I most certainly adore the new version of the movie, Footloose. It is incredibly sappy of me, and I normally can't stand chick flicks. Come on. We're following the story lines of one guy and one girl, who happen to either hate each other, who adore each other but can't get over some obstacle (whether physical or emotional), or they think they love someone else, despite some freakish magnetism to each other. We get it. It's well played and extremely cliche. Let's find some Whedon work and move on.
But, for some reason, Footloose hits me as something better than just a boy-meets-girl scenario. Every time I watch it, I get this insatiable urge to dance my toes off. (It didn't help that one of my friends went line dancing the day I watched this movie.) The scene where they go to the city and go line dancing drives me crazy. I want to be there moving and twisting with the characters, letting loose. Being the type of person I am, I almost never seem to let loose, and I am well aware that I am holding myself back.
The movie is about celebrating the gift of life. It is about grasping the moment and living large while we still can, while we're still kicking and screaming. And I think it calls to me because I was always the one who had to be the responsible one. I always had to stay within the lines of propriety. That has shaped me for as long as I can remember, and, until lately, I had no idea how much it was killing me. I'm the first to volunteer for designated driving. I'm the person people ask to take shifts for them so they can go out and have fun. And I do it gladly. I'm the eldest of four. Someone has to take the brunt of life.
I'm not at all saying I sympathize with the stuffy, rigid adults who can't be bothered to use their ears for more than head ornaments. But I find myself asking why I, young and full of ambition, have stuck to being the prudent mother figure of her friends.
If I were to ask my best friend, a free soul living with her goofball of a husband in the tropical paradise of Hawai'i, she'd take me back to one of my first posts on this blog: I am a Virgo and relish my delicious rank as the organizer, the diligent know-it-all, and the school marm. Of course, she's the one who believes that Cancers are perfect mates for me, when the Aries moon in me cannot tolerate the sappy, sensitive softies that come with being Cancerian (it would explain my penchant for Aries men, who are as hardheaded as all get-out). So then I come full circle, back to square one and wondering why I can't be more free-spirited and brash.
Suffice it to say, it's been a crazy few weeks. So I'll leave you with one of the madder of my beloved poets, Emily Dickinson. She should sum up how I'm feeling.
Much Madness is divinest Sense -
Much Madness is divinest sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness-
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you're straightaway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -
P.S. I definitely credit my love of this poem to one of my two favorite English teachers ever, Dr. Richard Wakefield, poet extraordinaire and lover of good prose.
No comments:
Post a Comment