In the old movies, boy met girl, girl liked boy, they had a crisis, won out over the odds and then, in the last scene, we got to see The Kiss. They pressed their lips together and they embraced. Sometimes it was even a little passionate, but it was generally a lovely sort of thing. All of the old people in the audience (at least the women) dabbed their eyes with their lace hankies, put their hands over their hearts and said, "Auwww."
In today’s movies, boy meets girl and, whether they love or hate each other, they kiss. Well, it isn’t really what I would call a kiss. It’s more like a plumber giving a demo on cleaning a drain with suction. There is nothing romantic about it and, call me what you will, I think it’s sometimes downright obnoxious.
Almost before they know each other’s names they are locked in . . . not an embrace, but more like mortal combat, as if they are aliens trying to take over each other’s bodies. And the kiss itself . . . well . . . it can be fairly unappealing, at least to those of us who are romantics at heart. I tend to make faces when I see them going at it, and I’m often left with the feeling that I need to gargle with bleach.
There’s more. After the modern version of "The Kiss," we are subjected to what used to be called a blue movie and I’m ready to crawl under the seat. Contrary to what moviemakers think, I am not a voyeur and the whole ordeal makes me feel a little soiled. Too often it’s nothing more than ill-mannered lust, with not even the pretence of disguising it as anything else. Such rawness can be pretty rude.
If you’re at an age when your hormones are running at full throttle, all of these images no doubt feed that energy. But for those of us who are now hormonally challenged, and who grew up in a time when expressions of intimacy were more private, such kisses can be hard to swallow, if you’ll pardon the play on words.
Look, kissing is a neat thing for two people who really mean it, but it’s no good when it’s nothing more than mouth-wrestling, and it’s even worse when it’s blown up a zillion times larger than life.
I don’t go to the movies very often anymore. Among other things, I got tired of paying to watch stars bussing like big mouth bass, and feeling like I’d been duped. For me, too much of that stuff is the kiss of death. Besides, I don’t like leaving the theatre with the sensation of needing to brush my teeth and take a shower.
I know what you mean, and it seems as if the pendulum, with respect to this, has swung from one extreme to the other. In many of today's movies, "reality" has indeed replaced tasteful romance, but in the movies of yesteryear, many of the kisses were stiff. The actors looked like statues who were positioned in such a way that their lips were touching, but their kisses lacked enthusiasm and the characters, in many cases, might as well have been shaking hands. Is there no middle ground? I guess not, so I'll take a good mystery thriller any day!
Posted by: Edgar | November 23, 2009 at 07:43 PM