Hot Southerners

I am sitting in my upstairs apartment in the dead of summer in Florida.  At 11:30 at night, it is still 85 degrees outside.  My apartment is roughly 2 degrees warmer.  The ceiling fan whirs and I keep the lighting to a minimum.  Sitting on the little sun porch, I am illuminated only by my computer screen and the string of star twinkle lights I affixed to the wall.  This affords just enough light for me to see the beads of sweat on my chest and arms.  I feel the trickles drip down my skin between my breasts, as my blousy, sleeveless nightgown does nothing to absorb any of the perspiration.  I refrain from using my window air conditioner.  It wouldn’t reach the sun porch, anyway.  I like the heat.  I am in my personal steam room.  Mostly, though, I feel like I’m in a southern, old-timey movie where the characters live forever lubricated.  It looks sexy on screen, but I’m really just a sweaty mess, drinking my cold beer and shifting in my seat so as not to stick to the chair.

I love movies set in the South.  I feel like the characters are stronger somehow, subconsciously working to assert themselves when they have the legacy of slavery and stupidity to deal with.  I love when the farm daughters, as in Man In the Moon, sleep on the windy porch during the summer months just to get some relief from the weighted, hot nights.  The sisters talk to each other well into the night, just like girls always do during sleep overs—whatever age they may be.  I love when, in A Time to Kill, Matthew McConaughey’s character comes home from lawyering all day to find his hot and sticky wife, Ashley Judd, scraping at the floor of their big fixer-upper farmhouse.  No, they never would simply come home and veg out in front of the t.v. They have work to do, after all.  And no fans or air conditioners in sight. No sir.  They are down and dirty and sweaty southerners.  They are hot.

Come to think of it, Ashley Judd is really a staple of southern, sweaty characters in movies.  In Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (which is a really good book but a terrible movie…i.e. fantastic guilty pleasure movie…with lots of drippy Southern accents and nostalgia for drunk moms and superb summer swimming holes), Judd and her friends hang out in an upstairs room of a beautiful plantation house in their skivvies, complaining with buttery southern drawls how hot and sweaty they are. Now that I actually live in an upstairs room in the South, I completely understand their malaise on a whole new level.  I, too, play my record player while I lie on the bed, praying for someone to “wring me out.”

Why this love? Why this infatuation with the stinky, sweaty, southern characters?  I guess I just feel more alive when my body’s working overtime to compensate for this spike in temperature.  I spend lots of (too much) time in my head.  Feeling feverish in my body reminds me I am more than just my thoughts.  My body is mine, too.  It’s here; it’s hot; so am I.

Maleficent

The best way to approach life is how I approached seeing Maleficent:  sans expectations.  Sleeping Beauty was one of my favorite Disney movies as a child.  It was not due to the storyline of Sleeping Beauty (a.k.a. Aurora) herself.  She is a typical blonde princess who, due to a curse, pricks her finger on a spinning wheel, falls into a deep sleep, and needs a prince to rescue her.  Yawn.  Instead, I liked the little trio of guardian fairies, but the woman whom I loved most of all?  Maleficent, of course.  In the cartoon, she was intriguing in that charismatic and terrifying way that the best villains are. 

In the live-action version, Angelina Jolie as Maleficent does not disappoint.  In fact, she is downright fierce.  Those horns.  That smirk.  The cape.  The storyline is simple.  We follow Maleficent from a naïve girl to a brutal woman.  The scenery is stunning, a superb fantasy fairy forest.  I admit, I’m a sucker for anything with wings.  And, Maleficent’s got them—until she doesn’t.

SPOILER:  Maleficent gets her wings chopped off.  We do not see the act—which makes it all the more heinous in one’s imagination.  When Maleficent awakes, she cries out with an animalistic howl; she is sore; she is broken.  Rapes can take different forms.  For example, in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a character is raped by men who suck milk from her breast.  She is violated.  She is harmed.  The same sort of rape occurs here for Maleficent, which serves to explain to a degree her need for vengeance and her distrust for the world. 

Throughout the film, we see Maleficent soften and reconcile her station and the consequences of that violent act.  She is, after all, able to overcome her sorrow and open her heart again—this time, to a young woman.

For that, Maleficent, the movie, turns feminist and woman-supporting in a cruel “man’s world.”  Yes, princesses still exist, but that seems beside the point.  The women here support each other and rescue themselves.  Maybe, just maybe, some young girls will understand the importance of self-salvation and how a prince will never save you.  That’s your own job, after all. 

"Comfort Food" Movies

Comfort food, to me, is usually starchy and cheesy and salty and filling.  It's familiar and satisfying.  Sometimes, movies can also serve as comfort food.  

I recently moved to a new town.  My work hours are very long, and I decided that it just was not worth the trouble or money to get cable, or t.v. for that matter.  I am tired when I come home.  I need to unwind.  I need mind-numbing, but familiar love.  I don't have a roommate or a boyfriend.  What I do have, though, are a revolving number of movies that give me pleasure.  And, no, I'm not talking about porn.  I mean that these movies are like old friends to me.  The stories are usually simple and do not involve suspense or thrill.  They are light dramas--the kind I would never encourage anyone to pay $12 at the movie theater to see.  No, these are movies that you must buy.  They are in the $5 bin at Walmart.  They have been overlooked by the masses, yet embraced by the love-lorn.  They are friends; as such, I will defend them with my very being.  Dramatic?  Yes, but they have gotten me through lonely Saturday nights and terribly exhaustive work days.  

I am always learning about new movies, mind you.  However, this is a list of my current sweethearts:

It's Complicated

Julie and Julia

Walking and Talking

Something's Gotta Give

This Is My Life

Before Sunset

The movies change, depending on the new town in which I am living and my mood.  Usually, though, the list shifts between such directors as Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing, Walking and Talking) and Nora Ephron (Julie and Julia and This Is My Life), who typically sets her characters in an atmosphere of a grittier, more real New York City.  Of course, when I need beautiful scenery and rich serenity, I turn to Nancy Meyers (It's Complicated).  

In order to be a "comfort food" movie, you must be able to turn it on at any point in the course of the plot and continue watching until the end.  You must identify at least one character as a potential best friend.  You must never be able to recommend that others see this movie in a theater.  Most importantly, you must only watch this movie in pants that have an elastic waist while you wallow on your couch while eating ice cream or macaroni and cheese.  Alone.  

Go ahead and make your own movie friends.  They can shuttle you through loneliness or simply keep you company.  They are besties without expectations.  They are givers and ask nothing in return.  We all need that sometimes.