I had in mind a lot of different things to look at, in reference to the relationships of different people and attractions between them.
Firstly there was Catfish, a documentary film about a photograher's online relationship with a young model who turns out to be a middle aged housewife hiding behind somebody else's profile picture and a facebook account that's made up of the perfect person she wished she could be. What I found relieving was the way they presented her as a human being and not some kind of 'cyber creep' that a conventionally unattractive person could be seen as when hoping to be with someone visually the opposite of them. What I found also interesting was the fact that they were able to make a Catfish television show, meaning that so many other people were experiencing these online relationships. So many people were willing to hide who they were, in order to enjoy a romantic relationship with someone they admired.
A shorter film that I came across recently filmed an experiment between different strangers who were paired up and told to kiss in front of the camera. At first, I thought the awkward but flirtatious body language of these different people was quite sweet and once they got in to it it looked like they were quite happy with who they were with then and there. However, an article I later found discussing the video revealed that it was actually a clothing advertisement and all of these strangers were picked from a list of models, musicians and actors. It wasn't as random as it was made out to be and in fact it was yet another product of a fantasy world where everyone is conventionally beautiful and comfortable to be attracted to each other because of that default attraction.
After this artsy black and white film, a bundle of parodies came following after and one of those was one using very average looking people found on the street who were willing to kiss a stranger, in front of the camera for £20. The video was a lot more awkward and had less giggling from the people and more sloppy noises of lips smacking on each other. It really made the first kiss not seem as beautiful as the original black and white film and I liked that about it. It showed how the beauty of romance, in many films with a meeting between two strangers, is extremely forced and pieced together. Romance in real life is meant to be beautiful between the people involved and that's what matters. It also helps if they have more of a choice to fall for each other and perhaps haven't just met.
A documentary television series I have been watching at the moment, 'First Dates' I think was one of the reasons I wanted to go in to the theme of this project in the first place. It follows the experiences of different singles who get set up, by the makers of the program, with each other and we see what happens on their first date at the same restaurant. As we see these new relationships unwind, whether they're friendly, flirty, minimal or a complete mismatch, most of what we think about is what's being said and revealed about themselves to the other person. One date that I foufound very interesting was between A womwoman in her forties with a young man in his mid twenties. He found her mature company a lot more pleasant than the company of someone his own age and at first she enjoyed his too until she realised that the age gap was much more than a number for her. However, it was a perfect example of the attattraction between two people's different chacharacters.
Another teltelevision series that I had been watching at the time, I found was a perfect example of how the 'beauty on the inside' point isn't as easy to follow when you've lived most of your life feeling ugly on the outside. Even when the main character gets the guy, she feels she'd rather break up with her boyfriend than be thrown dirty looks by people who couldn't understand why they were together. It follows many other problems, revolving around Rae Earl and her anxiety but most of the episodes also deal with her problems as a teenage girl and trying to be normal.
It reminded me of another television show I had been watching called Girls which follows the life of, New York girl, Hannah and her journey from a quite whiny, bratty girl in to the early stages of adulthood. What I like about it is the idea that it doesn't make a fuss over her relationships in a way that a Dove's beauty campaign would. Lena Dunham (the writer and actress of the show) is not seen as conventionally attractive. She is over weight, flat chested (as seen from many nude scenes which she creates for herself) and short. She creates a story where, what we wouldn't expect from a mainstream television show just happens naturally. It highlights that there shouldn't be such a big deal about it. For example, the episode 'One Man's Trash' consists of Hannah having a two day fling with a wealthy, divorced business man. They meet due to her sneaking her work's rubbish in to his rubbish bin and after he complains to her manager, she goes round to personally apologise. The title of the episode, itself, refers to the idea that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' and, as seen from the backlash from the public on internet forums and web articles' comment sections stating that 'a guy like that would NEVER go for a girl like Hannah' in a way, it seemed as if Dunham was expecting it. She was the trash to some men, but a treasure to this man.
A bundle of famous fairytale films which I wanted to examine were films such as Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast, and Shrek. All of them start with two quite different people coming together because they have to, only to find that they really want to stay together. The older tale of princess and the frog is unlike the Disney film where instead of both being frogs, and working together to change back in to humans, the princess simply kisses a frog to find that he's a handsome prince and they live happily ever after. I don't know how long they've built up this relationship for,which we see a development in the story of the Beauty and the Beast, but it doesn't seem like a very fair message for the princess to spare love to even the most disgusting creatures thus transforming them in to something truly beautiful. It's the same with the Beauty and the Beast. Although Belle gets to know the Beast and turn him in to a pleasant person, she only stays there because she is kept prisoner. Both stories show these women having to keep in mind that surely under that disgusting first glance, there's somebody beautiful on the inside.
In Shrek, the princess has to deal with the wrong prince charming taking saving her from the tower and taking her to marry Lord Farquad. The long journey is how she deals with getting to know and eventually befriending this ogre. They also find that they have things in common to the point where she is found to turn in to an ogre herself, every night. At the end of the story, they end up marrying each other and therefore this bounds Fiona to her ogre body due to being with Shrek. At first, I thought this was a nice equal thing that also showed he cared more for her beauty as a person rather than simply how she looked. However, why did she need to stay as an ogre? It was a curse put on her. A part of herself that was thrown on her from outside sources and, in some cases, kept her back from doing the things she wanted to do. This part of her shouldn't be all that she is. Why couldn't she stay in her human form and exaggerate the point in the story that because looks don't matter so much, different looking people can still pair up.
At the moment there's still a lot of research I'm trying to plough through and also define their necessities to my project. I have a number of ideas that I'm hoping to understand before I go any further but I feel as if a complete change in direction might come about.
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