The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Top Favorite Films!
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 26, 2018, 09:44:45 am ---Just to set the record straight, Grace, played by Jane Fonda, is supposed to be 72 and is also rich, not to mention beautiful and whip smart. Whereas Nick, played by Gallagher, is something of a ditz and is in his mid-60s. I don't think it's that much of a stretch. I have dated a man 11 years older than me in my mid-60s, a man my same age, and was married to a man 3 years younger than me for 30 years. And I hang around with a man 22 years younger than myself. I've discovered that age is arbitrary.
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I'm not sure I agree with the "age is arbitrary" part, but beyond that, the same thing can apply to gay men. Whenever our paths cross (usually accidentally and only occasionally), I hang out some with a young man who is literally young enough to be my son (the "son" part strikes me as kinda neat). But he's an "old soul," so we seem more like contemporaries than otherwise. (He's also one of those amazing persons who seem to know everybody, so even when our paths do cross, usually at the Usual Watering Hole, invariably he sees someone else he needs to greet, and then someone else, and then someone else. ... ;D )
SaraB:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 26, 2018, 09:45:51 am ---I just happened to be discussing the Laurie-Jo-Amy situation with a friend the other day. Her name is Laurie Jo [last name]. She said her mother named her that because she thought Laurie and Jo should have wound up together. I've known this friend for 35 years and never knew that was the story behind her name!
I toured Louisa May Alcott's childhood home a few years ago. Very interesting! Apparently she was instructed to write a book for girls by her publisher, so she banged it out in about three weeks on a tiny desk that flipped down from the wall. There were drawings all over the walls of the bedroom belonging to the real-life "Amy."
It seemed pretty clear LMA was a lesbian, which might explain why the relationship with Laurie went awry.
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Love that about your friend’s name!
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 26, 2018, 10:39:04 am ---I didn't remember what their ages were supposed to be on the show; 80 and 62 are the ages of the respective actors. (Nick doesn't come across to me as especially ditzy, though.) But of course Jane Fonda is beautiful and smart. She looks better than most 40-year-olds.
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I was just watching the program where Nick sees Grace's healing scar from the knee surgery and falls down in a dead faint! He also botches making scrambled eggs. . .how ditzy is that?
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 26, 2018, 10:39:04 am ---I can think of maybe three or four movies in all of film history involving romantic couples in which the woman was substantially older than the man. And in those cases, the fact that the woman was older is a major issue in the relationship (as it is in Grace's and Nick's).
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I didn't notice the age difference, which is only 7 years at best, being a major issue. The most important thing about Nick, IMHO, is that he is a rich and successful entrepreneur who is learning that his business acumen doesn't necessarily translate into success with women, especially Grace.
As for movies where the woman was older, Harold and Maude leaps to mind, but there is also Cheri, The Beach, The Good Girl, Unfaithful, Anna Karenina, and about 65 others on this list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066983450/
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 26, 2018, 10:39:04 am ---The most prominent example is probably The Graduate. The fact that Mrs. Robinson was much older than Benjamin was the whole point -- along with the adultery, of course -- and the reason their relationship seemed doomed and shallow and icky. (Also because the woman came on to the man, in a very bold way, which tends to be a taboo as well, and even more so back then.) It was clear Ben only got involved with her because he was feeling cynical and aimless following college. Elaine, on the other hand, was age-appropriate and sufficiently docile. So Ben's relationship with her seemed "nice" and "natural," though threatened by her evil old mother.
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I wouldn't think of The Graduate as the most important example of a December/May romance. I would think of Harold and Maude as that. Also, their relationship was not a romance; it was just lust. You listed 3 reasons why their relationship was icky, and I would argue that the age difference was the least icky reason. More icky to me was that Mrs. Robinson was bored and a cougar; also that she knew Benjamin loved Elaine, her daughter. She was a predator, but learned it because she had been preyed on (remember the part about why she and Mr. Robinson had to get married in the first place?) I think of Mrs. Robinson more like Sleeping Beauty's stepmom, in fear of being supplanted as the "fairest of them all" and ready to use diabolical means to feed her bruised ego.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 31, 2018, 02:21:38 pm ---Sleeping Beauty's stepmom, in fear of being supplanted as the "fairest of them all" and ready to use diabolical means to feed her bruised ego.
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That was Snow White's stepmom.
CellarDweller:
Did someone say "Snow White?"
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