Sometimes during lunch, I google “romance” or “romantic” in Google:News and see what comes up. Today, the day after Valentine’s Day, I figured I’d find a few articles from the news feeds about proposals, gettin’ some on Valentine’s Day, or what the card stores do with all the leftover heart-shaped boxes of candy.
But no: it’s a cornucopia of the romantic efforts of the vaguely creepy.
First, we have a story about a new website that enables you to track down and flirt online with hot people in neighboring cars when you’re stuck in traffic. Because picking your nose isn’t enough of an activity, Ben Phillips has decided the new and best way to hook up with hot people is to… mark your car with a decal so other people can look you up online. Imagine the poetry that can come of this:
“Your headlights are perfect
and your bumper is, too.
I’ve got your decal number
so how ‘bout a screw?”
Then there’s high school junior Paul Kim, who spent his hard-earned money delivering roses to every female student in his graduating class. Nice gesture, but he underestimated by 100 students. I hope the boy gets at least a date out of it, though.
And finally, which is a more romantic film? Titanic or Brokeback Mountain? And while I’m asking the internet doofy questions, ¿Quién ES más macho, Fernando Lamas, o Ricardo Montalban?
Updated to add:
There should be pictures, no? For a debate this old? SÃ, there should be pictures.
Fernando Lamas:
Ricardo Montalban:
Brokeback Mountain, hands down. I liked Titanic okay, but I forgot about it before I’d thrown my popcorn bag in the trash outside the theatre. Brokeback Mountain is still hanging around.
And dahlink, it’s always better to look good than to feel good, my heinous jogging pants notwithstanding…Fernando for sure.
Dammit! Now I have that stoopid Abba song stuck in my head. I have a client named Fernando and every year, when I do his tax return, I get that song stuck in my head.
P.S. Paul Kim sounds like a nice boy. Not only did he do it as a nice guy, he did it to support a fund raiser.
Nevertheless, I guess it’s kinda odd.
It is kinda odd, but funny, like all of a sudden these girls get a rose, look at the tag, and think, ‘Who?’
Bet whoever ran that fundraiser is way happy now.
fernando lamas, baby!
heck, I don’t know, but had to pick one.
Brokeback wins. Done near broke my heart. (Though the ‘cowboy’ thing in no way does it for me.)
The second is hands down easy- Montalban, all the freaking way. Have you seen Wrath of Khan recently? With that open vest all dudecolletage-like? Mmmm-hmmm. Little Kiku grew up, getting all kind of big-girl tingles watching that. *sigh*
Love the site.
“dudecolletage?”
HA! That’s too funny. Has someone said that before and I missed it? Round these parts, we call that “man-titty.”
Can Khan have man-titty? I mean, lycra-clad Capt. Kirk had some man-breasts going on.
Okay, I got confused and thought you meant *Lorenzo Lamas* and was horrified. A quick image Google leads me to concur that, de veras, Fernando Lamas es más macho.
(Hi! I’m new.)
I made it up special for that costume actually. The first time I saw the film, when I was maybe twelve. I mean, seriously. Check it out: http://www.stephenl.ndtilda.co.uk/Khan.jpg
It’s got to be Fernando, because all I can think of when I see Ricardo is “De plen, boss, de plen.”
Fernando all the way…and as fate would have it, I am currently rocking out to Chiquiquita by ABBA.
Fernando Lamas porque Ricardo Montalbán hizo “El crucero del amor” y nada se puede poner más alegre que eso.
(Si lo traduces literalmente, tiene sentido en inglés)
Trudi
From IMDB.com:
It has been widely debated that Ricardo Montalban’s chest was actually a prosthetic piece that he wore during the film. In the director’s commentary in the special edition DVD, Nicholas Meyer is quoted as saying that it was, in fact, Montalban’s actual chest and that he was a very muscular man who worked out.
… I’ve always thought it was a (cough) breast plate. Wow! How about that. I was wrong! Ricardo was very buff! 😉
The Wrath Of Kahn notwithstanding – I gotta go with Ricardo. Poor Fernando – I’m sure he was muy macho, but he sired the biggest hunk of gouda ever in Lorenzo. That immediately drops him down several points.
Fernando! And I’ll take Brokeback over Titanic,a film I felt was waaaaaay too over the top. In lots of ways.
Ricardo. I’ve always thought Ricardo was hot, although I wouldn’t have thrown rocks at Fernando in his prime either.
And since you said “more romantic”, not necessarily “better movie”, I’ve gotta go against the crowd on the movie thing too and say “Titanic”.
The reason I think it’s more romantic is because the romantic relationship, while doomed, ultimately made things better for the survivor. Rose had a much richer and more fulfilling life than she would have if she’d never met Jack.
