Film Review: Swiss Family Robinson

Hey-ho, I KNEW you could see this coming!

I promised Glissando a review of a film which I imagine is as idyllic as his life on a beach down under.
And, being a Swiss resident, it was only a matter of time before I turned my attention to this film...


But, you ask...since when was 'Robinson' a Swiss name?


And you would be right - it's not.


I read the book when I was a child, long before my links with Switzerland.
I always thought it was a factual story.


But now I learn I was wrong all those years ago.


This book was indeed written by a Swiss man, Johann David Wyss. A Swiss pastor, no less.
But it was by no means autobiographical.
The 'Robinson' is a tribute to the adventures of Robinson Crusoe.


Pastor Wyss wrote the book to teach his four sons about what it means to be a man.


Yes, this book was meant to be a blueprint for the journey from boy to man.
In other words, a precursor to The Manosphere :-)






These days, I see 'SMP' in everything.


But this book, really is SMP. It is definitely not my imagination!




The book has spawned a myriad of films, TV-series and spin-offs. The one I am familiar with, (and the version I review) is the 1960 film starring John Mills and Dorothy McGuire.


I cannot find a complete version of this film on Youtube, but Disney have it free here.


In this version of the book, there are only three sons.


The film begins with a shipwreck. The family are on their way to New Guinea when a storm hits. They survive the storm only to find that they have been abandoned by the captain and the crew. They are on their own at sea.


Luckily for them though, they are not too far from land. They make it to dry land, and little by little, they manage to salvage what they can from the ship, making quite a nice life for themselves on the island.


The first striking SMP lesson for me is...this:


Whilst Father and the two eldest sons Fritz and Ernst are doing their best to protect themselves and Francis (the youngest boy) and Mother, these latter two are insistent that the dogs on board be rescued as well, even though to admit the dogs on board would mean endangering the lives of everyone else on board.


:-)


Yes, women and children can get in the way. I get that.


In this particular case, the dogs saved themselves anyway, and swam to safety, so they passed the survival test anyway. Good on them.


But the tendency of the (sometimes) unwarranted caring that women insist on displaying even though should their actions cause a threat to their own safety, it would be men who would be called upon to come to their aid (the same man who opposed said unwarranted 'caring' in the first place!) does not go unnoticed.


Yes, it can be annoying. And it gets in the way of men whose natural instinct is to protect women and children.




The Robinsons do a fine job of creating a paradise for themselves on the island. They build a tree-house with all the mod cons (with items salvaged from the ship) that would be the envy of many a housewife in Bern :-)


But Mother was at first unimpressed, when the building work was still in progress. But she was more than satisfied with the end-result, to the delight of her boys, Father included :-)






If you are starting to get the impression that Mother was a fastidious person, then mea culpa, I have given you the wrong impression.
Mother was actually a very good woman. She is 'fastidious' when it comes to the needs of her precious boys. This is, I suppose, just her natural 'mother's instinct' kicking in, but she is also a very good wife. An exemplary one. She looks after her boys very well, and they look after her.


Everyone is happy.


Except...


Whilst Father is waxing lyrical about how island life is the ideal life, and 'how life was intended to be lived', Mother keeps reminding him that something's missing.


It was alright for him (Father) and her: they had already lived their life. But what about their sons? How tragic that they might live their whole life without experiencing love with a woman, or having a family, or having a social life outside of the family!
To their knowledge to date, they were the only inhabitants of the island.


Now, the MGTOWs would say Amen! to that of course.
:-)
But remember, I don't think teenage boys who had yet to experience the company of girls would be too hot on this idea :-) Just a guess :-)


Father agreed that yes, it would be nice if they could find girls for their boys :-)
He sort of agreed to this idea rather grudgingly, I felt :-)


What is it with older men that they forget how nice the flush of romantic love can be once they have been married for decades?
Women never forget :-)


This scene reminds me of the scene in 'Guess who is coming to dinner?' where the mother of John is desperately trying to remind her husband and the father of Joanna that their time might be past, but the two young lovebirds deserved a chance at building their own life together. She finishes by asking them, 'don't you remember what it was like at their age?' Neither man had an answer for her...






