Dysfunctional Relationships: Can Happy Couples Bicker?

Based on multiple long-range studies, the Gottman Institute states that disdain/contempt is a strong indication that a relationship is doomed. 

And generally speaking, I've never bought into the sitcom relationships based on constant put-downs between spouses. When Tim Allen moved from (the successful) Home Improvement to (the successful) Last Man Standing, the wife became less critical. She also became both more independent and more likely to admire her husband.  

Of course, there is Howard and Bernadette on Big Bang Theory, who snipe at each other on a regular basis. For good or ill, I believe in the relationship. One possibility is that Bernadette, despite her small size, is such a replica of Howard's mother--at least in tone--I can accept that Howard has married what he knows. 

To an extent, what is considered contemptuous may depend entirely on the couple: what appears unworkable to outsiders could be entirely workable to insiders.  

 

Dysfunctional Couples: Relationships That Won't Work but are Written Well

I was a young teen--fourteen or so. I was sitting in the back of my friend's car while her mother drove. Her mother had divorced and later remarried. My friend was the only child from the remarriage (my friend had multiple older step-siblings). 

The mother said, "Of course, if both members of the couple were truly Christian, they would be able to make the marriage work."

Without thinking, I said, "Oh, that isn't true!" 

In retrospect--about two hours later--I freaked out. I would never had said anything if I'd thought about what I was saying and to whom. But from the perspective of decades, I'm glad I did. What I remember is the mother's gratified smile. She wasn't upset at my teenage disgust at the idea that any two people could make a go of it as long as they were nice or moral enough. 

Oddly enough, many television relationships reveal a similar mindset to that woman. That is, they can't image that two characters they like can't make a go of it. If the relationship fails, it must be due to a 3rd party--a rival--cheating--or the possibility of cheating. 

But three of the best-written non-workable couples on television reveal the opposite. 

Sherlock and Fiona from Elementary: Sherlock is honestly attracted to Fiona and she to him. He honestly likes her and vice versa. He doesn't break up with her due to her neural atypical behavior. Rather, he breaks up because he perceives himself as his work, not as a man who works and then has a relationship. Watson challenges his approach when she points out that her mother has no interest in her father's books. But Sherlock is not the same as Watson's mother, and Watson doesn't assume he should be, only that he should be kind and quick in his break-up. 

Jo and Isaac from Forever:  Jo and Isaac date for approximately 3 episodes (see image above). And Isaac is a great, fun guy! In the end, however, Jo realizes that she would rather spend time with Henry. 

Jo and Henry are an interesting match. Not only do the actors have terrific chemistry, there is never any suggestion that their first loves won't remain their first loves. The future relationship (which would have happened if the show didn't end with Season 1) rests on the fact that they not only like each other, they like what the other person wants in a relationship. What Isaac wanted was not what Jo wants--which, again, she perceives in Henry. 

Booth and Hannah I write about here: https://katewoodbury.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-significant-others-other-bones.html

In all three cases, the issue is not CHEATING. The issue isn't even personality. Everybody is swell. The issue is what each person looks for in a relationship. Absent a cultural agreement--A relationship IS the following--that issue comes down to individual compatibility. 

Romances Hate Adultery: Esther and Miss Fisher

On Votaries, I discuss characters who change their lives: Ruth and Rahab from the Bible. 

It seemed appropriate to repost about a classic Hollywood Bible romance: Esther.  

The story doesn't really work. 

Not that Hollywood and television hasn't tried. And there are decent versions out there. But Esther as one among many wives doesn't really make for a great romance, even in the polyamorous romance sub-genre. 

Actually, in comparison to its films, which nearly always go the romance route, the book of Esther is more political. The story is likely fiction based loosely on historical events. Let me make clear: There is nothing wrong with this! The Bible contains poetry and drama, lore and proverbs and parables and everything else under the sun.

And the story of Esther is impressive since the person who wrote down the legend/tale knew how to plot!

What makes Esther, the character, stand out is not how much the king loves her but how cleverly she plays the cards at her disposal. She knows she has limited time to make a positive and lasting impression; she uses specific chances and the king's favoritism to bring about political change. 

It's a good story. It likely lasted, in part, because of the soupcon of romance, which is naturally too much for filmmakers to pass up--

Yet therein lies a problem. Viewers don't really like adultery. (See here for why polyamorous relationships are not automatically adulterous.)

When Australia television/ABC presented The Miss Fisher Mysteries, the writers changed Phryne's lover from Lin Chung to Jack Robinson. There are strong plotting reasons for this--an ongoing series needs a police detective to be continually present. And the series doesn't completely dispose of Lin Chung. He shows up in at least one episode.

