A Women's Right to Choose... to Fall for the Okie Doke.

My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, wanna share an appetizer at TGI Fridays?

   That's pretty much how that climactic scene from The Princess Bride would have gone down if all females had been in the writing room. Just saying. We can be so non-confrontational when it counts. And don't even get me started on that damn Princess Buttercup. I know throughout history princesses haven't exactly been the benchmark of the feminist movement but damn lady... could you have been more helpless? First, the handsome and brave Westley carries you through the dark forest and not only does he protect you (not to mention almost loses his life) against those big rat-like things, he almost dies in the process. Then he makes a speedy recovery and infiltrates the castle walls to come rescue you from the evil Prince Humperdinck. How do you repay him for his bravery? By sitting there helpless and doe-eyed as the rat-like thingy attacks him and then deciding instead of fighting against the darkness or going out to find your true love, to just go kill yourself and say fughetaboudeet to the whole ruling over the enchanted kingdom game. You suck Buttercup! Obviously this is still somewhat of a sore spot for me... it's only been like, I dunno... twenty-five years since this movie first came out so I think I should get an A for effort and maybe like a B-minus for staying current. What does any of this have to do with anything, you say?  Just more proof positive that women in the media are still portrayed as helpless ingenues who can barely manage our own lives. And that even when we should have it all put together, the entertainment industry still manages a way to make us look weak. Still need more proof? Okay let's roll up our sleeves and get down to the what what:

For crying out loud.

   We can't talk women's lib in the aughts without bringing up this wildly popular series. It's not just for tweens and teens either. I know full-grown women with children and mortgage payments that have come to blows over Team Jacob v. Team Edward. It's like Roe versus Wade only with stupid people. After much hype about the movies I decided to sit down and watch them... back to back to back to... o boy, I'm feeling a little woozy. Should not have gone all in like that without a spotter. Okay... back now. These movies are entertaining I guess if you like that type of thing and it's nice to see a female protagonist that breaks the mold of pouty-lipped super model disguised as your girl next door for a change but I'm not here to debate their merit at the box office. Instead, I would like to speak to the influence they have over the lives of the tweens, the teens and the young adult women who should know better as it pertains to the opposite sex and what love looks like in the flesh and bone. I want to be fair, this isn't the first movie to play on the female-male dynamic myth that women should pursue dangerous men. It just does a really really good job at it. I know close up what the dangers of an abusive relationship can look like but after watching a couple of hours of this series, I was ready to get all crazy sexy cool with a vampire of my own. This isn't the message I think we are intending to send to our daughters and kid sisters but here we are... yet again. And guess what? The adult ladies out there aren't really fairing any better. If it pleases the court, I present to you the biggest upset this side of Super Bowl XLII. That's right... the Holy Grail of chick fiction: "Seks ja linn" as they say in Estonia--- or as we call it back here in the states, Sex and the City. (gasp!)

Laugh it up big boy, 'cause I'm about to mess this up BIG TIME.

   Sex and the City debuted on HBO in 1998. I was in high school at the time so many of the concepts were too mature for me to grasp but I got the gist of what they were saying. Even back then I knew that I was destined to be a Carrie. Miranda was way too cynical for me. Charlotte was too far flung in the opposite direction. As far as Samantha, well back then she scared me. The 2011 I can't believe it's not menopause version of Samantha Jones scares me even more however. So there you have it, I was always going to be a Carrie. And I am fine with that. She was always the perfect balance of the other three gals. I even debated with friends that the others were all just facets of her personality and in fact were not real (to take it a step further one could debate that all four ladies were in fact the imagined personas of one extremely chic gay man with too much time on his hands and the complete Golden Girls series on Blue Ray.) But even as smart and witty and good-natured as Ms. Bradshaw was, she still fell prey to the trappings of the dangerous male ego that was Mr. Big. Which sucks more than I care to think about because Aidan was beyond perfect for her. But like most of us out there, Carrie didn't want perfect. She wanted difficult. I hear the CW is coming out with a prequel to the series which will follow a young Carrie as she navigates high school and her first experiences with boys. I wonder if the show will also provide us with some background into her home life and the guidance her (never before seen/mentioned) parents gave her or any opportunities they may have missed to shape a highly impressionable young ladies self esteem. Maybe then I can wrap my head around why she would let go of the loving, well adjusted Aidan in favor of performing what can only be described as Mortification of the Soul with the always elusive Mr. Big. Maybe if I can figure out why Carrie went down that road, I can figure out what it is that makes me and my friends do the same damn foolish thing. See, it's getting kind of hard to define reality versus entertainment. Nah, life and love doesn't exactly play out like the Notebook... but why does it seem that women fall for the same tired one-two defeat whether it be in a movie, the small screen or real life. The line just keeps getting blurrier and blurrier and the farther that I think we have come, the more it irks my soul when we fall for it again.

confabulate  (kənˈfæbjʊˌleɪt)  psychiatry See also paramnesia to replace the gaps left by a disorder of the memory with imaginary remembered experiences consistently believed to be true [Source: Dictionary.com]

Something about him, I dunno... I just feel like I can trust him.

   Which just goes to show you that if we aren't learning that boys that knock us down in the sandbox are only doing it because they like us or that guys that want to bite us on the neck at every waking moment make great boyfriends it doesn't really matter because they'll double back around for the rest of us who haven't learned that lesson later in life and teach us that men who are unavailable, emotionally bankrupt and manipulating will one day turn around and do a 180 and become our dear dear Westley. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fairy tale our younger sisters and daughters can't afford to hear again.

---  Vanity in Peril