Four out of every ten, that’s how about how many married couples in America will get a divorce. That means 4 out of 10 people around you will have a divorce in their lifetime. Whether we choose to accept it or not, divorce surrounds us as Americans. It’s in all the hot celebrity gossip, it floods the airwaves with acoustic ballads and meaningful rap songs, it even shows up in videogames. What is really sad is the percentage of the divorce rate as you enter into a second and third marriage. Second marriages end 60% of the time and third marriages are at a whopping 73%. Why then, something so popular is rarely seen in our films? In Mexico, people are an eighth less likely to get a divorce, yet one of the most popular Mexican films in America has a whole third of the story about divorce. The closest American film that parallels the story is Lindsey Lohan’s Parent Trap. American films patronize divorce while Mexican films (like Amores Perros) show the flaws and gracefulness of it. Both stories portray a husband that gets a divorce from his wife and finds another woman. In both films the husband gets annoyed with the wife but the main difference is the way in which it is shown to the audience. Amores Perros shows the divorce as a new beginning and as a way to be with the woman that makes the main character really loves, while Parent Trap is a comedy where the main character learns that the beautiful ones aren’t always the nice ones. Love is a universal topic that everyone is interested in watching and learning about. Some nations portray love as a wonderful fantastic journey, others choose to laugh at it and teach archaic lessons on stereotypes learned about love in the 3rd grade such as, those taught in Parent Trap and every sappy romantic movie since the dawning of time. Love is too broad a topic to dive completely into headfirst. One should be informed about love topic by topic, subject by subject. L let me then just focus on one small portion; divorce.
Disney’s Parent Trap utilizes comedy as a way of neutralizing the instinctive American taboo mindset of divorce. By making the audience laugh at the divorce the situation has lost its shock value and once again levels the playing field to a manageable level. The director chooses to use high key lighting and bright colors to display the relationship between the new love interest (Meredith) of the divorced husband (Nick). The beginning of the film shows them in love; opposites attract in this film where the rough-and-tough, hard working Nick falls for the prissy, spoiled, nature hating Meredith who’s smile “would kill small mammals” (Conlogue). Instead of giving the poor parents that are dragged to this god awful film some actual drama/thought inducing plot, the director decides to throw all hopes of calling this movie a true film out the window as James Berardinelli put’s it “it's just another dated example of the family-friendly, creatively-barren pabulum that the studio turns out with regularity” The divorce is not a main key in the story but it deserves a thought. It seems as if nothing is put into the making of the divorce on screen. Lindsey Lohan’s character(s) play pranks to break apart Nick and Meredith and rather than showing the audience that things are not going well for the couple the film straight shoves the fact into the viewer’s faces. Roger Ebert sees the film in a different light. He chooses to think that the director speeds through the film because of an abundance of story line, yet the whole plot is simple: girl finds twin, twins get their parents back together. American directors are too afraid to come out and say to their audiences that divorce isn’t a terrible thing. Few films dare to even mention divorce. Producers have turned down edited scripts so that the film doesn’t mention divorce. Many films never explain where the father/mother of the main character is. Cinema in America feeds the taboo subject of divorce by hiding it under laughter and silly jokes. We, as a nation, can’t handle the subject because we refuse to see the beauty in it. Showing and talking about divorce in film doesn’t have to be covered in gags and pranks. All the nation needs is a good film that talks about divorce in a positive light. Our nation sees it as a dark cloud hovering over the families it posses. Many other countries though have learned to celebrate the good that comes out of it.
Amores Perros follows 3 separate stories as they slowly realize that (as the title says) love is a bitch. The lighting colors help to portray the story in a manner that few catch onto yet everyone is affected by them. In one of the three sections, a beautiful celebrity (Valeria) falls for an average Joe(Daniel). The story begins with Daniel finally leaving his wife for Valeria and getting an apartment to show how devoted he is to her. The shots here are long to show how much the two lovers care for each other. Eyes are a big part of this couple. Just by looking at the eyes the audience can tell the level of infatuation. The eyes of one or both of the lovers are usually on the top corners of the thirds in the frame. This divorce gave Daniel and Valeria the opportunity to love without fear of being caught (Ebert). The death of one relationship leads to the birth of a better one. This film gives divorce a good reputation. Toward the end of the section Daniel and Valeria start to drift. Daniel starts to revert from caring lover to distant roommate. They fight and bicker but for some reason the audience can’t get the love in their eyes out of their heads . Gonzalez does such a great job showing the audience the infatuation that it is all they can remember about this couple. This film shows the audience that even if fights are present in a relationship, the love in the beginning is all that matters (Harrison). Daniel moves on from his wife to Valeria and doesn’t regret it. This nation has less than an eighth of the divorces that America has, yet it is the culture that accepts divorce as a potentially wonderful experience. Mexican film allows divorce a chance to fill in when marriage cannot fulfill its duties.
Divorce is greatly underappreciated in America and a big reason for that is film. Yes, in divorce there are usually parties that get hurt, but why carry on a charade of happiness and love if it is only skin deep? Mexican films are less biased regarding those that suffer in a divorce and more understanding to those that gain after the divorce. Humans love; it’s built into our system and it’s what most people strive for day in and day out. People have died for those they love and will continue to do so. Love is a topic that will live on for forever and a day. Humans make mistakes, it’s what we do, we rush into things or we don’t weigh all the options. Divorce is a way of rectifying those mistakes, but as Americans we don’t realize this. Mexican films show us that this way of thinking is flawed. Why should Daniel and Valeria be separated because society dictates the divorce should only be viewed as a home wrecker? They love each other and that is more than most people can say. So should Daniel have left the costume on and continued to hide Valeria? No, they did the right thing but most people in America refuse to agree with the validity of their divorce based on society’s induced opinions. Cultures will always have different views on topics, but the best way to see these differences is through film.
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