Stupid, sappy, sentimental, idealized, romance dramas…

So, I watch Titanic yesterday. Geez. I avoided watching that damn movie for over a year when it first came out. I went to a predominantly white school, so most of my friends were white girls who were in love with Mr. Hottie McHotterson, Leonardo DiCaprio. They each saw the movie at least twice, and bought the soundtrack. When it came out of VHS (yes, I have a few years on me) they bought it and had watching parties.

I, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with it. Like many Black people, I just didn’t get it. We already knew what was going to happen from the door. It was just another Hollywood movie made without a single Black character.

Moving on. One Saturday afternoon toward the end of the last millennium, I was at my mother’s house with a whole lot of nothing to do and found my mother in her living room watching this blasted movie. I looked at her, so disappointed that she was allowing herself to be sucked into the nonsense. I stood, watching from the kitchen shaking my head. My own mother. How could she… possibly… I mean the entire premise is so… hmmm.

So, I lost 3 hours of my life that day and ended up on my mother’s couch crying like a girl. “I’ll never let go Jack, I’ll never let go” UGH! I’m ashamed to admit it, but I really liked the movie. I liked it so much that I watched the damn thing every time it came on cable for the rest of the month. I liked it so much that I bought it –at a discount of course, never pay full price.

I had not watched it in a few years, but my cable is off right now. No, I don’t want to talk about it. I needed something to watch while putting away my laundry and straightening up my bedroom. I don’t have a DVD player upstairs, just my old VCR. Titanic was one of the few tapes I held onto when I joined the rest of the world in the 21st Century and bought a DVD player. So I popped the tape in and got sucked in -again. How many freaking times can you cry over the same scene? The stink of it is, movies like that have you actually believing that kind of passion is possible. It makes you want that feeling for yourself.

My brain knows that they were only teenagers and only knew each other 3 days. In real life, if Jack hadn’t turned into a cute little blue Popsicle in the North Atlantic, they probably would have broken up after a month when the newness wore off.

So, my love life has been pretty pointless over the last, say 4 years or so, and as I watched star-crossed lovers Jack and Rose battle to make a way for their ill-fated love, I found myself experiencing a strange melancholy. Stupid Titanic. Stupid Jack Dawson. Stupid, sappy, sentimental, idealized, romance dramas.

That is all.