I suggest another reason for the change: in the books, Lin Chung eventually marries to make his family happy. He truly has no choice; the marriage is a cultural--and for his bride, a survival--necessity. His wife and Phryne become friends. He and Phryne continue as lovers.

To moderns, this blithe acceptance of adultery is hard to take. It is easier to explain in a book where the author can provide social context and lay-out for readers the society in which the characters operate.  

However, the truth is, few contemporary historical regency romances fall back on the "open marriage contract" as a solution, even M/M romances. I suspect that the Fisher scriptwriters were additionally uncomfortable with the possible implications: that Phryne would allow herself to be supposedly degraded by becoming the "other" woman. The book doesn't present her decision in this way. But the perception lingers. Even Wikipedia concentrates on Phryne as open to "free love" rather than the fact that she and Lin Chung are a relatively monogamous couple for a large number of the books--despite Lin Chung having a wife.

As I maintain elsewhere, the desire for the one-and-only is very, very old. The Bible gives us politics in Esther. It reserves romance for the Song of Songs.  

Shakespeare's Couples: Romeo & Juliet, Part II

Alex Beecroft's M/M Shining in the Sun is a good example of a Romeo & Juliet (or, in this case, Romeo & Romeo) tale working. The main characters, Alec and Darren, come from different social classes. How do they overcome internal and external pressures to part?

Beecroft's answer is for Alec and Darren to acknowledge the stressful differences. When Darren has to meet Alec's well-to-do, Lady Catherine-like mama, he resents being "put on display" as well as the subtle ways in which the mama and the waiters at the fancy restaurant make him feel uncouth. Likewise, when Alec goes to meet Darren's grandmother, he is appalled by the woman's poverty.

The latter scene is fairly brilliant. Darren wants Alec to meet his grandmother; Darren himself has always been impressed by how clean she keeps her tiny house; how hard she works to wear matching slacks and pullovers. Then he sees his grandmother through Alec's eyes. The house is clean but shabby (and lacking in basic amenities). His grandmother's dress is presentable yet threadbare (and Walmart cheap, not haute couture). He resents Alec for this new perspective.

A Juliet and Romeo who seem to 

know what they signed up for.

Both Alec and Darren have to overcome their judgments and resentments in order to move forward. 

Without an acknowledgement of their differences, Romeo & Romeo or Romeo & Juliet or Juliet & Juliet (and so on and so forth) will stall and disintegrate, leaving the reader with the awful instinctual knowledge, "This relationship is doomed--even if nobody dies."

Shakespeare's Couples: When Romeo & Juliet Work, Part I

Despite generations of heart-sick teenagers taking Romeo & Juliet as a blueprint for "success," Shakespeare likely meant it as a cautionary tale--directed more at the parents than the teens.

The Romeo & Juliet trope rests on the premise that two people from opposite sides of the tracks meet and fall in love. Maybe their families are enemies. Maybe one is a liberal and one is a conservative. Maybe one is poor and the other is rich. Maybe one is royalty and the other is an obscure non-royal (Cinderella). Maybe one is a spy or con-artist and the other is the mark.

The tension arises from (1) outside forces stating, "You must not be together." And (2) inner forces stating, "I don't really get you."

Sometimes the tensions are resolved in accordance with the tale's most celebrated example: lots of death. Sometimes it ends with sacrifice and acceptance (Casablanca). Sometimes it ends with an utter lack of realism. And sometimes, if handled correctly, it ends with a sweet, romantic resolution.

The first two are not the focus of this post (despite Casablanca being a great movie). The focus is the last two: what separates the positive romantic unbelievable ending from the positive romantic believable ending.

The difference lies in acknowledgement of the accompanying problems.

In Frasier, Niles meets Daphne's lay-about

brothers and still wants to marry her.

Unrealistic Romeo & Juliet tales focus only on (1) the external forces rather than accepting that (2) internal qualms will have impact.

Internal qualms count because people cannot be magically stripped of their familial/cultural/monetary expectations. There is a reason that most people do, in fact, marry within their "class" (even in America). One reason Austen is so popular even now is that she verbalizes issues that have become taboo in our own culture (every culture has, as Tom Wolfe argued, its own Victorian Gent).

Truth: money and background impact relationships.

Elizabeth can argue fiercely with Lady Catherine de Bourgh that she equates to Darcy since she is a gentleman's daughter. Yet Austen never allows any of her heroines to contemplate marrying a farmhand or a minor clerk in an office. Love conquers all within a specific social milieu.

