photo home_zps50cbc827.gif photo about-me_zpsa01d7e00.gif photo life-in-books_zps0f9b7d0b.gif


Monday, January 21, 2013

Chick flicks. . .

From an early age we learn that the perfect love is attainable. Out of the 7 billion people on this planet, there's bound to be somebody who's a 100% match for you, right? Cinderella or the heroine of a chick flick is not the exception, but rather the norm. The phrase "there are many more fish in the sea" is also engrained into our heads to make up for lousy relationships. Well I hate it. I was watching Monte Carlo last night at around 11. I don't know why I watched it but that's another long winded story. Grace, a.k.a Selena Gomez, goes to France with her friend Emma and her stepsister Meg. They are left behind by their tour bus and with a stroke of luck, land in Monte Carlo. It just so happens that Grace looks exactly like the heiress Cordelia.

What angered me most about this movie was the character Meg. Meg is an uptight person who doesn't know how to let loose and have fun. She meets a stranger (STRANGER!) who happens to be really attractive in France. They meet again in Monte Carlo and she just agrees to spend the whole day with him. They have fun at a club and she learns how to have fun. (spoiler alert). At the end of the movie, Meg decides to travel the world with this guy she's known for maybe a week. Say what? Maybe it's just me, being a jealous single person. I actually cried at the end of this terrible movie because chick flicks set an unattainable level of expectation. I am never going to find that perfect love and yet I'm teased and mocked by the film industry. They make their money off people like me: hopeless romantics who dream about running away to France and finding a soulmate. The media and celebrities are criticized because they set a bad image for girls especially about body image. But what about chick flicks? They create an impossible standard of love that we all want and pine for.

I made the resolution never to watch another chick flick again but I know I can't keep that. I would just give anything to live inside one. Even if there's that part in the middle where everything goes wrong, you know that there will be a guaranteed happy ending for you. You'll end up with the right guy miraculously and that's that.
Here is a Monday Memoir about me inspired by the words chick flick. So I decided that if my life was a chick flick, this would be the plot line. 

I've just graduated high school and everything in my life is boring because normality is boring. To make this more like "real life," I've had a bad breakup right before graduation. The guy I thought I was perfect for decided he met his soul mate at a sandwich shop while eating a ham sandwich. I am devastated and jaded about love. (Have you ever realized that all heroines of chick flicks either are hopeless romantics or people who hate love? I think I'm becoming the latter...) I've been accepted to a college in the East Coast and I'm all ready to go. Before leaving for college, I take a trip to Europe with my parents (this is a very real trip in the works). One day, my parents decide that they want to visit some museum I have no interest in visiting. Instead, I take the day to walk around the streets of Paris (it has to be Paris because anywhere else in Europe is not romantic enough). I meet a really attractive guy in a coffee shop. He is talented at making latte art (go search it up if you don't know what this is) and I'm smitten. But I have a reality check and know that I'm not going to ever see him again. So I make the worst decision of my life and simply leave. I don't know his name and he doesn't know anything about me. I believe I've made a good decision simply because I hate everything about love. 

While back in the States, I get ready for college. On the day of orientation, it turns out that the guy I met in the coffee shop is a tour guide. Yes, the type of college tour guides that wear those bright college t-shirts and hold signs up. It also turns out that I've been coincidentally placed in his group. Just to even out the plot, let's meet Jenna. Jenna is the perfect girl and she's obviously perfect for this guy. She's in this group too and they're even family friends. He raises his eyebrow at me because my face does seem a little familiar. He gives her a full on hug and I sit there brooding. I later discover that he's not only really talented at latte art, he's the top student and insanely attractive. By some one in a million chance, he has a little grain of interest in me. He wants to know my name. He asks Jenna because Jenna and I share five out of five classes. Jenna gives him some other girl's name and he believes her. We somehow bump into each other in the hallway and finally introduce each other. 

In the middle of the year, the conversation count is about 5. I am struggling with some math class that I was forced to take and Jenna, you guessed it, is a math whiz. She suggests I get tutoring as a form of a snide remark. I decide to take that advice and guess who my tutor is, yep that guy. We really hit it off and he invites me for coffee. I take that as "study" DATE. Turns out he really just wants to study because Jenna helpfully hinted that I have no interest in him at all. They start dating for an unclosed reason and I tell him that he can't be my tutor anymore. He doesn't understand anything and we stop being friends.

Jenna accidentally lets everything slip and he finally asks me out on a real date. And we discover that we really are perfect for each other. Even though Jenna had 21827397219307 more accomplishments than me, he still chose me. The end. 

If this were actually real life (the life that I have): Maybe I would meet an attractive guy in France. I meet a lot of attractive people actually! Do I ever see the guy again? No. Funny story about this. I was taking a summer course in Berkeley and I met this guy at the bulletin board where all the classes and the rooms were posted. I was a little bit late but I really wanted to start a conversation. I didn't and eventually I left because I did have to go class. I was super late but . . . I think it was worth it. I never did see that guy again, sigh! I was soo hoping he'd be in my class. So anyways, back to France. We'd never meet and I'd wonder for my whole life what it'd be like to see him again. I become a cat lady, the end.

I really hate how korean dramas always have a very mediocre heroine (cough cough Playful Kiss cough cough). Okay, I do understand why but still... She should have a couple achievements. Let's say people are sandwiches. If you were starving wouldn't you want the double cheeseburger with pickles and tomato and lettuce and everything? Or would you really want that lousy $1 hamburger from McDonalds? But that would never sell as a chick flick. Because chick flicks are supposed to make you feel good but all I feel is desperation and sadness. How many people do you know have that love that everyone is supposed to be able to attain? 

1 comment:

  1. Hiya Youngjoo,

    Sorry for the double-commenting here ( I left a message re: TBC on one of your older posts, for some reason), but I found this post really fun and I just thought I'd say so!
    :)

    ReplyDelete