To increase their chances of finding girls, the parents finally allow Fritz and Ernst to sail around the island and take their chances with Nature...and pirates. Mother is scared stiff to let her precious boys go, and yet she is the one who wants them romantically sorted :-)
Ah, the cognitive dissonance of womanhood :-)




At this point in the film one gets the impression that it is indeed time to let Fritz and Ernst go on this trip. It turns out to be some sort of funny 'initiation' for them.
'Initiation' is a term that I gather is a bit of a 'red rag to a bull'. At least this is what I learned that in the MGTOW thread.
This is why I use inverted commas.


But indeed I am guessing that this is the whole point of the book, and therefore of the film. David Wyss really wants his audience (young boys) to get this message: to survive with your bare hands and intellect in Savage Nature. To learn to be a man under the most uncivilised circmstances...


Sure, this skill is largely lost, except in some families where the father has kept the tradition going, and despite 'civilisation', makes sure all the sons know how to hunt, fish, etc. But it is difficult if you live in a big city and you are not that wild about Nature.
In which case, it is much, much easier to raise girls than boys, as you just need the interior of a home to teach a girl to be a useful wife and mother in the way olden day girls were.


On this trip, it is clear that both Fritz and Ernst are well beyond puberty. According to Wikipedia, Fritz is about fifteen, and therefore Ernst must be a year or two younger by inference.


They reminisce about life in Bern before the big trip. Fritz talks about his memories of 'girl-watching' on a street in Bern. They wonder if they will find girls their age when they sail around the island. Fritz jokes that by the time they get to their destination, they would be so (insert your own crude word here), that they wouldn't care what age the girls were.


Poor boys.




Fritz is muscular and brawny. He is also very ambitious. He wants to be his own boss someday soon. For the moment though, he is happy to be in the shadow of Father, but not for much longer.


Ernst, by contrast is an intellectual. He plans to go to University. He plans to conquer the island not by his pysical might, but with his brains. His mother encourages him to 'use his head' because she recognises that this is his strong point, his Uniqe Selling Point.
Father has already come to rely quite heavily on his bright ideas.


And it looks like Francis, the youngest boy is going the way of Ernst. He has wild, but interesting ideas. Bless him, he is about nine or ten, but he certainly knows how to hold his own. But he gets to stay at home with Mother and Father whilst Fritz and Ernst get to experience the big, wide world.
Not fair :P




A funny thing happens to Fritz and Ernst on their travels. They happen upon a British man who has been captured by the dreaded pirates, along with his 14 year old grandson.


They try to save both captives, but unfortunately only have time to free the boy before the pirates come back.
It's a dash for the exit with 'Bertie' in tow as the angry pirates come after them...


Finally having shaken off the pirates, Fritz and Ernst soon realise that all is not well with 'Bertie'. They start to question his masculinity.
This boy cannot run fast, he acts all sissyish, and is just not what a boy ought to be.
In other words...
Gay.


:-)


Ernst wonders the untinkable: were we like this before we toughened up a bit on this island? Fritz reassures him that they were never quite as bad as this Bertie...


This speculation about Bertie's masculnity comes to an abrupt end as Fritz accidentally discovers that 'Bertie' is actually a girl.


Fritz and Ernst, meet Roberta.


And from that moment on, the war between the brothers begin. This turns out to be a game-changing moment :-)


Women, eh. Nothing but trouble :-)




Now here begin the most important SMP lessons.


Fritz, who is more 'alpha' than Ernst, by virtue of his older age, more masculine appearance and slightly aloof personality around Roberta (at least as compared to Ernst's approach to her) really displays how it should be done.


Whilst Ernst is busy doing his best to impress Roberta in the way that clueless young men sometimes go about these things (for example, falling for the bait when she lets drop that she misses the debutante dances in London with the men in the tall hats - and he proceeds to make himself a tall hat out of straw to impress her - no! no! no! Ernst!), Fritz acts all unimpressed when she tells him that her grandfather would offer him a job in his company (what, me, work for another man? No thanks!) and when she invites him to come see her in London once their stint on the island was finished, he politely declined, stating that he wanted to go on to new Guniea and build a life for himself.


