Does Your Significant Other Not Get It?

It may be time for a Divorce Lawyer.

Why admit to "us" that it was a bad adaptation, but defend it to her? Instead of arguing, it would have been a great time to show some charts and graphs depicting the level of enjoyment you were getting from the film, relative to the joy you'd get from some oral gymnastics on the couch.

My wife loves a good ghost/supernatural flick (as long as the ending isn't too dour), is real picky with the gore (she can "handle" Alien stuff and Evil Dead, splastick, etc), but will REFUSE to watch zombie flicks with me. They freak her out (I can somewhat understand as I didn't get into them till college after too many hours of Resident Evil) and give her terrible nightmares. She "watched" Shaun of the Dead from the next room and laughed at the jokes that she could pick up from where she was doing housework, and the Res Evil episode of Spaced is the only bit she hasn't seen yet.

I can't complain too much though, as she'll watch old classic B-movies (not to mention holding her own with the MST3K comments), any sci-fi/fantasy/comic book movie, and especially kung-fu flicks (she loves them and is even getting use to expecting tragic endings in the wuxia films I watch). I rarely have to suffer through a bad rom-com. We also tend to like the same TV shows... Scrubs, LOST, etc.

I'm pretty damn lucky come to think of it. Not to mention the fact that she's beautiful, funny, smart, a good mom... and she puts up with most of my shit.

It sounds to me like she just doesn't like shitty horror. Maybe you should try showing her some of what you consider to be the best horror films ever made. Maybe then she'd start to understand what you see in it.

Big deal. My wife doesn't like most of the movies I like. She kinda liked "Hot Fuzz". She kinda liked "Shaun" but I've seen so many movies she is just flat out not interested. Pretty much more than half my DVD collection hold no interest for her.

Whatever.

The only horror movie my wife has ever watched with me was Shaun of the Dead. Granted it's at least partly a comedy, but that's it. She refuses to watch any of the others. But it's cool she doesn't make me watch any shitty chick flicks so I like to think that evens us out.

I've turned my girl onto horror. She never liked it before she met me, but I guess living with me for a couple of years watching movies and hearing me ramble about horror will turn anyone into an expert.

It all came to a head a few weeks ago when she came to me with the story about how she had held her own with a few horror nerds she knows... she even correctly guessed "Tom Savini?" when one of the guys couldn't remember the name of the makeup guy who was in From Dusk Till Dawn. She yelled at me for turning her into a geek.

Brings a tear of joy to my eye.

I'm lucky, we're both big into film, and she'll sit through most everything with me but the Asian horrors are the only thing to really creep her out. The next thing to get her hooked on is kung fu.... which from the way she was cracking up during the Story of Ricky screening might be on the way soon...

See that's why I deal with the wife hating horror. She will absolutely sit through any other terrible shit I may try to watch without complaint.* Granted I try to watch good films but I tend to watch just about anything once I've started it. She's sat through far to many movies that turned out to be hyped up for no reason for me to complain.

*Plus she diddles my man-bits on a semi-regular basis.

The only geek-thing that remotely annoys my girlfriend are 80s action movies but she has boobies so it's okay.

She's on board for the exceptional stuff like Shaun or Ringu. But anything less than primo and she can't be bothered.
She used to watch all of my horror flicks with me. But when we had our baby she developed some kind of primal revulsion towards them. I guess it didn't help that I took her to a midnight showing of Demons while she was five months pregnant.

Being a gay guy, you wouldn't believe how many of my kind are complete pussies when it comes to anything horror related. I grew up on blood and gore and Freddy Krueger, so I love the stuff, but it can be tough to find someone else who appreciates it.

Thankfully now days I'm lucky enough to be with someone who loves horror, but we still have our taste differences. He's not much for serious dramas, so I doubt I'll ever be sitting down to watch The Fountain or The Godfather with him. I think when you're a serious film fan dating a casual movie watcher you're bound to have to deal with this sort of thing one way or another.

I showed my wife one of my favorite horror flicks of all time, The SHINING, when we were dating. It is not the movie, after which, a guy should expect any action.

Trust me.

Eh, if your biggest kvetch is that your wife doesn't enjoy horror films because they give her nightmares, then why are you kvetching?

Perhaps it goes deper than that. Maybe she objects to wearing the PJ Soles pig tails while Iggy walks around in a sheet breathing heavy.

Oh, well then, in that case... As a woman, I think it is definitely her job to help you manage your sex drive no matter what fetish play is involved or how scared she gets. The nightmares will eventually go away as the permanent psychological damage sets in, and then she'll be forever yours to do with as you will.

Was it the Pulse remake or the Pulse original?

I absolutely hate it when the woman I'm dating isn't into the same stuff as me. Whenever I ask a girl to pick a DVD to watch from my awesome collection, she inevitably ends up going with some romantic comedy I got as a present. Man, that shit makes me want to punch through Rob Reiner's heart.

