When Did Happily Ever After Become a Crime?
My mother was a voracious reader; as long as I knew her, she was constantly checking out books from the library and trolling bookstores for new releases. Her favorites were romances and mystery/spy thrillers. She read quickly, and as a result, there were always piles of books next to her bed and on the bed, as well as grocery bags full of paperbacks to take to the used bookstore for credit.
She read so many books that it was difficult for her to recognize all of them by title, so it was no surprise that when were in a bookstore together, I'd see her pick up a book and read the first few pages in an assessing manner. She needed to see if she had already read it; that made sense. But what was a surprise was that she would read the last few pages, as well.
Taken aback by this, I asked her why she did it.
"I want to know how it ends," she said simply. "If it ends badly, I don't want to read it. I've had enough disappointment in my life; I don't want to read about more."
I stared at her, frankly shocked. Wasn't my mother an intelligent woman? Didn't she see the world as a complex place full of shades of gray? Didn't she know that life rarely ended up like a gift box wrapped up in a bow?
How could she be so...so...so bourgeois?
Of course, I was a young 'un at the time, in my late 20s. Back then, I didn't trust stories that ended well; I suspected them as propaganda from the Happily Ever After coalition, feeding me lies to sedate my intellect so that Care Bears could take over the world or something. Besides, everyone knew that books with happy endings have no artistic merit. Right?
I kept up this thinking for a while, reading my post-apocalyptic novels with fervor and collecting movies where the lovers died tragically at the end. I spent a number of years participating in a poetry group, where our readings constantly reinforced that happy poetry has no literary power.
At some level, I felt it was my responsibility to face all of the conflict, darkness, and disappointment that the world offered, because if I didn't, then I was just burying my head in the sand.
But then something happened. I got older and I saw what this really was: crazy-talk.
One day, I realized that watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit before bedtime was not improving my state of mind. Nor was it educating me. I already knew about the horrific things happening in the world, some of it first hand. All the show did for me was to feed my mind with frightening images and remind me of what there was to distrust in the world. It didn't matter how fabulous the acting was or how tightly they had written the scripts-it was depressing and trauma-inducing. So, one day, I just stopped watching it and I felt better.
Later, I stopped listening to the radio news when I realized the bias of the stories, focusing on the horrifying and painful news to the exclusion of all else. (Not to mention that I kept waking up from dreams of plane crashes and machine gun fights to find the radio turned on!) I switched to online news where I could pick and choose what I would read, and deliberately supplemented with positive news sources like Good News Daily and Global Good News.
Over time, my taste in movies changed, too. While I retained some of my love for darkness (and probably always will) for the most part I began seeking out films that made me happy. I began exchanging recommendations with my buddy Lynne. We both enjoy seeing the complexity and the messiness of human emotions portrayed in movies. At the same time, we like movies that showed how people could still heal and grow in the face of all of that. To us, the two aren't mutually exclusive. But because they apparently are mutually exclusive based on what Hollywood decides to produce, we have to work hard to hunt them down, and we've formed our own little task force.
Just the fact that we have to work hard to dig up films with complex and uplifting stories has made me think. It seems to me that our culture has a split, where on one side you have smarmy, blatantly-manipulative tales of saccharine sweetness, and on the other you have brutal, painful stories of trauma and loss. The stories in between... of loss or confusion that develop into real world joy, understanding, and love...are more rare. This is perhaps because they are harder to write, but certainly also because they are harder to sell. Our culture seems ready to align authenticity with pain, horror, and regret, but happiness is something we distrust. We'll accept a Hallmark card as a feel-good placeholder, almost as though we see true happiness and contentedness are untrustworthy concepts.
Of course, this may have nothing to do with our culture. This may just be about me, about how I've learned to embrace love and acceptance as real world concepts. How I've recognized that the magic inside a person's soul can become an almost tangible force. I can't help but want to see stories, movies, and the news reflect more of what I now know... that people heal, grow, and transform all the time. The process is not always pretty and neat, but it is real and true and can make your heart come alive. And sometimes, two people stand on a cliff in an embrace and know, flaws and all, that they are loved.
So, mom, wherever you are - I get it now. Happily ever after, or even just happily at the moment, is not such a bad thing. It's possible you actually knew more than me at the time.
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