All that Ernst was doing was leading to the 'friend zone'. Roberta seemed to like his intellectualism at the beginning, but the alpha boy attracted her more, in the end. Soon, she was finding ever more inventive ways to get closer to Fritz (could you teach me to shoot a gun, Fritz? Pretty please? - flutter of eyelashes, lol). When Ernst offers to teach her to shoot, she is actually repulsed by his offer. She proceeds to shoot an object a million miles away, demonstrating how she actually needed shooting lessons like a fish needs a bicycle :-)


The important difference between these two boys is that one was following his own path in life, and a woman was allowed to enter said path if she wished, and with his consent, of course. The other was ready to abandon his path and follow the woman.


No woman wants to be 'the leader'. No matter how much she protests to the contrary.
Ernst did not know this.
This proved to be the fatal flaw in his quest for Roberta.


In the end, he had to admit defeat. It was clear that Fritz was Roberta's choice.


Mother was delighted to have a 'daughter' at last.
Someone she could discuss 'girl stuff' with :-)
Someone she could dress up in her old dresses :-)
Someone who would (darn it!) marry her son :-)


Satisfied, Mother?


Um, no.
Not yet.
She had three sons, remember? As she reminded Father :-)


Nope, not completely happy until 2 more girls came their way :-)
Fritz was now sorted.
Ernst next, and then Francis...


The film finishes with Ernst going off to Civilisation with Roberta's Grandfather, whilst Mother and Father, and Fritz and Roberta decide to stay and build a new life on their island.


The film is indeed worth watching.
If for nothing, for the idyllic scenery it offers.


But the SMP lessons are also worth the effort, I would say.
Well worth the effort.




Enjoy...

Are feminists making God a white knight?

I was thinking about an old 'baby' of mine recently.
In my late teens he was one of a few kids I used to babysit.
He was simply adorable.

This little boy was loved by everyone. At Mass, all the old ladies would fuss over him like he was their grandchild. And younger women wanted a child like him.
So I had competition for his affections lol.

Looking back, he was probably a little 'alpha' in the making.
He was certainly unusual (no bias on my part lol).

Most people, after Mass, would spend a minute or two in quiet reflection in front of one of the statues of a saint, or Our Lady, or The Blessed Sacrament.
This kid (aged 3) would head straight for the statue of Our Lord and ask, in a loud voice, arms folded across his chest, head tilted (yes, his alpha pose!)...
"And how are you today, Sweet Jesus?"


Out of the mouths of babes...


As a teenager now, I am sure he would be upset if I reminded him of this. 'Street cred' is everything to him now, at least in front of his friends.
Unless I framed it differently of course and 'bigged up' how 'alpha' this whole episode was, to me :-)
I mean, it is pretty alpha to stand up in front of God and ask how He is, no?

Who asks God how He is?
I never asked God how He was my entire life.
I only hoped he cared how I was...
My 2 minutes in front of the statue of Our Lord was never about Him. It was all about me.


You know how dogs give you that 'begging' look when you are cooking and they can smell dinner?
This is how I must look (to God) when I am praying for my 101 things:

:-)






It is apparent from the many Bible stories that Jesus loved women. He was certainly surrounded by women wherever he went, which would be strange for the kind of figure he was - a man with no ties to a family unit and with 12 men followng him around and preaching.

The women of Jerusalem were crying for him as he was led to where he would be crucified.
Martha and Mary would invite him over for inner with their brother Lazarus.
Mary Magdalene kissed his feet.
Veronica wiped his face when it was soaked with blood.

Jesus was an alpha alright :-)
And women flocked to him.


But does God love women more than men?

As I inch my way towards drafting a post about the various aspects if feminism, I wonder if 'Christian feminism' sees women as more automatically deserving of God's love than men?

I have reason to suspect this.

The moral superiority over men that is blatantly displayed by some Christian women.
The whole 'man up' thing is perhaps a way of saying, 'I am God's Princess! You have to fulfil my needs without any effort on my part!'
The 'God forgives all' meme, which somehow only applies to women.
The 'God is my protector' idea, which somehow also means that an Earthly man who does the protecting doesn't get a cut in the 'thanks'.
And this. God has been hijacked for the feminist cause since 1982...

These scenarios may happen in subtle ways.
But mostly, they are 'in your face'.
Which is what the brash feminists do best.

I wonder how God feels about this misuse of His name?
How does He feel about being 'volunteered' as a white knight?
Without His consent...
Has anyone asked Him?