Austen was not being naive or prejudiced; she was being realistic. Money, where people want to live, how people want to live, their friends, their families, their social settings: all these things are factors in a relationship. To pretend they are not is to leave the door open for worse problems.

Austen perfectly encapsulates these "worse problems" in Sense & Sensibility. At the end of the book, Willoughby--who married for money--regrets that he didn't marry for love. Elinor wisely reflects that if Willoughby had married her sister, he would have ended up resenting their mutual poverty.

So how does a Romeo & Juliet tale end without the couple, in the long run, hating each other's guts because "you estranged me from my family...you buried me in poverty...you forced me to live in a horrible city/country/town...you prevented me from accomplishing what I could have accomplished..."?

Romeo & Juliet Part II

Good Break-Up: Death in Paradise

I usually dislike break-up stories, just as I usually dislike constantly fighting exes.

However, the break-up at the end of Death in Paradise, Season 3, is excellently written. It also demonstrates an internal transformation (on Votaries, I am currently examining characters who undergo such transformations). 

I'm conservative enough to not have the highest opinion of couples who divorce because they are bored or irritated. The statement, "My needs aren't being met" may be legitimate but sometimes, the needs are so entirely unrealistic that nobody would ever be able to meet them.

My annoyance at easy break-ups being stated, the split between Humphrey and his ex on Death in Paradise is a good example of how incompatibility actually can lead to a marriage falling apart.

Humphrey Goodman moves to St. Marie, believing that his wife will follow. She doesn't. She requests a divorce instead. However, she shows up a few months later, having discovered--as anyone with sense could have told her--that simply declaring a marriage over doesn't automatically make life exciting and satisfying and fresh. Her world didn't become instantly magical, just because she shed the supposedly boring husband.

There's a fantastic scene at Catherine's bar where Humphrey orders a rum drink, then encourages his ex to also order one. She takes one sip, grimaces and sets it aside, requesting her usual gin & slim.

Humphrey then points out that with his move, he was trying to save their marriage--that's why he took the post to St. Marie in the first place. And it might have worked. It worked for Humphrey. He is fundamentally open to new experiences and the move expanded his horizons while shoring up his abilities as a leader. He absorbed it all, from classic mystery denouements ("That thing where you gather everyone together--I rather enjoyed that last time") to garish shirts to lizards to rum...

The point here is not that people have to like rum. In his unending search for decent tea, Poole never did.

The point is, the ex-wife wants both: she wants her unadventurous, yuppie, staid life back in England alongside FUN and ADVENTURE and CHANGE! This unlikely combination of needs is something Humphrey attempted to give her.

Except he no longer can. He has moved on--too far--while she didn't. He can't backtrack. He puts the gap between them down to individual growth (and to him being in love with Camille Bordey, though that is arguably a convenient emotional idea for him to hold onto). And the truth is, I rather think the ex-wife would have ended up bored in St. Marie. She carried her dissatisfaction with her. Nothing can cure that.

The Problem with the Romantic Spy Novel

Agent Smith is NOT a nice guy.

On Votaries, I post about Spies & Spouses. 

The below is a repost.

* * *

The problem with the romantic spy novel is that (realistic) spies are not the kinds of people who should inspire commitment.

I argue on this blog that dysfunctional relationships can work as long as all the people involved know what dysfunction they're signing up for. But there are lines. And a firm line stands between ordinary-dysfunction and con-artists/grifters.

Spies--actual spies--fall into the latter category. Someone like Philby comes across not as clever, resourceful, daring, or even dangerous (in the James Bond sense) but as someone essentially hollow.

Lee, from Scarecrow & Mrs King, is

more like Seeley Booth.

John Le Carre's chilling depiction of spies in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (wherein the sincerely loyal-to-his-country character is sacrificed by an amoral agent for the sake of protecting a sleazebag asset) is a far more realistic depiction of spies than the noble secret agent who wants to protect his/her country.

A variation to the amoral agent who protects a sleazebag asset is the tough assassin. The problem here is that generally speaking, tough assassins are like the mafia hitman serial killer in an episode of Criminal Minds: a fascinating character with a great deep voice who has no soul.

Every romance writer wants to create Jason Bourne (who doesn't?)--as opposed to the schemer in the backroom. But unless the character IS Jason Bourne and has a good reason to protect himself without becoming callous, amoral, and deranged, the romance writer is stuck. (In Person of Interest, John's determination to regain his soul means he has created a set of personal criteria that he sticks to no matter the cost--he is constantly watching himself--plus he already walked away from being an official "spy".)

