Men and Action Movies

Men and Action Movies
My husband loves action movies.Five nights out of seven will find him on our couch watching Mel, Bruce, or even, in a pinch, Steven Segall, blowing things up. The other two nights of the week he is gone. I am a reader. Seven nights out of seven will find me reading anything I can get my hands on, short of Christian romance novels. I firmly believe there is a library full of Christian romance novels in Hell. I have even spent many happy hours reading through military surplus catalogues because it was all I could find. On careful consideration (at least two minutes of thought) I think I am a reader because I love to learn. I read some fiction, but I love history.
I have spent much time watching action movies with my husband.At first, I used to try to find some little piece of trivia in the movie to think about to keep from going crazy. I was like the Macgyver of action movies, with my paper-clip sized bit of historical trivia dredged from the bottom of an action film's script to keep me from going mad with boredom.
Now I have another system. Early on, I predict the outcome of the movie and stick around to check my accuracy. I know, sometimes before opening credits are over, who is toast, who is really alive even though we've been told they are dead, and who is likely to be in a love scene. It's a gift.
I have come to realize that, unlike history, it's the process, not the end product, that my husband enjoys about action movies. With books on history, you don't care too much about the process unless there is a big end result. For instance, you don't read too many riveting books on the daily life of peasants. They are born, eat, sleep, get married, have children, and die, with maybe some extra eating and sleeping thrown in. I have slogged through one or two books of the daily-life-of-a-peasant genre, and I have come away with only one interesting fact. There are a lot of gutless editors out there who won't tell the truth about these books- "This stinks. I fell asleep." But tell me about winning a war, transforming a nation, or ruling a kingdom and I will willingly get through heaps of detail. Maybe I like history because I get to see something modern more clearly because I understand better where it came from. At least that's what I tell myself.
But action movies! You get your basic explosions,your rebel-turned-savior hero, your last-minute twists, your high- tech gadgets, your sidekick destined for painful death, your car chase, your other car chase, your car chase ending in an explosion, your loud music, your tough-talking but essentially helpless girl, and you suddenly have a billion-dollar movie and maybe even a record deal.
So it must be the process. How will they show us the hero is a rebel? How will the sidekick meet death? Is the girl going to scream or hit ineffectually during the final scene?
One thing I've noticed is that the big "They" have started to give us women who can fight like men. I don't know if this is good or bad. I have never met one of those Hollywood beautiful women and secretly I doubt they exist. Now not only are we women supposed to be tall, thin, and drop-dead gorgeous, but now we have to fight like Bruce Lee and still have all of our teeth intact. This is just too much. One or the other, guys, teeth or fighting ability. Personally, since I'm stuck on tall (I'm short) there is no hope for me personally. I would be toast in the first ten minutes.
Since action movies are so predictable, why do people, especially men, love them so? Here it comes, one of my Big Theories. Men like action movies for the same rerason some people like Haikus. With a Haiku, you know you're going to get seventeen syllables, and at the end of those seventeen syllables, the poem will be over. No lollygagging around when you're writing a Haiku. If you choose to ride the wild rollercoaster of Haiku, you know exactly what you'll get. In an action movie, as with a Haiku, the author/director is trying to get his point across in a very restrictive medium. The sidekick will die. Everyone knows this. But will he betray our hero? Will he meet death in a dignified manner? Will he reveal his pent-up feelings for the hero's girl before he expires? This is where the art of an action movie comes in. The details. Are they on the subway for the final scene? Are there pigeons fluttering around? I think the point every director is trying to get across in an action movie (besides making pots of money) is his version of the perfect man. Some versions of the perfect man are surely better than others. Really. Vin Diesel in Triple X dressed and sounded way cooler than Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies. But the screen writer and director were so good on the Lethal Weapon series that Mel (even in a mullet!) has become an icon of cool in action movies. And, since most action movie directors are men, it's no secret that kindness to animals is not high on the list of action hero qualities. An animal is something you ride or eat. Sometimes both.
I enjoy what my husband refers to as "Chick Flicks," and I refer to as, "Movies taken from books by that astonishing genius, Jane Austen." I believe there is more truth to be found in a Jane Austen movie than in an action movie. Women talking and chatting and men falling in love with the women talking- that is a Jane Austen movie. There are of course feelings thrown in for good measure, but the basic gist is that people talk, get married, and the credits roll. Happens every day with alarming frquency. I have never personally witnessed things like may be found in even a calm action movie. Explosions, car chases, gorgeous women, and perfect teeth everywhere - this is the stuff of legends. This is using a restrictive medium to make a point. This is - dare I say it? - art.
My husband, when he lounges on the couch with his pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, is enjoying art.
Behold, my huband, the artist.