God is certainly 'alpha' in Manosphere parlance. Afterall, there are many women who call themselves 'brides of Christ', officially or not, as the case may be. That's a pretty big harem.

But the whiteknighting thing makes him look 'beta'.
Does He mind about that?


The married men who complain that they get nagged by their wives, spare a thought for God.
He gets nagged everyday by millions of single women praying for a good husband :P

This post should really have been entitled, 'Prayers for a husband the Red Pill way'.

For, in the spirit of my 'baby' above, instead of hassling God for what we want, how about a slight change of frame?

Something like this?

Dear God/Sweet Jesus,
How are you today?
My day was great, hope yours was better.
And if it wasn't, how so?
Since I can't see you or hear you or touch you, how can I make it better for someone I can see or hear or touch?
Do you have someone in mind?
I wouldn't mind at all if he happens to be tall, handsome and rich.
I won't be fussy. I'll take whatever you can give me. Besides, I heard the short, ugly and poor ones are all taken...
Anyhow, you take care of yourself.

Till next time, stay blessed.


See?
How could he say no...


Anyhow, off to say my night prayers now...

Initiation and the woman in green

In the post about MGTOW, it was brought to my attention that I had got the whole 'initiation' thing wrong. This neither surprises nor perturbs me.

It just informs me that my curiosity on the subject is as yet unsated.

So, here I am turning up for 'Initiation - Round 2'. I really, really want to understand this well.

It is correct that I know next to little about initiation. I am afterall, a woman. Bellita stated a while back that some women do go into their own 'initiation'. I kind of 'get' that. It is possible that I myself have experienced this initiation or seen it in other women, but maybe I have a different name for it.

But that aside, the only other 'initiation' I am familiar with is of the monthly variety where no matter how reasonable and sane a woman might be usually, all bets are off for a few crazy days on a lunar basis :-)
OK, I exaggerate a bit for effect, but there is some truth to this.

I shan't get into why the word 'lunatic' irks me somewhat, but in related info, BeijaFlor does a brilliant job of analysing the etymology of the word hysteria.

Much of what I know about male initiation is what I gleaned from the man who wrote the following (bold annotations are mine):

"As a result of initiation, a man starts his life in the village as a boy, and he returns to the village as a man. His journey has changed who he is and what he does. A man's journey starts in community and ends in community. Yet all his relationships are changed. This new man is given a new name by his elders. His community recognizes him by a new name because he is a new person to them.

The initiated man returns with a boon, often described by his name. This boon is his newfound identity and the talents and vision he finds in his ordeal. The boon is for the renewal of the community, which can atrophy in patriarchal rigidity. His gift, as well as giving his life meaning, is also meant to transform his community. Indigenous societies waited excitedly for the new man and his boon.

If a community is not open to his gift, as happens in an elderless, modern society, his message can bring estrangement, ridicule, even danger and death. 

So, this is what is happening in the current SMP? This is why some men are not coming back (again)?

Because they came back once and all they got was 'this lousy tee-shirt' and so they left again, saying: Veni vidi verti (I came, I saw, I turned around and kept it moving)?

 Correct?

He continues:

For instance, modern societies do not particularly want mature men. Mature men are not blindly obedient.
 Society: True alphas are a threat to society. Let's shame these alphas and keep the betas toiling.
(And then the betas are not rewarded for their good behaviour by this same society).

Am I getting it right so far? Or am I missing something crucial?

It gets better:

Yet a man who has been to the other side has a certain peace that is untouched by fear of death or its counterparts, scorn and debasement. This is because he has already faced death and found deep, inner values unshaped by popular opinion.

The mark of an initiated man is a deep peace that could be described as otherworldly. This is the peace that the Bible says passes understanding. This is Yoda's 'calm.' There is a detachment that seems like despair. Actually, it is a detachment that comes from a vision that the community does not yet understand, especially a modern community."

I think I saw this in Mark Wahlberg. And I was shaken to the core by it, in a good way. It was scary but familiar.

It starts to get a little fuzzy for me here:

A mature man seems to know that a higher power, at least a higher wisdom, exists because he has experienced it. Through initiation he has learned more and more of the topography of his inner life, the terrain of the Self, the wilderness within. This is the place of the soul. He has found that soul yearns for otherworldly answers, as a boy yearns for manhood.

