I enjoyed both the articles and the movie this week. I thought they each had something interesting to say about the concepts of love and desire.
The first thing that I was really drawn to was the concept of internet dating. Paumgarten discussed the concept of finding love through the internet. I find it interesting how often our society uses technology as a crutch for our everyday humane activities. I think it is one thing to have your information on the internet that someone could find and possibly connect with, therefore contacting you. I think it is another thing entirely to let technology compare these facts and associate who would be good for who. Although I do have fate that this is entirely possible, it seems odd that we would leave such a serious decision up to a computer - a device that feels no emotion. I don't think love (or desire) are this simple. For example, a computer is not going to set you up to have an affair with a married man or woman... yet our desire can want that. The same thing can be said for true love. Sometimes the "perfect" match isn't quite so perfect. We can never be sure because, as we have definitely learned in this course, we do not consciously make this decision. There is no set algorithm, our mind is radical and even unpredictable in this manner.
The main point that stuck with me about Kristeva's article was about how love and desire basically cannot exist without each other. My first thought was of the little angel and devil on the shoulders bickering about the "correct" decision. We cannot truly love someone until we have truly desired them. We need desire to open the door for us. However, once the door is open and we want to be alone with love, desire is third-wheeling the whole situation, running it into the ground. It's getting desire to close the door as it leaves thats the tricky part.
I enjoyed the movie because I knew nothing about it going into it. I was surprised to find Jessica's meticulous character lesbian, and surprised again when she decided against it. It made me seriously start to question the concepts of love and desire. I think Jessica truly loved Helen, which is why they remained friends at the end of the film. However, she did not desire her. So was it true love? Is desire needed after you have fallen in love to keep a relationship authentic? I think this movie pushed the boundaries of friendship as well. I began trying to rationalize the ending by thinking that Helen and Jessica were just menat to be really close friends and not lovers, that they made a mistake. However, there was more to their friendship than just enjoying each other's personalities. Jessica was at times attracted to Helen and wanted her sexually. My final conclusion for the film was that the movie was playing on the idea of love and sex. The two women did love each other but did not connect sexually and therefore fell apart. The movie shows our human carnal ways of life and how we lust for one another and that a relationship cannot last without that. I wondered what would have happened if Helen did not want to have sex with Jessica as much. I wonder if they would have lived happily ever after or if it still would have fallen apart. Just how important is sex?
I enjoyed this semester. I thought the readings were interesting and I ESPECIALLY enjoyed all of the movies that we watched. I thought the course was going to be about the ooey-gooey nature of love and how every princess gets her prince and vice versa but I liked the very real and sometimes brutal discussions and ideologies we looked at. I liked how the class was very open for us to express our emotions and feelings about love and desire and how we weren't afraid to look into the sexual components of it to, seeing as how that is a very important part of the whole concept.
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