Spy movies should not even try to be

realistic--put the secret agent in a tank!

The end result: spy romance novels often end up being (even more) unrealistic (than the average adventure movie). In one I read recently, the spy handed a gun to the object of his assignment, the mark (and love interest), within 24-hours of their meeting. At that point, I rolled my eyes and gave up on the book being anything more than a series of chases (well-written, I'll grant, but still--). A hard-headed, intelligent, resourceful, non-novice, non-amnesiac expert spy simply HANDS over a weapon to a wild card?

Where did my suspension of disbelief go? Oh, there it is, wafting out the window...

I love the "but love conquers all doubts" theme as much as the next romantic. Only, please, not in a spy novel and not in the first three chapters. Even Leverage gave its grifter several seasons to "repent" (and she was a nice grifter).

The Dysfunctional Relationship that Works: Ten Count

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of dysfunctional relationships. As I state in my post about Violence & Romance, 

Romantic love can't solve everything. It can't wipe out years of abuse. It can't overcome drug addiction. A person who has suffered such problems needs time and space to sort themselves out. Often, running into a relationship will only compound the problems, even sabotage the new relationship. Drowning people can drag other people down with them.

In books of this type, the trope "I saw someone across the room and knew we should be together" stops being cute and becomes intensely selfish, even skin-crawling. Sure, the object of the pursuit will cave--that's what vulnerable people do. Doesn't mean it's right.  

In addition, as I point out in a review of a light novel, if a person falls in love with someone with serious dysfunctions, might the person be in love with the dysfunctions? Or in love with the role of rescuer? What happens when the lover improves?  

Kudos to Ten Count by Rihito Takarai for tackling this issue upfront and quite honestly. Shirotani and Kurose become linked when Kurose promises to "cure" Shirotani of his OCD. In truth, he can't, which both men know (though Shirotani does get better). But years earlier, Kurose met a man who appeared to also be germaphobic. Kurose initiates a relationship with Shirotani based on the nostalgia and guilt and even attraction associated with that teenage encounter. 

His "patient," then boyfriend, is aware of Kurose's past. Consequently, one of the most touching scenes in the series is when Kurose confesses, "You are nothing like him." 

The behavior tics may have brought them together--and may in fact still define HOW they communicate--but Kurose fell for Shirotani (and Shirotani fell for Kurose) for his specific personality. The foibles are part of the attraction/charm, not the only thing that matters.

Frenemies: Competitive Lovers

Gilbert and Anne not only get into various arguments and scraps. They compete academically. This type of competition shows up in several manga/BL stories. 

In Fake Fact Lips by Machi Suehiro, Ryo and Zen have been competing since high school. Ryo feels pressure by his father. Zen is trying to make his mark after growing up in his older brother's shadow. Zen is belligerent and self-conscious but his achievements are honestly pursued. Without realizing the impact of his words, Zen encourages Ryo to compete for the same reason. Rather than trying to satisfy a father who can never be satisfied, why not make Zen his rival? 

Ryo does, especially after he realizes that competition is a form of communication with Zen.

I have my doubts about competitive lovers. When does the competition cross the line into dysfunction, as in the CSI episode where the boyfriend causes his girlfriend's death when he redraws her hiking map? When does competition simply become too wearisome? 

Fake Fact Lips works for several reasons: Ryo and Zen are honest with each other; the competition continues to be a language of connection and flirtation; the competition is healthy in the sense that it involves achievement (constructive results) rather than negation (destructive or absent results). 

The healthy form of competition here is quite common in manga. In Yuri on Ice, competition inspires the two lovers as well as binding them together. In Free, which has no romance, competition inspires the somewhat drifting Haruka Nanase to connect to his future.

Like with all frenemies, however, the competition could go sour. As long as it doesn't...it works! 

The Problem of Ross & Rachel: Why It Still Doesn't Work

Julia Roberts shows up, Friends, Season 2

I discuss the rival-character on Votaries. I was reminded of Ross & Rachel whose entirely dysfunctional relationship relied to a degree on jealousy over rivals. 

Here is a repost from 2017. 

* * *

I recently rewatched most seasons of Friends (with self-censoring). It is a remarkably well-written and well-cast show, especially for its time period, 1994-2004. Friends slightly precedes the years when television became the massive money-maker it is now. This may sound odd to the younger generation, but when Michael J. Fox (intelligently) returned to television to star in Spin City in 1996, his decision was still considered rather daring. A television star who made it to the movies going BACK to television?! (That he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's was not known by the general public until 1998.)

