Bridesmaids

What happens to a brain that is consuming three very different pieces of content at the same time? This.

Today’s blog is the result of too much time on my hands. Too much time to read into things that probably have nothing to read into. Or do they? Let’s find that out together shall we?

I listened to the Russel Brand interview on Flagrant Two where they talked about the experience they had at Burning Man. Andrew Schultz came to the conclusion that at a natural state people seek connection, they are more in tune with one another and when left to our own devices we’re actually very good to one another. What I took from this is that seeking friendship, relationships and other forms of interaction with other people is a very normal thing to want at our natural state. Interesting how it took a festival in the middle of the desert to demonstrate that humans are social creatures. But, admittedly, it did come to a surpise to me. Why is it that I crave connection so badly but am impossibly bad at creating it? Why is it that if you told me that a massive group of people will gather in the desert I’m immediately struck by terror? It is no surprise that humas as a species have disconnected entirely from their nature. As Erich Fromm points out we are no longer at our natural state. He believes that humans are consumed by a sense of anxiety induced by the sense of loss and separation from nature. He goes on to say that we try to overcome this anxiety by creating connections and according to him we do this through love. Maybe Schultz was right, maybe if we all had the opportunity of being left to our own devices without having the societal comforts brought on by technological progress we’d be less anxious and more at ease to “connect”.

Erich Fromm talks about fratenal love as being the most powerful of human dynamics. It’s love between equals. Expecting nothing from one another. Supporting eachother. Real love is that which is not based purely on lust but on the will to love.

Funnely enough it makes me think about Bridesmaids. Yes, the movie. Annie is a woman that Fromm would define as someone who loves “ego-centrically”. Someone who doesn’t love herself so therefore cannot love anyone else. She can’t be happy for Lilian’s wedding because she doesn’t really love Lilian. She can’t accept her mother’s help and support because she doesn’t really love her mother. Even though she’s clearly into officer Rhodes she runs away from his generosity and affection because she doesn’t love him either. She doesn’t love these people because she doesn’t love herself. She has no will to love. To be fair to her, she’s been dealt a shitty hand. Her business went bust during the recession and it took all her money, as well as her boyfriend, with it.

The movie begins by showing us a hilarious sex scene. One many can relate to. These shots even though extremely comical show a woman who is desperately trying to keep the rhythm and pleasure mutual whilst batteling a man who is so full of himself he’s not even looking where he’s going. We are immediately presented with the idea that Annie has of herself: she’s seeying an asshole who treats her the way she feels to be deserving of, shit. As the movie goes on we’re also shown that Annie feels as though she is a victim of the situation surrounding her. That she has no control over where she has ended up in the world. She’s alone. Friendless. Love-less. Homeless. A mess.

Haven’t you felt like that? Because I relate.

Towards the end of the story the beautiful and hilarious Megan played by Melissa McCarthy tries to come to Annie’s rescue. She shows up at Annie’s mother’s house in an attempt to bring her back to the world. A willingness to help a friend in a time of need. She does this in the best possible of ways, she takes Annie’s hand and starts slapping the shit out of her. She tells her to take control of the situation. What are yo gonna do? She asks mockingly. Fight back! After a few seconds of halarious mahem between the two sumo wrestling on a ridiculously small couch Annie finally comes to. Megan proves herself to be someone who does indeed love themselves. This in turn gives her the will to love Annie. She’s able to show her that real love doesn’t come from crying over what’s lost and what one doesn’t have but from looking at what you have infront of you and taking control over it. That life continuosly changes and that, yes, it can really suck sometimes. In one way or another it’s always gonna suck, so what are you gonna do about it? Sit on your mother’s couch feeling sorry for yourself? Or are you finally gonna get your tail lights fixed?

Even after this realisation Annie is far from being perfect. At the end of the movie she show’s us that she’s still not at the perfect place of her journey. But she’s close enough. She can finally love her mother, she can finally love her friend and then, even if just for a few seconds finds the ability to love Helen.

Annie’s demons were the loss of her business, the lack of finantial funds that derived from that, the sense of inferiority derived from a man she’s infatuated with mainly because she feels like she’s unworthy of anything else and the guilt she feels for not being able to be genuinly happy for her best friend. She’s held captive by these thoughts which invalidate any attempt at happiness. Now, we all have demons, you, me, the dog, we’ve all got unprocessed traumas we’re avoiding. I wrote this in my journal the other day: I don’t want to be a slave to the thought that I need external validation from men (or anyone). I say this because I literally feel like I’m held down by the thought of unworthiness of love. How, because I’m so “fat” and “ugly” and “dumb” I’ll never find a partner and I’ll die alone. This very simple idea seems small but it’s so dense it’s as heavy as tow trucks. This thought is my inner Annie. It’s stuck somehwere deep in my mind and it’s definately not showing signs of ware. It’s there to stay. This thought alone has stopped me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do. It’s prohibited me from having fun for funs sake. It’s disbaled me from loving unconditionally. It’s the reason most days I wake up not wanting to get out of bed. I blame this thought of all my missfortunes. I point the finger to the reflection in the mirror and think to myself: “how can anything go right if I look like this?”.

Now, you might be thinking, what the fuck has this dark ass thought of yours got to do with bloody Bridesmaids? Well, actually, there’s one very important lesson that this movie teaches us. Annie’s sense of self defeat got her pretty much nowhere. Her self pitty is pretty justified. I mean, she lost a business and a partner all because of the recession. Think about it for a second she was so good at making cakes that she felt it good enough to invest all her money into creating a business. Not only that but she opened it with the support of someone I’m sure she believed loved her enough to follow her on what would have been her biggest decision ever. A dream most of us only have the pleasure of awakening from she was living. A recession took all of that away. She too had to awaken and once her eyes were open she found herself pennyless, partnerless, dreamless. That’s tough. Her story definately justifies a lot of the decisions she makes during the movie:

· waking up to a guy who didn’t want her there,

· feeling resentful towards her bestfriend for having Helen be a part of the organization of the wedding,

· holding Helen responsable for all the missfortunes,

· leaving the guy who saw her and liked her for exactly what she was;

The movie does not give us a happy ending until Annie gets her shit together first. She takes actions to get herself back on top of her life, to stop feeling sorry for herself. Even though we don’t see her thrive in any way I think the important thing that I got from the story is that what happens next doesn’t really matter. Does she start a productive and profitable business again? Do her and police man fall madly in love and have lots of children? Does Annie finally get a new car? All these things don’t matter because the best thing that she did was get herself out of her own head. She escaped her own inner prison. She got herself out of her own self imposed misery and moved on.

I guess I just don’t want to get to the point she did to get myself into the same mind frame.

If you’re at all curious I highly recommend watching the movie even if just for the bants. The Russle Brand interview is also pretty interesting, he’s quite the character and has some pretty interesting things to say. Erich Fromm, even though a highly reputated psychologist and sociologist I’m not gonna lie, can be a pretty boring read at times. Quite frankly I’m not sure he says anything which is outside the realm of common sense. That however would be pretty hypocritical of me as I made the most obvious of observations about a movie which needed no psycho-analysis. I had fun though! Hope you did too.

Until next time,

Sarita.