Next Stop: Marriage or Breakup? Selecting a Mate through Living Together May Be a New Movement.

 

Annie and Alvy in Annie Hall 

Between being single and married lies courting.  Micro-level courtship is affected by micro-level issues:  economics, population change, racial ideologies, and laws restricting marriages (racial ethnic groups).  Cate delineates historical changes in courtship in U.S.  Early 20^th century courting had men calling on women which shuffled in the modern period by integrating dating into the courtship.  Calling involved visiting only.  (i.e.  Newland Archer in Age of Innocence) 

 

 

Dating

Dating added something new to the activity:  going out and doing things in public.  The 1970s and 1980s changed dating informally by a mixed group activities not involving pairing. 

 

 

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Annie Hall

Quaint Twosome Chatters Rocking a New Take To Gender Roles

 

 

Annie Hall is the quintessential conversationalist.  Her quirky, witty, eccentric nature keeps up with Alvy’s wits.  Alvy had something with Annie.  He knows so from the beginning of the movie from his recollecting of their times together.  But viewers already know that Alvy had lost Annie from the start.    So the rest of the movie is a flashback to their quaint times as an unlikely couple dating.

 

 

Annie and Alvy’s relationship is not a know-no-bounds, majestic romance which cast illusive dreams through the lenses of a movie world.  None of that fictive fancy or aerial fantasy stays here.  But it is a fresh, novel look at a queer match-up of a couple whose familiar, dear gabbles charm viewers as an endearing couple.

 

 

Annie’s not the chic, stylish girl.  Her dress is rather dapper, saucy, and queer.  She is the girl that walks off-the-beaten path.  Annie and Alvy chat throughout the scenes in the movie.  They chaffer at his roof top drinking wine.  They cozy up to each other on the couch.  They chat cozily in bed before and after sex.  Through regular, everyday dialogues viewers can relate to, their relationship ripens in front of the audience.        

 

 

The movie’s characters impugn traditional gender roles.  Alvy may come off a bit weak and unmanly in terms of his male sexuality.  Some may criticize his character sissifying the male gender.  But gender roles have been challenged since the 1960s.  Annie is womanly.  She is not girly, chaste, or pure.  She is more comfortable with her female sexuality than the daunted Alvy.  Alvy is maladjusted in his traditional masculine role as an undaunted performer.  She is also maladjusted undergoing analysis with her shrink.  So these two fussy, fidgety characters come together to form a neurotic pair that makes an impression.  Don’t scoff.  Wonder at the odd pair.    

 

Boy meets girl in Brightest Star

Senseless World of a Shallow Boy

 

 

A shallow boy in the independent movie Brightest Star tries to get his ex-girlfriend Charlotte back after their break-up.  But this movie’s story line clearly lacks the funny punch like Woody Allen’s.  The viewer is not convinced the senseless boy really wants Charlotte back.  He first sees her in his astronomy lecture and finds her whereabouts at the library.  He goes to the party to meet her.  Charlotte is already matched up with Gary but the boy pursues her anyway.  They engage in activities together:  studying together in groups.    They date regularly.  Going out at nights to dinner and waking up in bed together show up as couple’s dating.  Eventually, they share an apartment and live together.  But soon after, Charlotte wants him to leave.  He tries to get her back by working at an office and hiring the same department where she works. 

 

  

Boy and Lita

He moves on to Lita, a singer who is having fights with her live-in boyfriend.  Now the shallow boy and Lita date regularly.  Suddenly, Charlotte comes back into his life without pointing signs to an on-going relationship.  They get intimately involved.  The viewer gets the feeling that Charlotte needs to see somebody.  Could it only be this boy?  Or does she miss him?  Meanwhile, he is still in a relationship with Lita who some would regard as Ray’s stolen property.  The viewer gets the feeling that this senseless boy is headed into a three-way collision. 

