I Have Just Met You, Now Let's Get Married

SQUIRREL!

My favorite animated movie, hands down, would have to be Disney-Pixar's Up.  It's one of the sweetest stories ever, it's hilarious, the animation is stupendous, it's full of quotable lines and the characters are so very memorable.  Dug, the Talking Dog, ("but it's a TALKING DOG!") is probably my favorite character, and some of his lines are just plain hysterical.  Take this one for instance:

"I have just met you, and I love you."

Hmm.  You know, that line rings a bell with me somewhere.  It reminds me of several other Disney films, in fact. Cinderella, for instance, or Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Snow White... they're all stories about a prince and a princess (or a girl who eventually becomes a princess) who meet each other unexpectedly, gaze into each others' eyes, and fall in love just like that.  Bada-bing-bada-boom.

Wow.  That's incredibly romantic.  Amazingly so.  (You can decide for yourself whether I'm being sarcastic or not-- you'll know for sure by the time you reach the end of the post.)

And believe me, Disney isn't the only perpetrator of the whole love-at-first-sight thing.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge fan of musical theater, and a bordering-on-obsessive fan of the show based on Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables.   Les Miz is not, strictly speaking, a romance story-- the main plot revolves around the life of a convict who was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread.  However, there is one major love triangle in the play, one that involves Marius Pontmercy, Cosette Fauchelevent, and Eponine Thenardier.  In brief, Eponine's in love with Marius, who has no idea that she's alive (well, okay, he knows she's alive, but it's an expression, y'all) and who falls in love with Cosette after bumping into her on a crowded street.

This is for Petie.  :D
You see what I mean about the hair, dear.

Yes, you read that right.  Bumping into her on a crowded street.  His first thrillingly romantic words to her? "I did not see you there... forgive me."  Her first thrillingly romantic words to him?  Well, they don't show up in that scene because she doesn't say anything.  Yep.  The first meeting of this star-struck (and I'm using that in the most literal sense) couple lasts about thirty seconds (if that!) and leaves them mooning and gooning their separate ways like a pair of... um... lovebirds.

When they finally do meet each other For Real, the ensuing song ("A Heart Full of Love") is quite romantic, but it leaves me feeling unaccountably giggly.  Marius sings, "...For shame, I do not even know your name! Dear mademoiselle, won't you say? Will you tell?"  Dude, if you're head-over-ears in love with her and THAT'S the first question you ask, you're doing something wrong.

Of course, Cosette and Marius do eventually end up together, and I may or may not have shed happy tears during the wedding scene, but all of that is beside the point.  Irrelevant.

And this one is for Anne Shirley-- take a look at those sleeves!

Then there's another of my recent musical-theater-discoveries, West Side Story.  Now, I have never been a fan of the Romeo and Juliet story (that is, until I saw the ballet, but that's another story for another time) and though I thoroughly enjoyed WSS and took some morbid pleasure in the tragically romantic ending, Maria and Tony bugged me to no end.  As a couple, that is.  Individually, they weren't so bad. But together?  This is how they met-- and please, if y'all would put on your Credibility Hats, it would make my explanation so much easier.

There was this dance, held at a gym in New York, which is irrelevant, and there were these feuding groups of Americans and Puerto Ricans, which IS relevant. There was this Puerto Rican girl named Maria who had never been to a dance before, which is irrelevant, and an Italian-American boy named Tony (or was he Polish-American? Irrelevant) who may or may not have been to a dance before, which is also irrelevant.  The Americans and the Puerto Ricans all attended the dance but refused to dance with each other, which is very relevant, and the long and short of it is that Tony and Maria bumped into each other during One Of Those Slow Dances, and by the time the music ended and the lights went up, they were kissing right there in the middle of the dance floor.  (And Maria's brother and Tony's best friend didn't exactly find this cute but that is irrelevant.)

Look! It's Rab Silsbee!
Oh, wait, wrong movie...

Actually, it's irrelevant that Bernardo and Riff didn't find it cute, but it's not at all irrelevant that *I* didn't find it cute, because that's my point in writing this post.  (This is where you decide that I am, in fact, not in favor of the whole love-at-first-glance deal.)  Here was a couple who literally knew nothing about each other yet decided that it was totally okay to "fall in love" and start kissing--I wish I were kidding, but I'm not--without even a proper introduction.  On what, may I ask, were they basing this so-called love?  On each other's character and integrity and personality?  Or on each other's looks?

Well, I ask you-- what can you learn about a person from looking at him or her for thirty seconds?  Not.  Very.  Much.  Except, perhaps, the fact that the person is or is not good-looking (which is a completely subjective thing, I might add).

Now, I'm no expert, but I say that that is not enough to base a romance upon.  I'm not a cynic.  I'm not saying that there is no such thing as love at first sight.  Well, okay, I am.  I'll rephrase that-- in the words of my dear blogging friend Alexandra, I believe in attraction at first sight in some (even many!) cases, but I do not think that it's possible or reasonable for any two people to really, truly fall in love based solely on outward appearances.

As my dear blogging friend Petie put it in her recent amazing post, 

"Listen, if you find a guy who loves the Lord with everything he has, loves you with unspeakable passion, and can blow you away not with his looks, but with his character and integrity, then the love you and he share will be far and above anything Hollywood can come up with."

And this, people, this is why I love Jane Austen's stories so very, very much.  (You knew I had to drag her in here somewhere, didn't you?  Didn't you?)  I am so much more pleased by a beautiful story like that of Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley (a slow process of learning from one's mistakes and coming to realize who truly matters to you) or that of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy (ditto) than I am by a silly tale of an unnamed guy who meets a girl by a wishing well and later saves her life by kissing her when he thinks she's dead. (Um, is it just me or is that a little bit creepy?)

I could go into another harangue about another couple whose romance does indeed begin with attraction at first sight but then develops into something much more beautiful, but I'll save that story for a post of its own.

(And for the record, I'm not bashing Disney-- in fact, their version of Beauty and the Beast has a message that's completely different from most of their trademark stories.  "Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly... bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong...")

But I am crrrrriticizing Marius and Cosette and Tony and Maria, even though crrrrrrriticizing isn't Chrrrrrristian.  Because I've become acquainted with far better stories than theirs, and if you don't believe me, go read Pride and Prejudice.  And you hereby have my permission to fall in love on the first page.

Because, you know, people and books are not at all the same thing.