Now, no one thinks anything of Fox's courageous choice. So Friends--with its Hollywood guest stars--was oddly and impressively prescient, and was from Season 1. The network obviously decided to do what all shows wish the network would do for them: back it to the hilt.

David Schwimmer as the Holiday Armadillo

Having said that, I find it almost impossible (still) to watch Ross & Rachel together. Jennifer Aniston is a fine comedienne and David Schwimmer is surprisingly willing to be the Don Knotts of the show--although Don Knotts is more charming.

As a couple, they grate. I self-censored nearly every one of the "fighting" episodes--and a number of the "wondering if we should be a couple" ones as well.

Why? As Eugene points out, failure to mature is the main reason. On an episode to episode basis, what becomes increasingly unbearable re: Ross and Rachel is the ridiculous business of both characters waiting for some special lightning bolt from the blue to decide "we are in love."

They date. They're friends. They care for each other. They sleep together. They have a baby. They live in the same apartment for a number of months. But they can't marry because "it doesn't feel right"?

It's a level of emotional self-indulgence that makes the brain melt. What exactly are they waiting for? As far I can tell, they are waiting for a single subjective moment that writes "I feel it! I feel it!" on their souls--which makes me doubt that the (final) marriage will last more than two seconds. After all, subjective feelings are prone to wax and wane. How long will it be before the writing fades?

Elizabeth hearing praises of Darcy

from his housekeeper.

Compare this with Elizabeth, who was likely always attracted to Darcy but acknowledges her feelings when she encounters his good reputation at Pemberley. It isn't his wealth (although Elizabeth herself jokes about that possibility) but his decent behavior that confirms her (subjective) feelings. Her respect for him grows until she can answer her father's incredulity ("Let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life") by "relating her absolute certainty that [Darcy's] affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months’ suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities."

Compare Rachel & Ross with Booth in Bones who doesn't immediately leave Hannah the moment Bones confesses her feelings to him. The man doesn't substitute a lightning bolt for loyalty and commitment. 

From manga, compare R&R to Fumi Yoshinaga's What Did You Eat Yesterday in which Shiro's desire to keep the relationship growing (partly because he hates the idea of having to start over) leads him to spend extra money on fresh peaches for Kenji (Shiro is a cheapskate so this is a big deal). His later resolution to spend New Year's Eve with Kenji--rather than his parents--is handled with maturity: he invests in his partner.

And from anime, compare R&R to Taeko and Toshio from Only Yesterday who slowly discover similarities as well as differences to admire during Taeko's vacation in Yamagata. In the end, they indicate a willingness to further a relationship of mutual respect.

Love and attraction is part of the equation in all these cases. The difference between them and Ross & Rachel is that the believable relationships don't rest upon some arbitrarily designated moment that may or may not arrive. Initial love/attraction plays a role, but the actual relationship is the result of investment and the additional perception, "I am lucky to have found this person." At the core is (to go old school) high regard, a quality I simply don't believe Rachel and Ross have for each other.

Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: MacBeth

The dysfunction in MacBeth's primary relationship isn't that Lady MacBeth talks MacBeth into killing the king. That's bad. But from a relationship point of view, it isn't automatically the thing that destroys the relationship. 

What destroys the relationship is that Lady MacBeth can't control what she has inspired. 

In Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers's characters discuss what happens when one spouse limits or pulls down the other, either intentionally or unintentionally. The problem with MacBeth entails the opposite behavior (one spouse pushes rather than limits the other) but it relates to the first: one couple is trying to design or fix or otherwise manufacture a "perfect" spouse. In Lady MacBeth's case, that perfect spouse is a king. In another case, a perfect spouse might be one who doesn't do that type of work or write that type of stuff or spend time on those kind of causes. 

The ambitions are different but the behavior is the same: trying to organize someone else's life to make one's own life feel organized. 

Lady MacBeth fails in the long run and she fails before it is clear that MacBeth is doomed. She fails because actions have consequences. The act of assassination didn't occur on paper. It occurred in real life. MacBeth didn't turn into a nicely ambitious bloke. He turned into a nut-case. 

I suggest, as have others, that even if MacBeth hadn't turned into a nut-case, he still would have failed Lady MacBeth. Again, actions don't have tidy consequences. Eventually, she would have become another enemy, another person standing in his way. It was only a matter of time. 

Better, truly, for people to know what they are marrying than to try to force a spouse towards what they imagine they are marrying. 

*MacBeth is one of those plays that works at the narrative level, no matter what its trappings--like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. A number of mystery shows have "done" Lady MacBeth, including Jake & the Fatman, Season 1, "Rhapsody in Blue." Strong parts for many actors!

Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: The Damage of Making Up Stories about Others

One of the most damaging ideas in life, I believe, is the belief that "things SHOULD go this way." These days, especially on social media, the "should" fallacy is often connected to made-up stories rather than day-to-day realities ("you MUST have done what I've imagined, so you should or should not do it again--people OUGHT to have the following attitude, so it will now occur").

I learned to be skeptical of these types of stories early in life. In my prepubescent years, I read a book in which a young boy spends all day staring into a fire and making up stories about all the wonderful things that other people will do for him. About the same time, I read C.S. Lewis's rather acerbic analysis that fantasy writers--who are accustomed to invented worlds--are better at recognizing the gap between fiction and reality than writers of contemporary fiction and "true life" school stories. The latter begin to imagine that all those things in the story ought to happen to them. 

I consequently developed a distaste for "should" commentary and advice, the type of stuff that happens on social media before social media every came into being.  

Of course, in our world, lots of people get paid to give lots of other people advice based on theoretical stories rather than research and facts. But the underlying negative fall-out should never be forgotten.

In a CSI episode "Feeling the Heat," parents kill a child. They are absolutely convinced that the baby is suffering from a genetic disorder. Since their previous child died from that disorder, they decide that they can't go through the same pain again. 

It turns out the child was suffering from ordinary grogginess due to sitting near chemicals. Not good. But not life threatening. 

The parents imposed a story onto what they saw. They didn't wait to collect real evidence. They didn't think critically about the situation. They ran with the theoretical story and imposed it on a living being.

At a less murderous level,  Kang in On and Off encourages his boyfriend to leave his job and become an actor. He doesn't want Ahn to leave his job. But he has created a story in his mind of what Ahn needs without actually talking to Ahn and letting Ahn share an important proposal with him. When Ahn's friends trap Kang on a boat and tell him off, he rethinks the story he has created entirely on his own. 

As I state on Votaries about Elementary, true empathy is objective, not emotional. It asks, "What do I not know? What questions do I need to ask?" rather than "What label do I have to hand to construct a story? How do I think other people should be behaving?"

Shakespeare's Couples: Antony & Cleopatra

These posts examine Shakespeare's couples. For Antony and Cleopatra, however, I went to the Hollywood extravaganza rather than Shakespeare's play. Cleopatra stars Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony.

By all accounts, the historical couple truly were that attached and tempestuous. That is, Cleopatra and Caesar slept together as high-powered political entities. They knew exactly how to use each other.

But Cleopatra and Antony were apparently that much in love and that...dumb about it. A number of historians tut-tut over Roman insularity, used by Augustus to argue that Antony was pitting a "foreign" mistress/power against Rome. They point out, correctly, that Egypt wasn't seen as a different Empire but as part of Rome. Every Roman general was occupying land outside of "Rome."

However, I think the historian's arguments are special pleading. I think any populace would look askance at Antony's behavior: a guy who leaves his wife and family to spend more time than necessary with a royal entity who has already linked herself to Caesar--who is also a problem for Rome. She is, moreover, a canny politician (not the drug-addled character in HBO's Rome) and has her own host of familial complications. And all of this during a Civil War!

In any case, the pair require smoldering passion. Elizabeth and Burton mostly deliver. Critics have accused Taylor of being too shrill and Burton as being too sour. Both criticisms are true. 

However, Taylor is far better than most Cleopatras, who far too often are too young, pretty, and pouty. Taylor, at least, comes across as self-possessed. At best, she comes across as tough while being sexy, not sexy in spite of being tough. And Burton exhibits charisma, a great man in diminishment. They are believably romantic and believably dysfunctional. 

Dysfunctional Relationships in Mysteries: Plan versus Reality

"Does anyone have a plan like ours?"

One of my favorite Diagnosis Murder episodes, "Till Death Do Us Part," starts with the murderers--a spoiled daughter and her clueless fiance--imagining the murder they have planned. They imagine themselves as slick operators who impress the wedding guests at their upcoming nuptials. They imagine the victim, the father, as a jerk. They imagine his wife, the woman they intend to frame, as snide. They imagine the murder going off without a hitch as the detectives find all the clues they planted.

The episode then switches to the actual day. The couple are vain, pompous, disorganized, and kind of stupid. The father is kindly. The stepmother smooths things over. The two murderers keep making mistakes. Items that were supposed to be in certain places get lost. The dog laps up part of the poison. The maid vacuums. And so on.