If you haven't learned to hide them by now, you deserve all the Sandra Bullock/Meg Ryan/JLo/Kate Hudson you get.

Where do these women who watch these things live, and how do the lot of you keep finding them? It just doesn't seem right.

F'realz! My wife's idea of a chick flick is a Woody Allen film.

Stepford, Connecticut.

Horror films are the one thing that I could never get any girlfriend to appreciate. Most would watch with me without much trouble, except for the really juicy stuff, but they never liked them. Which is weird, because of all my geeky pleasures I would think horror to be the most mainstream. I even had a girlfriend who was into Lovecraft but couldn't watch a horror movie for five minutes.

On the flip side of that, what about us female horror lovers who seem to find wussies who can't watch them?

Find a real man?

It's a little strange, isn't it? My wife, and the wives of many of my friends*, can't stand chick flicks. I'm not sure if we just got lucky with our wives or if we're just the type who attract non-romantic comedy types. (Though in my case, my wife has a slight obsession with Jane Austin novels and movies that seems to fulfill her film and literary romantic needs)

*It was the wife of one of my best friends that recommended Deadwood, Supernatural and Carnivale to us. Weird thing is that despite those recommendations she's not even close to being goth girl.

That's what the wuxia (Chinese flying swordsmen/chivalry) flicks are for. All the star-crossed lover tragedy and repressed emotions, but with pointed weapons, crazy costumes, and super heroics/acrobatics/ass-kicking.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee) is totally akin with Sense and Sensibilty (also Ang Lee), but with none of the embarrassing girly cootie residue.

People who think that Jane Austen, the Brontes, etc. are so-called chick lit totally misunderstand them. I know this because I was guilty of the same thing until I was made to read Jane Eyre when I was 19 and smack-dab in the middle of my Existentialist/Beat phase (sausage party!). Fucked my shit up. It's a fantastic book. Completely disturbing, Freudian, violent, twisted... I finished Vilette two days ago and, while it's not quite as good, same thing. The ghost of a suicidal nun wandering the grounds of a French boarding school by night? Hell, yeah! We underestimate women who grew up in isolated English villages in the 19th century at our own peril.

Same thing with my wife, and it happened really quickly. Two months ago she would watch just about anything with me, now she just can't handle the gore like she used to. Scary is fine, but realistic gore is out.

I'm totally OK with that.

I admire your valiant enthusiasm, nevertheless. As does my mother-in-law.

I'll be over here, sleeping through Pride & Prejudice. Sorry, Mr. Colin Firth.

Knowing MissZooey's tastes intimately, her inclusion of Austen here puzzles me. From my limited exposure (mostly through adaptation) I think Austen could be considered proto-chick lit, at least.

But you really can't toss the Brontes in that pile. They're all kinds of fucked up goodness. For a modern equivalent, think less Bridget Jones and more P.J. Harvey.

An aside to Miss Zooey-
Did you read The Thirteenth Tale? It's modern gothic meets chick-lit.

It's an ongoing discussion between myself and my wife (Ms. H from here on out) as to whether Austen is a proto-feminist or simply an amusing social critic. I'm fairly convinced that Austen's writings may have been somewhat radical but not to the extent with which many feminists embue them. I think she was writing more for the sake of correcting men's thinking of how women are and less as a call to arms for her sisters.

Ms. H believes that the only way to preach a feminist perspective in that era (and not be scandalous) would be to wrap it in the guise of a silly little romance story. Her thinking is that men would not be likely to read it and there would be nothing overt in the stories to shock the more conservative ladies.

Either way I think it's safe to say that while it certainly is proto chick-lit, it's usually considerably more thought provoking then it's modern relative.

BTW, I haven't read enough of the Brontes to get into a lengthy discussion however the gothic romance of Jane Eyre is one of the darkest pieces of literature I have ever read. It's heavy and soul crushing. I'm actually surprised no one has used it for the basis of a horror movie yet.

I struggle with sympathizing for characters that let class/status determine whether someone should/shouldn't express their true feelings, or that their only communication be multiple decades of undelivered/unrequited letters.

Unless you include some swords and/or "Hammer Horror red" blood-spilling, I'm gonna pass. I love Victorian era or Gothic (and Revival) period horror, but romance of that earlier (Pre-Victorian) time (ie: Austen, etc) and before is so reliant on the star-crossed lover syndrome and class struggle, that it gets tedious (I want to reach into the book or screen and shake the characters). Tragedy/separation creates the best romance historically (Romeo & Juliet, Titanic, Casablanca), but the stuffiness of the Regency prose turns me off. Not my bag. Toss in some murder, ghosts, re-animated golems, Jekyl/Hyde, Jack the Ripper, or Cushing & Lee and I'll certainly give it a shot (course now we've moved into a later time period).

