The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher Star in Pre-Marital Divorce Training Video

Posted on | January 19, 2011 | 9 Comments

Here, see for yourself:

The story is, evidently, a romantic comedy for the post-marriage generation:

The calling card of “No Strings” is its cavalier attitude toward casual sex, and how members of the opposite sex have precious few boundaries talking about or engaging in the practice of making love. . . .
“I think holding the door for the girl that you are having casual sex with is very romantic,” Kutcher told me during a recent one-on-one interview we had in Los Angeles. . . .
“I think this movie does point out, though, that we have to stop acting like casual sex isn’t happening, and start to be realistic about what a modern courting relationship is like,” Kutcher went on to say.

Realistic? You want to be realistic, Ashton? Realistically, that story doesn’t end “happily ever after.” At best, it ends with an efficiency apartment, child-support payments, visitation every other weekend and your kids being raised by Mommy’s New Boyfriend. A little further down the scale of optimal results, and maybe it ends with a restraining order. It can (and often does) get much, much worse.

Pre-marital promiscuity is like spring training for adultery. You may have noticed Charlie Sheen isn’t exactly living out the happily-ever-after romantic fantasy. Old habits die hard, and the  most perverse behaviors can seem “normal” if you do them often enough.

Much of American society has become so hopelessly decadent that not only are some kids accustomed to the whole blended-family carnival– step-mom and half-siblings and Mommy’s New Boyfriend — but even their grandparents are divorced and remarried, so that their “family tree” is an utterly confusing thicket of attenuated semi-relationships.

Among those raised in such a scrambled domestic environment, this dysfunctional pattern replicates itself in their own lives, because they lack any role models for sustained monogamy.

Naturally, the offspring this of twisted culture seek reassurance that everything’s going to turn out OK for them. They find a falsely flattering reflection in the warped funhouse mirror of Hollywood, which tells them a fairy tale in which habitual promsicuity somehow magically transforms itself into romance.

Good luck with that, kids.

This isn’t a “romantic comedy.” It’s really a tragedy.

Category: Culture, Hollywood, Sex

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