Indigenous people saw the wilderness as the place where their higher power, their Spirit, dwelled. Initiation not only introduced a boy to his soul, the message from his elders was that his soul was intimately connected to Spirit. Elders experienced Spirit, assumed Spirit, taught about Spirit. Part of the initiatory experience was the explanation of how their people existed through the action of Spirit. Elders always taught this spiritual context, the myth of their people. In the elder's eyes, their people were continually upheld by Spirit, as each man's life and life direction would be connected to Spirit through initiation.

I believe that a modern man going through this ordeal of transformation takes a psychospiritual journey that finds both the potential of soul identity and the existence of something sacred beyond the ego's ability to understand. This something is sacred because it has the effect of bestowing a goodness to a man's life.

It is up to every man to go on this journey alone, to find out for himself. Then he can define Spirit for himself. As a psychologist, I can talk of the steps that a man has to take to painstakingly get himself ready for the wilderness. As an elder, I can tell a man he is meant for the wilderness. As a counselor, I have observed that most every man who has struggled with ordeal has emerged with a spiritual sense. As a man, I can attest to the Spirit that dwells there.

This Spirit is not the Spirit that is automatically in a church or in a religion, though this power can also be there. This is a bigger, more powerful, more mysterious Spirit who cannot be contained by one church or one religion. This is a Spirit of paradox. This is a Spirit who seemingly doesn't go by his own rules. This is the Spirit who teaches the mystery of tranformative pain. This is a Spirit of the wilderness, without and within. This is a Spirit only accessed from deep inside every man, from his own soul. This is the Elder of the elder.

OK, I won't try to understand this bit too much.

But I can identify with this part:

The journey of manhood is a psychospiritual one that demands modern man's attention. Society's and the world's survival depends on men consciously taking up this mission toward inner wisdom and purpose. Men who do not take the journey are dangerous men...

A man, though alone, never makes the journey just for himself. Though he may not realize this while in the midst of loss or ordeal, many will need the wisdom and active courage that he finds on the other side. Many will be lost, with less of a chance for healing, because he did not risk. A man's initiation is not a luxury for himself, like the holodeck of the Enterprise, with little consequence when the game is over. People are waiting for his presence though they don't know it. Many are counting on him though they've never met him...

Initiated men and women are the last real hope that we can save the earth and the dignity of every being on her. I believe we are in the middle of a tragedy for earth and its people. And this is a tragedy of our own making. In this case, it is not only men and women and children who are being wounded, even destroyed in their spirit. The earth itself is being grievously wounded.

Is he talking about...gulp...Red Pill men and women here?

I personally feel that the village has failed the initiated man if he does NOT feel the need to return.

But that's just me.

This is where I REALLY get lost:

"Out of nowhere, in place of where the tree had stood, appeared a tall woman dressed in black from head to foot....Never before had I felt so much love... There are no words to paint what it felt like to be in the hands of the green lady in the black veil." - Malidoma Some, Of Water And The Spirit.

Initiation brings a man to a different view of all his emotional and spiritual connections, especially to his relationships with women and the feminine...

Malidoma experienced Spirit as woman in his initiation. His elders expected this epiphany. They knew because they had found her before him. This is why they laughed at him when he made up a tree story about seeing an antelope on its hind legs. He was so embarrassed at being behind the other initiates that he made up a story after fruitlessly sitting in front of the yila tree for three days. The other initiates had all seen long ago. Many elders felt because he was raised by white men, so contaminated by our Western cultural values and even literacy, that he had lost the power "to see through the veil". One of the first things Malidoma saw when his vision pierced the veil was the loving green woman.

Who exactly is this green woman who replaces a tree?

Has any man seen her?

Could this be the Face of Mercy Bellita talks about?
Why is she in green?
Is she representative of Mother Earth?

Is the point of masculine initiation an attempt to connect with the feminine, in the truest purest sense or to get as far away from it as fast as possible with the result that the feminine comes seeking the initiate in an unsolicted manner?

On a related note, I notice that some men who would fit the description of 'mature' are known for acquiring inanimate objects later in life that are promptly 'femininsed'.
By this I mean the typical 'mid-life crisis' man who acquires a boat/yacht/fast car/luxury property and lovingly describes it as 'she's a beauty'.
Is this a symbolism of sorts or just a quirk of language?

