxes for a rainy day. Anyways, on with more females as birds...

In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1898), the small place that protagonist Edna Pontellier decides to make her own is called a "pigeon house" simply "because it's so small and looks like a pigeon house" (619). Edna even identifies herself as a birdlike creature when she talks about her time spent with Madame Reisz to one of her beaux:

"Well, for instance, when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder-blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said, 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'" (617)

Other references to females as birdlike creatures include Evelyn de Morgan's painting The Gilded Cage (1919); it serves as an allegory for a trapped female housed in comfortable surroundings, a "gilded cage," in contrast to the fluttering bird she appears to be reaching for outside her window. On a random note, this painting makes me think of young Jenny in Forrest Gump (1994) praying, "Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far far away from here." It's a different situation for young Jenny since she's living in an abusive environment, but nevertheless that line from Forrest Gump still captures the same desperate feeling of being trapped that The Gilded Cage conveys.

The Gilded Cage (1919)

As for contemporary literature that alludes to women as birds, Maya Angelou wrote an important African-American and women studies autobiographical sketch called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) that I have yet to read. Although she wrote poem with the same title and with the caged bird referred to as a "he," it is an interesting read if you'd like to check that out. Please keep in mind that I am not a Maya Angelou expert and am embarrassed that I still have not read anything by her yet, but I absolutely welcome any Maya Angelou recommendations :0).

 a postcard I bought a long time ago

Truth be told, I should have taken up Women Studies as a second major when I was an undergrad but you know what, that's okay cause having too many shoulda, coulda, woulda thoughts leads to unnecessary discontentment and disappointment :P. I know Women Studies have that whole stigma that females who specialize in that field are all misandrists, but just to set things straight, I don't hate men... although this one Christina Aguilera song called "I Hate Boys" is a pretty catchy misandrist tune ;). Sometimes I can get frustrated with men but that's only cause they puzzle me so.


In the famous ballet Swan Lake, a spell has been cast on the character Princess Odette, which transforms her into a swan by day and allows her to keep her true human form at night. I'd be happy to see a live ballet performance of Swan Lake, but so far, my main exposure to the Swan Lake story comes from the animated feature The Swan Princess (1994), something I used to rewatch as a kid.



I'll end this post with a nice and more familiar "bird" reference from Love Actually (2003), a movie I really should own but don't. Throughout this film, Laura Linney's character Sarah has been pining for her ridiculously good-looking co-worker Karl (played by Rodrigo Santoro). When she finally gets a chance to become even more familiar with Karl, the non-diegetic song played in the background of this intimate scene is Eva Cassidy's "Songbird," which implies that Sarah is a song "bird," metaphorically cooing or rather tweeting sweetly for Karl to love her. Speaking of tweeting, I'm probably going to tweet link this blog post on Twitter as soon as I'm done writing it.

Perhaps the most rewatched scene in Love Actually - mainly because of Rodrigo Santoro.

In the words of Sarah, said in a totally different context of course, and in regards to all life's possibilities, I'm "[f]ree as a bird. Fire away."

La Vie en Technicolor?

The reason why I love watching films like The Red Shoes (1948), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Heaven Can Wait (1943) is because vibrant, gorgeous colors in Technicolor pictures such as those give me warm fuzzies as I stare at the screen in awe. Sometimes I really wish I had a BluRay player so I can watch those films properly, but then again, part of me is convinced that DVDs and BluRay discs will eventually become obsolete and be replaced by smaller, even more compact data storage devices like USBs. Part of the reason why I love Technicolor is because I love beautiful things and when you see color like that on film, it makes you understand why someone like Todd Haynes would emulate that visual style in Far from Heaven (2002) or why the people who worked on Pushing Daisies (2007-2009) used such exaggerated bright colors; I'm guessing they do it because candy-colored visuals trigger a sense of wonderment in people.

Pushing Daisies

It's a pity that it only lasted for 2 seasons :0/

Since we don't live in a Technicolor world, and of course most of us aren't rich, we find beauty in the simple things in life. For example, as someone who likes collecting quotes, and listing movies watched and books read in notebooks, I try to purchase notebooks that I find visually stimulating or at least decently pretty. Here are 3 out of 4 notebooks I use regularly:

I only ordered something once or twice from Turner Classic Movies and ever since, I've been getting mail from them. This is a mini catalog I got from them recently that I thought had an especially nice holiday cover. The focus is on Jean Harlow because I love her and she happens to be one of my Classic Hollywood female favorites ^-^.

I woke up and found myself with a sore throat this morning and so I've been drinking lots and lots of tea (pictured is Stash's strawberry pomegranate herbal red tea below) in my childhood Snow White cup. The reason why I have this cup instead of the Sleeping Beauty one that my sister has is because my parents used to call me Snow White in Cantonese when I was a little girl. Before puberty reared its ugly head, I had hair as black as ebony and fair, snow white skin (also meaning that I was a pale little kid).

I confess, this post turned out to be an excuse to indulge myself and have fun taking pretty pictures of things around my room, including these pjs, but isn't it so much more pleasant to surround yourself with brightly (hopefully not tacky) colored things, even if they're tiny little things?