I loved “Brokeback Mountain” but at the end I just hurt for how sad and broken Ennis was as a person. I couldn’t picture the rest of his life being much of anything except lonliness and misery. Good story? Absolutely. Romantic? Hhhmmm…not so sure about that.
Am I allowed to go with none of the above? Neither of the guys does much for me, and I’ve never seen Titanic (I feel so clean and pure).
I feel the real mystery was inadequately addressed here : What do they do with those extra candy hearts? Or are we really better off not knowing?
As to the other: Ricardo Montalban may be very chesty, but he makes me think of those disgusting earwig-things from that Star Trek movie. And that other guy looks like he’s going to punch someone. So… I’m gonna go with neither.
I think I’m going with Fernando, since we’re going with macho. And it’s been so long since I saw Titanic…frankly, I don’t think either of them were that romantic, because they were both tragedies. But Titanic I think beats out Brokeback, even though BBM is a better movie overall, because Rose had the courage to change, and Ennis just didn’t. I don’t blame him a bit, but that’s what made that story more of a tragedy than Titanic…
More romantic? Titanic.
Better movie? Brokeback.
Brokeback starts out romantic but it is much too sad.
Wait a minute, what about Desi Arnez?
Fernando. My mom used to have a Plymouth Volaré.
I have yet to see Brokeback, so reserving judgement on the entire movie vs. movie bit…because Titantic kind of sucked, for me. I just hate knowing how movies are going to end, mostly.
And my vote is with Ricardo, if only because he has a prop to occupy himself with in that picture. Boy knows his way ‘round a rope, is all I’m saying… 🙂
Fernando – definitely.
Ricardo – I keep seeing him in the white suite with little Tattoo – the plane! the plane!
Still haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain. Wasn’t interested in the Titanic – had already seen the previous thousand versions.
How about The Ghost and Mrs. Muir? Now that’s romantic…
The kid sounds sweet but also like he’s well on his way to becoming the guy who’s just so nice, but too nice to date. Poor guy. The car thing weirds me out. In our funky independant paper, The Austin Chronicle, there’s quite the entertaining personal ad section. The best part is the “Shots in the Dark”. Lots of seeint people in cars ads that go a little somthing like:
You: silver Honda, me: red Chevy truck. Thursday night at I-35 and Riverside. Did we have a moment?
Who would want to take that away and make the whole thing efficient? Gotta wonder if anyone ever actually hooks up that way…
I hated Titanic and haven’t seen La Montana, so neither. On the man question…based on further image Googling, I have to give a resounding vote for Fernando. There are hotter pictures in the top results. However, may I advise you to resist temptation and not click on any pictures of him as an old man with a pompador and spangly suit. It makes you afraid of what could happen to hot young men.
Ricardo, obviously. Look at that man-titty!
Fernando Lamas! That was one dead sexy man. Er, didn’t meant that he’s sexy now he’s dead. Montalban has always squicked me out. Creepy, creepy.
Um, on Google Images, the guy in the pompadour and spangled suit, despite what the search results say, is Liberace, not Lamas. :G:
If we’re going with these photos, then I say Fernando. Ricardo is too impressed with himself and the pecs. The shadow cast by his nipple gives me the kohlrabis.
I haven’t seen either movie, but that doesn’t stop me from picking brokeback mountain as the more romantic.
TOUGH decision. Going by those pictures only, I have to say Fernando. Ricardo’s nipples are WAY too perky.
I am also pure—have never seen Titanic, and outright refuse to, for the following reasons.
1. I have serious problems with the hero in a movie being more feminine that the heroine. Sorry, Kate, he’s prettier.
2. The boat sinks. Get over it.
3. That goddamned song.
I do, however, want to see Brokeback Mountain. Especially with Willie Nelson’s new song.
WOW speaking of Lorenzo Lamas, check this out:
http://www.enzogiobbe.com/celebphoto28.html
Scroll down and check out the pic of his wife—this scared the crap out of me. She looks like one of those freaky dead zombies on some of the romance novel covers…seriously. What is up with her eyes?????
Dear God. I don’t know which is worse, her eyes or those over-injected lips.
OMGoodness, she looks like a plastic blow-up Barbie doll complete with overly made-up eyes, frosted pink lipstick, and strangely out of proportion body. I’m frightened! 🙂
Dead sexy or sexy dead man, it’s still Ricardo.
And, though I hated it (and liked Brokeback well enough), Titanic was formulaically way closer to romance than Brokeback. There was too much strain on Ennis and Jack’s relationship, plus, as has been mentioned, the movie ended with the understanding that Ennis could never be happy, ever.
hey, what about when Ricardo played “Khan” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I thought he was completely do-able.
