Reel romantic relationships
We watched "Taxi 3" yesterday. This is the third instalment in the French "Taxi" movies – the same one which inspired the so much less funny "Taxi" starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah. Of course, the third part of the series wasn’t as funny as the first two or as exciting but that’s a different story. What did strike me while watching the movie was the fact that this is the third part in a series of movies and all the main characters were still with the same partners they started off on the first movie! And they say that Europeans are loose :p
What did strike me was the fact that not many Hollywood movie series actually keeps the same love interest in all the movies. About the only notable exceptions that I can think of are "Lethal Weapon" and "Die Hard" but then again in both those movies, the relationship angle actually took a backseat to the rest of the story line. If I recall correctly, Riggs does not fall in love till "Lethal Weapon 2" and in "Die Hard", McClane divorces his wife by the "Die Hard 2". However, in movies where the love story (sic) does play a part, they have the guy changing girls faster than he changes shirts :p Two classic examples would be "American Ninja" and "The Karate Kid".
Why exactly is that? Is that simply Hollywood saying that you have to have a new girl in each movie to keep the audience interested? Or is it a more subtle message which says that it is OK to not be faithful to your partner? Or that things change and that love is only an illusion? I am not so sure and am also not so certain that Hollywood actually understands the message that they send when they do stuff like that. On the other hand, if you listen to the conspiracy theorists, Hollywood knows exactly what it is doing :p
And then there was the James Bond franchise, where James has sex with at least three females in every movie. The only exception I’m aware of is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where James gets married.
No kidding. It almost makes you wonder why so many people take their cues from Hollywood… because we don’t want our lives and relationships to have lasting value and significance? Thanks for this post.