(no subject)
Dec. 18th, 2005 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebI was watching Kate and Leopold today. I missed the first half hour or so (maybe more - I forget when I started watching) and, my *goodness*.
What a terrible mistake she made.
I probably don't need this, but .
I kept yelling at the screen. Yes, it's a romantic comedy and so I shouldn't be thinking of these things, but she goes back in time 125 years to marry an impoverished English duke. Which means she's giving up independence (Meg Ryan had just been made the head of the New York division of an ad agency - something she'd worked very hard for), modern medicine, electricity and comfortable clothes to be the entirely dependent wife of a duke who no longer has any avenue to get money other than selling or leasing his ancestral home. Since they must live in a certain style, they would also be in great debt. Mid-19th C clothes were uncomfortable and often health hazards.
She has been removed from her friends and family, including the brother she loves and the world she understands. And she will regret it. Probably around the time she loses children to scarlet fever - preventable by vaccine and curable by antibiotics, or faces childbirth in less than sanitary conditions with no choice about using anesthetics at all, or with the possiblity of a c-section if necessary.
(Meanwhile, my husband is shouting about going from the Brooklyn Bridge, which was stalled in construction then, to Madison Avenue - five miles - on foot in 20 minutes.)
Kinda kills the romance, I know, but then I'm not sure the tight white pants were proper eveningwear, either. Or the fancy embroidery, even for a Duke.
*Sigh*
What a terrible mistake she made.
I probably don't need this, but .
I kept yelling at the screen. Yes, it's a romantic comedy and so I shouldn't be thinking of these things, but she goes back in time 125 years to marry an impoverished English duke. Which means she's giving up independence (Meg Ryan had just been made the head of the New York division of an ad agency - something she'd worked very hard for), modern medicine, electricity and comfortable clothes to be the entirely dependent wife of a duke who no longer has any avenue to get money other than selling or leasing his ancestral home. Since they must live in a certain style, they would also be in great debt. Mid-19th C clothes were uncomfortable and often health hazards.
She has been removed from her friends and family, including the brother she loves and the world she understands. And she will regret it. Probably around the time she loses children to scarlet fever - preventable by vaccine and curable by antibiotics, or faces childbirth in less than sanitary conditions with no choice about using anesthetics at all, or with the possiblity of a c-section if necessary.
(Meanwhile, my husband is shouting about going from the Brooklyn Bridge, which was stalled in construction then, to Madison Avenue - five miles - on foot in 20 minutes.)
Kinda kills the romance, I know, but then I'm not sure the tight white pants were proper eveningwear, either. Or the fancy embroidery, even for a Duke.
*Sigh*
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-18 09:14 pm (UTC)And I agree. I like my modern medicine and civil rights and functional bathroom. Not to mention my gas stove and microwave and refrigerator. Especially my refrigerator.