“And, though I hated it (and liked Brokeback well enough), Titanic was formulaically way closer to romance than Brokeback. There was too much strain on Ennis and Jack’s relationship, plus, as has been mentioned, the movie ended with the understanding that Ennis could never be happy, ever. “
I think that’s one of the reasons I found it so ‘Big-R Romantic’. That tragic hopelessness. The gigantic vistas of untamed wilderness. The fumbling lovemaking in a tent. Okay, that was just cute. In terms of ‘adhering to the tenets of romanticism’? They both work, but BBM tore me to shreds (effective) while Titanic made me laugh (even the first time I saw it, as a junior-high student, with a bunch of friends, who all loves it and told me I had no soul). Which makes me label it ‘less effective’ or at least ‘less affecting’ than BBR.
BBM. I was thinking of DDR, Dance Dance Revolution. Whoa. Dancing gay cowboys. Now that would have been a movie. :coolhmm:
Kiku
Titanic was, in my opinion, maudlin crap. When a movie makes me root for the hero to FUCKING DIE OF HYPOTHERMIA ALREADY, GAWD, I doubt that the romance, or the movie as a whole, worked.
Which brings up a somewhat interesting question: Is something romantic (or funny, or [insert adjective of choice here]) if it’s not effective to the viewer? For instance, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo—I’d say fuckin’ Requiem for a Dream was funnier than that movie. And no, I’m not sick enough to think that Requiem for a Dream was particularly funny. (It is one of my all-time favorite movies, though.) Is there some sort of objective minimal standard for funny/romantic/whatever? Or is it pretty much all in the eye of the beholder?
I’m also finding it interesting that some people are defining “more romantic” as “having a happier ending.” By that measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream could be considered more romantic than Romeo and Juliet.
What’s romantic, precioussss?
I have a hard time seeing Brokeback as romantic, especially the second half which is about the erosion of the romance. Brokeback explores repression and fear and people being stuck. It’s a very good movie and there are some (early) romantic scenes, but I can’t think of it as romantic.
I mean Titanic also ends in tragedy, but it’s romantic tragedy.
Imo, obviously.
From my educated-layperson viewpoint, which doesn’t have much of a background in the subject, the word ‘romantic’ calls up several overlapping implications:
1) Anything relating to the subject of love, especially that kind of nonplatonic, exclusive love we associate with couplehood. In that sense, Titanic was romantic, but so was The Breakfast Club, or possibly even Duece Bigalow (I can’t really say, since my literary education is incomplete – I haven’t seen it.).
2) Anything advancing an idealistic, fanciful, honor-based view of the world, in which emotions are true, passions are the source of true wisdom, and the things that happen to us have unambiguous meaning.
3) Related to #2- a subset of it, perhaps – is an idea that virtue will be rewareded, fortune will vindicate you, and everything will work out all right in the end if you are pure of heart. This is one kind of meaning that romance can offer, but I don’t think it’s required for romance. Romeo and Juliet was a romantic story because it was a tale of emotion – and love specifically – providing people with a compelling reason for defying everything else that directed their lives. It was a tragedy because they tried this tactic and lost. But in other love stories, people try the same tactic – to choose to pursue love passionately, in spite of everything else, everything reasonable and sensible – and they win, and that’s considered a happy love story. The idea that romance requires happiness seems to conflate (or demand both of) these two concepts – that love must be not only one’s motivating force, but that it must also win.
A story can be romantic in the second or third senses without involving love – Beowulf might be an example. And a story can involve love, and therefore be romantic in that sense, without being romantic in the sense of idealistic, or even in the sense that the love story works out. Brokeback Mountain might be an example of this (though I tend to go along with the view that it’s at least as much about social repression as about love per se). Though it can be hard to think of a successful love story that’s not Romantic in the second sense, because some people see any triumph of love as necessarily sentimental and idealistic.
As for the question of objective versus subjective notions of romance, that just depends upon whether you regard the author’s intent or the viewer’s reaction as dispositive of a work’s character. Can a play be a comedy if it’s seen by somebody who doesn’t get it? Is Saving Private Ryan a tragedy because the leading character dies, or a romantic epic because it puts forth a vision of loyalty overpowering all logical considerations of military tactics? I think, Solomon-like, the answer must be both – we’re allowed to consider both what the author intended us to get from the story, and what we actually did. Some people no doubt found Titanic romantic, and it’s not for you (with your cynicism and your English degree) to say they’re wrong =P On the other hand, anyone who thinks that, say, Romeo and Juliet is a morality tale warning teenagers to obey their parents is just dumb – because that’s not what Shakespeare intended. I guess that, as we’d say in the law, the subjective prong has a reasonableness component – the subjective impressions are valid if they’re reasonable. And, upon reflection, the objective prong should have a reasonableness component of a sort too. Brecht concieved of Happy End as a comedy-drama, but in my opinion it’s not really either, because it’s neither dramatic nor funny, except in how campy it is. George Lucas might have thought he was writing Episode II as a romance, but it’s an effective love story only to the extent that the love story doesn’t suck.
