The Longing and the Reality

Today, technology is on the rise more then ever, the media -- directly or indirectly -- gives us a sense of our own culture and other cultures as well. Can all those messages, which are openly or secretly conveyed through the mass media also, have negative connotations just as much as they can present positives. We are all aware that we should learn, or at least understand, something from the message that the media presents us. What if we, as human beings, cannot live up to the standards of the new technological era vs. the longings of our romantic notions about what we desire.

My favorite movie of all times -- such a cliche, but true -- is “Pride and Prejudice,” which was originally written by Jane Austin, but made into a movie in 2005 and directed by Joe Wright who in a way acts as a an opinion leader, staring Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennett and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy. The book was written in time when the only media that people had knowledge and practical use of was books, but yet the common tale of love of the late seventeenth century still effects us in the beginning of the twenty-first century. I have watched that movie more than normal, so much more that I finally decided to buy the movie and the book in order to relive the romance of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy every single time I felt down about my own romantic relationships in the past. Sometimes, I believed that maybe if I watched the movie over and over again I will get the answers I should have in order to find what is missing in my own romantic life. That single thought raised few questions in my mind “how many women have pondered over this movie--and movies like it--in order to look for answers and information about the positive and negative social stereotypical expectations about men?”

When I think about the social expectations that were created from this movie I will have to relate to all of them. One such expectation is creating the great romance with all its ups and downs of a great poetic romance. Do we, women from this age, believe that such romance travels through time and lands on our door steps? People need to understand that the cultural values of that time were in no correlation with the ones people have today. Once upon of time -- in the seventeenth century to be exact -- people used to court in a very different manner, so different that the rules were known, unlike in this technologically modern era where the rules of dating are so clouded by all the different cultures that our society is built upon and all our own egocentric needs, that there are not clear standards of courtship. Back in the time of Jane Austen, a man would most likely court a woman in public while she is escorted by a chaperone, and the byproduct of the courtship was always the same - marriage. Today, courtship is replaced by dating without the watchfuleye of a chaperone. The process of dating is much longer than in the seventeenth century. Most of the time dating does not lead to the same conclusion either. Most of the time dating is mainly for companeonship.

Another negative impression that people would get from this movie is setting unreachable standards. Sometimes people -- including myself in the past -- cannot separate between fiction and reality. Maybe the standards of Elizabeth were true for that time, but today they are most likely fiction. Men do not even talk in the same manner today as Mr. Darcy did in the seventeenth century. They do not even stand with the same posture, nor do they have the same mannerisms as he did. Nowadays, men approach a woman in a bar, restaurant, or other public place with the language of our own present and the posture that is half child and half old man. Then they use the manners of today's characters from the mass media, most likely their own heroes. A woman who sets her own standards based on Mr. Darcy, would only be disappointed by the introduction of the modern man, and either make a decision to be with this cartoon character while her own Mr. Darcy comes along, until he never does. By this time, a woman might realize that it is time to lower the standards and make them more realistic or face a life full of solitude.

Movies such as “Pride and Prejudice” do not set standards only for men, but for women, too. The stand that Elizabeth takes in the movie is somewhat of an independent rebel, someone who is strong enough to stand on her own two feet by herself, someone who would not settle for anything less than perfection and true love. Is this strong independent role of a woman attractive enough for men or is it setting us up for a failure? True, independence expressed by women today is not unusual, but in order to be in a committed relationship a little “neediness” is a key ingredient. After all, it does need two in order a relationship to work, not just one, or a person will have a relationship with themselves. Once a person realizes that “anything less then perfection” might mean that the same would be expected from that person, too, and let`s face it, perfection either does not exists or not one person can live up to it, a person might find himself or herself willing to compromise in order to share the anthropological reason why two people bond in a relationship-to procreate and populate.

Is it possible that movies from the same genre such as “Pride and Prejudice” constructing women into today's drama queens? Is our desire for a mythical romance in appliance with the desire to dramatize our personal lives more than necessary? It is not uncommon women to have a perfectly normal relationship with a perfectly normal man, but still find a reason to dramatize it to the point of crisis. The movie gives a scenario of two different class people who fall in love, but as stated in the title, pride and prejudice complicate and dramatize the situation. When a person watches the movie, a person might want to experience the whole romantic process of it, including the drama. This might peril the possibility of a “happily ever after” with a potential mate due to the fact that men are different from women. Most men do not take drama lightly, and in most cases, they look for mates--if they are looking for mates at all--who are stable, not women who pretend to be the modern-day drama queen.

Writers and movie makers usually learn enough about peoples “wants” and “needs” and exploit that knowledge in order to sell their product to the audience or become famous and timeless. They use different formulas in order to achieve the desirable. The formula used in this movie is the use of the women`s longings and search of the “perfect man” and “perfect romance” a historically dominant ideology by women. These few terms can be related to the interactionist theory, where people widely connect to the symbolic meaning of those same terms. This formula captured my attention many years ago, and for a while I was stuck in dreamland of the possibility that I would find my own Mr. Darcy. Even though many messages presented by this movie could create a negative expectations if taken all too seriously, I have found that the movie has helped me in a way of finding myself in such a way that I understand the features I appreciate in men. After the worldwide search for my mate, I finally had a reality check and met my husband. In my own understanding, my husband is a perfect mixture of Mr. Darcy and a modern man. After all, I have learned that the only reason why I kept on watching that movie is that I want the connection which Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have. At the end of the day, we are looking for someone who we can be with without screaming every five minutes. If the “perfect man” does not live among us, nor does the “perfect woman,” therefore, all we can do is find the one that is just right for us.