 

 

The dreadful scene captures Charlotte seated alone at a restaurant waiting for him to appear.  Urgh.  This scene is suffused with wistful sentiments of the wife’s in The Sixth Sense who dines out alone at the same restaurant somberly where her and her deceased husband had gone before.  Charlotte looks like a sick-at-heart grieving widower.  The shallow boy shows up to the restaurant.  But soon after, he leaves her.  Four months flow along until he finds her again.  As if the whole thing was a joke, he professes everything he has done could not charge brimming feelings inside him to suffice as a whole being. 

 

 

This type of scene usually takes place not at the end or as the main storyline but as a side story because it would frustrate the viewers.  Matthew’s (Josh Hartnett) two-year relationship with Rebecca falls apart in Wicker Park but he finds the girl he is heads-over-heels for in Lisa.  He finds her at the airport and they fall within perfect line with one another.  That is magic.  That couple’s embrace is an ending. 

 

 

But this movie story line does not do any of that.  The viewers are left frustrated.  This shallow boy is a dud.  He is a clown.  I am not saying he is a defective dunce or thickheaded idiot-savant.  But he comes off a bit shallow, senseless, and imperceptive; therefore, he is certainly unfit for Charlotte who needs immense wooing/romance or Lita who can use flame and passion.  Ruefully, the relationship does not burrow in the plumb lines or sink into profound depths of water which extend beyond everyday lifestyle.         

Find 2 trends in courtship developed during the 19^th and 20^th century:

 

1.)     Reducing parental involvement in the process;

2.)    Growth in demand for emotional intimacy.

 

 

Dating

College students were asked what they would do on their first date.  The consensus image was loaded with gender stereotypes.  Women focus on their appearance, making conversation, and limiting sexual activity.  Men focus on planning activities, paying for dates, and initiating sex on the first date. 

 

 

Men and women want different things in a relationship.

Most personal ads show that men look for physical characteristics whereas women look for status.  Women are viewed more negatively for initiating dates than men. 

 

 

Growing numbers of couples live together becoming institutionalized as part of a movement.  It has become a new phase of mate selection for non-marital unions. 

 

 

But Annie and Charlotte break up with their b.  About half of domestic partnership will dissolve within 16 months.  60% will lead to marriages while 40% will break up.  Annie and Charlotte part rooms with their boyfriends.  But neither should strike a nerve.

 

 

Cohabitation

Who are domestic partners?  68% of them are younger than 35 years old.  Nearly half have never been married and ¹/₃ are divorced.  40% co-habitors live with children but most are from prior marriages.  Rates of living together go up for women than men.

 

 

Education is inversely related to cohabitation.  And so do religious beliefs that regard living together as a “sin.”  College students are the exception which increased in 1970s and 1980s. 

 

A sample of younger than 23.5 year olds stumbled upon their ¹/₃ cohabited.  13,000 individuals who were 19 years old or older light upon the fact that half of them cohabited by their thirties.  4% are currently living together with their partner. 

 

    

 

 Brightest Star

Triolet (varied)  ABaAabab

 

He comes into my mornings,

And found me again after a break and stretch,

He gazes up to the starry, lunar offerings,

He comes into my mornings,

And he bids to meet all my sighing and yearnings,

But he ceased and gave up within my reach,

So after I gaze up at twilight for star sightings,

But no longer saw him but me as the brightest star to approach.

 

 

Annie Hall

Rondeau:  A®,A,B,B,A/ A,A,B,A®/ A,A,B,B,A,A®

 

Her fresh quirky beat is a rarity,

She quips at our banters whimsically,

Her dress is a bit of kink and queer,

She calls on her doc to wash out and clear,

Her musing thoughts to work up a theory,

 

 

We set out to stupefy typically,

Movies, people-watching picturesquely,

And we sleep side-by-side closely near,

Her fresh quirky beat is a rarity,

 

 

Now I’ve dated other girls reluctantly,

But I could not spoon with them as leisurely,

And when she moved out it felt unreal,

My lighthearted days sank to deep-seat,

But our times I’ve kept in my memory,

Her fresh quirky beat is a rarity.