 

The murder still occurs, and Mark Sloan naturally finds out the truth. For the purposes of this blog, the great insight into the relationship is that the two bad guys are "made for each other." They have the same dysfunction, and their dysfunction is tied to their murderous impulse. 

 

Their dysfunction? They think they deserve more than they have earned or than makes any actual sense. The groom resents his father-in-law's rejection of his completely ridiculous business proposals. The bride asks her stepmother to fetch nail polish that is already sitting on her vanity. They don't see their own arrests coming because they believe so thoroughly in their self-made stories.

 

Very funny. Very chilling.

Joseph of Old and Romance, or, Which Character Writers Have Focused on the Most

Amazingly enough, Webber did NOT include a romance in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat.

Plenty of other people have. 

Joseph and his potential wife have provided many "between the lines" readings. In some romantic versions, he marries Aseneth, the daughter of Potipher (Genesis refers to Joseph marrying "Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On"). Other versions have Joseph marry Potipher's wife--the woman who tried to seduce him--after her husband dies and she is reduced to beggary. 

There has always been humor in the tale.

Still other versions provide Gothic-like details after Potipher's wife drinks a magic potion; it takes over her mind (hence the attempt at seduction). Snakes show up at one point.

What is fascinating in all cases is that Potipher's wife receives so much attention. Even when (or if) the tale is being used to show the wantonness of a bad woman, she becomes a character in her own right and gets more "screen time" than anybody else. And a number of writers have perceived her sympathetically, a character who is battling desires and emotions she can't conquer. In early modern Europe, she became a kind of argument between libertines, anti-libertines (hugely influenced by reviving Stoicism), and those who took more nuanced views towards human desire. 

Contrite Judah

The Bible story itself is less concerned with the virginity/non-virgininity state of the hero and more with the social ramifications of adultery. Joseph resists because lying with his master's wife would be dishonorable. Consider that Judah's tale (stuck in the middle of Joseph's tale) is about a man who didn't see to the security of his daughter-in-law. His failure is condemned and the daughter-in-law who tricked him into sleeping with her is let off the hook. Fast-forward to David: Nathan's biggest problem with David is that David misused his position.

Post-ancient world, adultery becomes not (only) a violation of a social contract but a matter for the individual soul. The change of perspective elicited a great many questions and opinions. The result was a focus on the person who struggles with that issue: the wife--not Joseph.

Shakespeare's Couples: The Unlikable Pair from All's Well That Ends Well

Most critics agree: the Countess

Rousillon character is fantastic.

Yup, that's Judi Dench!

On Votaries, I am examining the process of turning books into other mediums. A-Z List 8 examines certain books made into films by the author's last name. I am also examining Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogies chapter by chapter.

On Romance & Manga, I decided to examine the filmed versions of Shakespeare's romantic couples.

Going in alphabetical order, the first couple comes from All's Well That Ends Well and there simply aren't that many versions of the play-as-movie to compare and contrast. The play has been made into a movie as part of The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare--though those televised versions are often presented as plays.

The story involves a woman who sleeps with a man who didn't want to marry her--and tries to get away after he is forced to marry her. She follows him, takes the place of another woman, and sleeps with him. It's a variation on the Trope of the Forced Relationship and brings with it all the problems of the forced relationship. It is also paired with unrequited love--though Helena comes across as far more with-it than Eponine from Les Miserables. She's decided, "This is the guy I want," and she makes it happen.

And yet, still--

There's an extremely funny scene in a Sarah Caudwell book regarding the play. Julia takes Cantrip's Uncle Hereward to see All's Well That Ends Well. The elderly gentleman conflates the actors with the characters. He stands up in the theater and cries, "Shame, sir, shame, you're a scoundrel," directing his comments at Bertram. After getting thrown out of the theater, he and Julia move on to a restaurant where the Colonel "was anxious to believe that in spite of having been perfectly beastly to Helena through five acts Roussillon was really deeply in love with her, and would thereafter make her an ardent and devoted husband." Julia tries to pacify him by explaining that she thinks the title is ironic. At this point, the cast enters the restaurant and the Colonel gets into a shouting match with the actor who plays Bertram, resulting in the older man tossing spaghetti at the younger.

The couple does in fact provoke extreme reactions: critics who despise Helena. Critics, like the Colonel, who don't see WHY she loves Bertram. 

Not a great many fans of the couple as a couple.

The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare does offer one interesting interpretation--at least of the play's setting. The play uses Dutch costuming and houses, which is a captivating change from the (usually) Elizabethean look of "historical" Shakespeare plays. 

Shakespeare lived into the Jacobean Era, till 1616. The play is one of his early seventeenth-century problem plays. "Problem" is a term invented by Frederick S. Boas to group all of Shakespeare's plays he didn't like. 