Just my thoughts.
‘George Lucas might have thought he was writing Episode II as a romance, but it’s an effective love story only to the extent that the love story doesn’t suck.’
That sums it up pretty well. I agree.
From my educated-layperson viewpoint, which doesn’t have much of a background in the subject, the word ‘romantic’ calls up several overlapping implications (…)
That’s an excellent summary. You left out Romance-with-a-big-R (as in Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Byron), which you acknowledged as much last night during our conversation, but then, the Romantic movement isn’t really related to this particular dialogue.
The idea that romance requires happiness seems to conflate (or demand both of) these two concepts – that love must be not only one’s motivating force, but that it must also win.
And there you have the backbone underpinning the modern romance novel. The necessity of the happily-ever-after in the romance novel is something that will cause some debate in on-line forums now and then, and personally, I think they’re a necessary component for the genre novel. A love story can still be wildly romantic without the HEA, but I’m not sure it could be considered a genre romance. It’d be the equivalent of a genre mystery novel in which the mystery is left completely unsolved at the end of the book.
As for the question of objective versus subjective notions of romance, that just depends upon whether you regard the author’s intent or the viewer’s reaction as dispositive of a work’s character. (…) Some people no doubt found Titanic romantic, and it’s not for you (with your cynicism and your English degree) to say they’re wrong =P On the other hand, anyone who thinks that, say, Romeo and Juliet is a morality tale warning teenagers to obey their parents is just dumb – because that’s not what Shakespeare intended. (…) I guess that, as we’d say in the law, the subjective prong has a reasonableness component – the subjective impressions are valid if they’re reasonable. And, upon reflection, the objective prong should have a reasonableness component of a sort too.
First things first: I think Titanic sucks, but I think my use of the word “maudlin” heavily implies that it is a romantic story. The romance did not work for me, so while I may not consider it very romantic, I can still certainly concede that somebody could view it as a deeply romantic story, and they wouldn’t be wrong. In short: you’re right, it’s absolutely not for me to say somebody’s opinion on things like these are wrong—certainly not in the way I could tell somebody who, say, thinks quantum entanglement can be used as proof for the existence of precognition that she’s wrong.
In terms of whether author intent or reader interpretation holds sway, I agree with your argument for a reasonableness component. In fact, one of my English profs was at pains to point this out when he assigned us our first literary criticism paper. “The Bluest Eye,” he said, “Can be interpreted in a lot of ways, and most of them wouldn’t be wrong. Is it a story about abuse and incest? Yes. Is it about racial perceptions and growing up black in a small American town in the 40s? Yes. Does it deal with the destructiveness of lookism? Yes. Can you interpret the story as being completely tragic and hopeless? Yes. Can you read the story and still come away with a glimmer of hope and optimism? Yes. But…” And then he paused, and waved the book around emphatically, “THIS BOOK IS NOT A BICYCLE REPAIR MANUAL.”
And of course, there’s my oft-cited example of Flannery O’Connor, who strenuously insisted that all her violent, grotesque stories were about God’s grace and only God’s grace, but whose critics insist on ignoring her stated intent and analyzing the stories from purely secular viewpoints with some interesting and, in my opinion, valid results. (Freudian critics typically have a field day with her, and I can’t say as I’d blame them—and I’m not even a big fan of Freudian literary criticism.)
(Oh, and some minor nitpicking: I think your example of a silly interpretation of Shakespeare is actually a valid one. One that perhaps lies on the fringes of the area covered by the reasonableness component, and one that can be disputed with some vigor, but when has that stopped literary criticism, eh?)
(This may or may not be the last paranthetical comment you see in this post. I like to keep my readers guessing.)
Back on topic: I think determining and interpreting themes involves a certain detachment that can be subject to the reasonableness component vs. making what seems to be a pure judgment call, e.g. whether *I felt* that something is romantic, or funny, or tragic, etc. And I think that these two are not mutually exclusive; I can, for example, acknowledge that Titanic was meant to be a romantic movie and that the majority of the population found it wildly romantic, but that I don’t feel it was particularly romantic at all.
Does that make any sort of sense? Or am I starting to talk in circles? Have I actually said anything of value in this frickin’ post? I suspect lack of sleep is addling my brain.