Julia Roberts Summer

The other day a stranger said to me, "You have the most serious expression on your face of anyone I have ever seen in this entire town." He was seated on the bench outside the coffee shop and I blinked several times in response, gave him a pained smile stretched very, very thin and turned deliberately to the right, fast. A friend waved at me from across the street and part of the interaction's intensity was deflected.

Summer is this. It is humidity and sultriness. Movie trailers about adultery. Peaches, sloppy eager local peaches. Seven peaches on a tray frozen whole in the freezer. Two ears of corn. Basil packed into plastic bags and weird interactions with men affected by the heat.

Outside another cafe the following week-a man, blonde hair, strange hat, crazy eyes, maybe even plaid pants toddled over to me with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth mumbling, "Does this even make sense? Does it?" I nod, blink in response and return to the cafe waiting until he disappears to walk home. Is it the heat that agitates men, that fries and oils their brains, burns up the senses? Is there more mania in the summer? More psychotic breaks, passionate outbursts, hissing water in August? More pink nipples and cussing? I do think that the heat does something and that something is tripled when there is a full orange moon with gray clouds slipping across over and over obscuring and then revealing it. Everything is more alive, insects literally buzz with life.

It's best to spend hours on blow up floats on a lake foot to foot with someone you trust reclined watching clouds until nightfall when the lighthouse turns on its light. The water is green-clear and a large fish can cause a usually appropriate woman to scream shrilly and run out of the water holding onto the straps of her bikini top. The water coming out of the tap flows cloudy into jelly jars.


I watch Pretty Woman for the 100th time and am finally infuriated. I've always wondered when this would happen. I remember my grandmother being livid when as a teen I told her I loved that movie and ate up every moment between Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. I thought my grandmother was being prim. She's just uptight. She thinks it's rape when there's a vigorous sex scene between two consenting adults. This time I feel myself contract every time Richard Gere tells her to "Stop fidgeting." Why is he teaching her to be a lady?

During the movie my friend recites facts about it. She loves it. Julia Roberts had her feet tickled by the director to make her laugh authentic. Richard Gere was told that only one character moves in this move and it's not you.  My friend says she used to lie down in the snow and kick her legs up in the air yelling "$3000" (the amount of money Vivian/Julia Roberts paid for a week with Edward) until her mom told her to stop. She was raised Pentecostal.

The heat is unbearable during the movie. Julia Roberts hung out with prostitutes and that's how she knew they don't kiss on the mouth. She was supposed to be caught with drugs in the original script but they made it dental floss.  They must have changed that quickly when they saw her huge, gleaming white teeth. Does every white woman have a relationship with Julia Roberts? At age 13, I was so excited when a drunk man told me I looked like her at the bus stop. I find that I am admonishing her in my mind during the movie. I hope you're not proud of this movie, including the cheap faux feminist ending where you tell him you'll save him back after he saved you. Your hair does look good though. And I think I read that you're a Scorpio.

It was 1991 when Pretty Woman came out and  the story of sexy Richard Gere saves quirky hot hooker who relaxes his type A ways was grafted onto my skin like puberty stretch-marks. My mind was so malleable back then and any media with sex absorbed quickly. This is what summer does, makes me remember other summers and how I learned woman and man and crazy. Thank goodness for feminism which saved all the women Julia Roberts taught how to walk and laugh.

I find myself returning to that stranger sitting on the bench judging my neutral face on a humid summer's day. I'm thinking of tomatoes  and ground cherries, unaware of being watched at first. Would Richard Gere have gently tugged a man's arm if he had a sour expression? Would he have told him to stay still? Would that weird stranger have told a six foot tall wide shouldered man that he looked serious? No.

Julia, you fought off that Seinfeld actor when he tried to assault you but instead of a moment which highlighted that he's an asshole, we're supposed to think, Isn't it awesome she still has her self-worth  even though she's a prostitute? Remember though, you don't have that much clout or self worth. The writers made sure to have Edward to escort you back to the snotty clothing store for your corrective class experience. Couldn't you have done that by yourself or with an awesome lady-friend?  Even during that scene where you're being fawned over by those shitty women, it is because he said so and he has the money. But the scene is supposed to read: redemption and fuck you and apologize (because I have a man who is powerful). And it did just that, with simplicity and satisfaction when I was nine years old watching something forbidden. And even now,  I'm not immune to a young Richard Gere or a young Julia Roberts for that matter. I have been conditioned to inhale romantic myth so fast it digests like those straws full of colored sugar.  As a teen, I probably loved that Edward played the piano. I probably loved the way he took her face in her hands. But now when he takes off his shoes in Manhattan in the summer I think, just another weird guy losing his shit in August.


 

Vanessa Brackett
August 2012
Vanessa blogs at increase the levels of radiance