The kind of melodrama/soap opera quality borrowed from that era almost keeps me from enjoying Anne Rice and Dark Shadows type material, but for me, The Hammer Studio was able to balance things with the exact amount of genre trappings to keep me satisfied personally. It's not the time period in this case, it's the focus. Plus, the Victorian era turned out some amazing (and very romantic: hear that, ladies?) sci-fi and horror tales due to all the new advancements and discoveries and...

I'm babbling. Sorry.

My wife and I like watching Asian movies together. I started her on Hong Kong drama and comedy and turned her to the Korean Vengence flicks. She was disturbed but watched Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengence.

After watching the Hollywood version of the Ring, she won't watch another horror movie. She's scared of the horror. I couldn't even get her to watch The Host after I tried to convince her that the "monster" is the hunted and not the hunter.

doh!

Great post, Ryan. I'm not as familiar with Austen as I am with her twisted countrywomen, the Brontës, so I'll tread lightly here -

I think that, at that point in history, to be a writing woman and to do it well, was, in retrospect, a feminist gesture, amusing social critic or no. It's almost impossible not to read it that way. Especially when one knows that Austen was that most dreaded of all creatures, the spinster.

Again, I think that Austen being so balls-out (and at the beginning of the 19th century to boot) as to correct men about their understanding of women in a public way is, if not feminist, certainly a radically pro-woman gesture for her time. Hell, it can be a pretty radical gesture to do so now.

Mrs. H is a smart lady. You listen to her. I've heard it said that one of the reasons Austen chose the novel as her medium, as Mrs. H said, was because she could get a pretty powerful social message out there in a way that would be largely ignored by those who would care to be bothered by such things. This, of course, can be confirmed or denied, but it's an interesting theory.

Clueless, is, after all, based on Emma. And Helen Fielding drew her inspiration from Pride and Prejudice. So that goes without saying...

Now that you mention it, I am, too. Novels by the Brontës tend to get made into BBC and A&E box sets. I think there's something much darker at play, if someone would be willing to explore it. Oh, and, if you liked Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights is pretty messed up, too.

[/hijack]

What weirded me out was when my wife got into kung fu movies. During the period when Jackie Chan and Jet Li were at the height of their popularity (in Hong Kong; not the Rush Hour/Romeo Must Die period), she watched a whole slew of them with me. She said that the choreography was kind of graceful and fascinating, and seemed more like musical dance numbers than violence.

And imagine the rumour mills about that if the would have had talk radio back then.

I suspect it is kind of hard for us to imagine how shocking a female novelist would be at that time. But on the other hand with the shock that greets a female Nascar driver maybe it's not so hard to imagine.


Good point. And I guess that leads to a whole conversation about intent. Are the only feminists thsoe who intend to changethe status quo or are those who simply do what they think is right feminists?

It's easy to think of Simone De Beauvoir as a feminist because she was so active and passionate about equality but can someone like Mary Pickford be considered as strong a feminist as De Beauvoir. She was the head of a major studio in a time when women were still in the kitchen. She was on a pay scale equal to the highest paid men in her day. But I digress...


Yeah, she tells me that all the time.

I like the idea that Austen was subversive in her decisions but I'm not sure I buy it. Of course, why she did it is likely irrelevant as the results of her actions are still being felt, I mean Rosa Parks was imply a lady who was tired and had no intent of changing the social structure of America yet she did so.

Of course Clueless had that whole creepy plotline of step-siblings falling in love that made me feel ooky. Amy Heckerling had so much at her disposal to make that relationship work and she picked the creepiest version.


The animated series that I'm trying to get off the ground is pulling a lot of it's inspiration from the Hammer Horror and I'm finding that there isn't much difference between that and the Gothic Romances of the Bronte's era* (someone pointed this out earlier, I believe). It's part why I'm always so shocked that the movies that get made from those novels are usually so dull and lifeless (The BBC version of Jane Eyre is almost unbearable.

*And it does lend itself to parody and/or satire quite well which is the approach I'm taking with it.

Yeah, sorry about that Chewers. Nothing more to see here.

Umm, don't you mean Cruel Intentions? Clueless is the Reese Witherspoon brainless bimbo movie. ;-)

Nope. Clueless is Emma set in high school with Alicia Silverstone in the Emma role. At the end she falls in love with her father's ex-wife's son who has lived with them as her brother for years.

Reese Witherspoon was in Legally Blonde.

And I realize that because I know this I actually no longer have a penis and am going shopping for shoes.

Ryan S: I actually no longer have a penis and am going shopping for shoes.

To bring the conversation back to HORROR, that is.

*shudder*

DOH, that's right, sorry, I used to get the two mixed up until RW actually became an actress. ;-)