One can see why All's Well That Ends Well ended up on that list.

Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: Insecurity in Jake and the Fatman

Jake and the Fatman is a very smart show in many ways. One of the smartest aspects is that the crime takes place as much in the criminal's head as in a particular time and place. 

That isn't to say that the show is psychological mystery. It is very much a whodunnit/howdunnit action show. But the motive can be what people imagine as much as what actually takes place. 

Dorothy Sayers understood the power of the imagined grievance when she addressed the impact of jealousy on a relationship. Agatha Christie also understood it, particularly the way an idea can become a story in the brain. With several would-be murderers, Poirot gently makes the point, "You imagined a murder--that doesn't mean you committed it."  

The entire world of love and abandonment that Elinor imagines in Sad Cypress (over a fiance who isn't worth so much emotional investment) is a poison that is eventually purged. She never goes as far as she thinks she might. (The Poirot version, though well-acted, misses the point--the scriptwriters insisted on making the affair a matter of actual sex rather than emphasizing that Elinor has invented a more passionate fiance than she has; her identity, her imagined future, is on the line, not an actual flesh-and-blood relationship.)

More destructively, the husband in "Magnolia Blossoms" has convinced himself that his wife MUST sleep with his business partner to get some papers back, and he sends her off to perform that task without warning her. She doesn't, in fact, have to sleep with the other man; she is able to get the papers by simply asking. But she leaves her husband when she realizes his assumptions and suspicions, how willing he was to trade her based on a story in his mind.

Several of the criminals in Jake and the Fatman act not based on good judgment or objectively collected information but on that type of invented story. They think that there were let down, abandoned by a lover when, in fact, they never were.

In the first season episode "Fatal Attraction," a wife and stepson kill off the husband/father. Jake then uses the young man's competitive nature to drive a wedge between him and the wife. When the young man apparently disappears, the wife is easily persuaded that he gave her up--which he never did.  

Likewise, a later villain believes that his girlfriend gave him up when Jake gets her a singing gig. But she never did. 

The police don't have to manipulate these villains. The singing gig, for instance, is completely legitimate. If the girlfriend had held on in the first place, rather than giving up and resorting to crime, she might have broken into the field.

For the boyfriend, the legitimate nature of the singing gig underscores his insecurity. He knows--as does the stepmother with the stepson--that the lover has a less criminal option. Maintaining a relationship through dodgy behavior brings the foundation into question. It backs the idea that humans are attuned to fairness versus unfairness at a basic, non-taught, "natural" level. Something has got to give.

Or, perhaps, the reaction hints at a fundamental belief (however avoided through sophisticated philosophizing) that what goes around, comes around. The villains' stories about others and themselves and the world have convinced them of a particular outcome, and that's the outcome that comes about. 

From a romance point of view, it underscores the inherent vulnerability of love. Love me? Really? For how long? 

Tough Men and Women Without the Misogynism (or the Self-Victimhood)

On Votaries, I discuss raunchier fairy tales. Those fairy tales remind me of 1970s television. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the shows were misogynistic or whatever (and actually, yes, they sometimes were). But when I rewatch them, what strikes me is the tough individuality of the characters, especially with remarkable shows like Scarecrow and Mrs King (way ahead of its time!). They seem more likely to be independent. More likely to do their own thing. More likely to call people out because they can, not because it's some kind of "you're a label--you must" mandate.

Toughness and misogynism (fear of that toughness) is a double-edged sword in some ways. Basile presents a Sleeping Beauty who gets raped by a prince, who later chucks his current wife into boiling oil. Basile also gives us a Rapunzel, Petrosinella, who overhears her evil captor's plans and outwits her, so the captor, an ogress, is eventually eaten by a tiger. Petrosinella runs the story, as do many fairy tale heroines. 

I mention in a post somewhere that Bellisario wanted his men to be tough and attractive and in-charge...and he wanted his women to be tough and attractive and in-charge. Gibbs and Ziva truly were his go-to characters. 

Some of that moxie seems to have gotten lost these days as everyone--and I mean everyone--fights to be the top-dog victim or angsty do-gooder or negative doomsdayer or cruel protester who doesn't have to do much more than join a mob. 

I think one reason Bones is still so beloved by us fans is that Brennan-Booth solved Bellisario's scenario without going down the misogynistic route. I suggest the writers accomplished this feat by (1) the characters defending their positions without labeling; (2) the characters being themselves before they are WOMAN AND MAN; (3) humor. 

Humor always helps.