 

Film Review: Captain Corelli's Mandolin

It seems I cannot find films other than war-films to illustrate lessons on male-female interactions as I see them.
This is the third war-film I have watched which deserves a fine-toothed comb.

I actually first saw this film many years ago. My understanding of the film has changed a lot in that time.
To summarise, this film (based on the book by Louis de Bernières) is set in Cephallonia, a Greek Island during World War II.
Pelagia is the highly intelligent and beautiful daughter of the local doctor, Dr. Iannis, a widower who is slightly eccentric but very much respected by everyone, especially his daughter who was virtually raised by him alone.

Pelagia is engaged to Mandras (played by the delightful Christian Bale of  'Empire of the sun' - all grown up!), a local handsome fisherman who is illiterate (which I guess is not unusual in that village at that time and is a fact which is relevant only with respect to Pelagia). Mandras is a well-respected man, but as his own widowed mother would proclaim time and time again, he 'never grew up'.

As Italy invades nearby Albania, the men of the village are urged to join the war effort. Mandras promptly does, leaving behind an increasingly exasperated Pelagia who writes him several letters and receives no reply. As becomes clear later on, the only reason he does not reply is his illiteracy, of which she was not aware. She eventually loses her love for him as is declared in her last letter to him before he returns.
Mandras returns a casualty of war despite the Greeks defeating the Italians in Albania. He is nursed back to health by Pelagia and her father.
Pelagia, who is a very principled young woman somewhat rediscovers her love for Mandras during his return stay. However, he takes the next available opportunity to disappear again leaving her for the second time.
During this time, an Italian regiment is posted on the island headed by Captain Antonio Corelli, a seemingly carefree opera-singing, beer-swigging, party animal with a talent for playing the mandolin. To make matters worse for all concerned, the Greeks of Cephallonia have to surrender to the Italians, (and they do this in a hilarious face-saving move in which they decide to surrender instead to the highest-ranking German Officer on the island instead of the Italians, their dearest enemies,  making sure to let the Italians know that they would rather surrender to the German Officer's dog than to an Italian).
Captain Corelli ends up staying at the Iannis' house in exchange for medical supplies.

The inevitable happens. He and Pelagia fall in love.
A process which does not escape the notice of her father, Mandras and Mandras' mother.

But, on the advice of her father, Pelagia does the honourable thing and 'undoes' the engagement to Mandras.

The Italians and their German allies fall out when an unscrupulous German shoots at an unarmed Italian soldier during an armistice. This sees the Italians joining the Greeks in a bitter battle with the Germans which the Germans win. The Italian soldiers are taken prisoner and despite the fact that they were once allies, the Germans shoot the Italians dead.
Captain Corelli is saved by one of his troops (Carlo, more on him later) and is later found alive by Mandras who takes him to the doctor.

Corelli is nursed back to health but uncharacteristically for him, he is increasingly disillusioned by the destruction of war and leaves Cephallonia for good, helped by Mandras to escape by boat in the dead of night, for fear of the Germans.

Pelagia is devastated once again. She goes on to medical school and qualifies as a doctor. But her heartache remains.

Corelli sends her a guitar recording of the mandolin piece he had composed for her, from Italy.
And, eventually, he keeps his promise and returns to her.

(In the book, Corelli and Pelagia reunite when she is in her 60's).


Mandras
In today's SMP, perhaps Mandras would be seen as the 'beta' guy who went off and fought for his country and lost out to the irresponsible lazy 'alpha' as a result.
But I would put forward a different viewpoint.
Mandras was, before the war a typical enough fellow. Well-liked by everyone, he was clearly in love with his girl Pelagia.
But he never really had time for Pelagia. He became obsessed with the war. He became a bit of a monster. Not his fault: war does that.
But there was more to Mandras: His bad character was only unearthed as the war proceeded.
He had saved Corelli only so Pelagia would 'love him again'. Disingenuous.
He had also ordered the hanging of a friend of Pelagia's for kissing a German officer on the cheek when he promised her he would leave her a grammophone after the war. This girl wouldn't even dance with the German soldier at the local dance - she was too 'true' to her country. But a spontaneous kiss on the cheek of this guy earned her her death at the hands of Mandras who called her a 'whore' and a 'traitor'.
Pelagia dodged a bullet here.


Antonio Corelli
As Pelagia reproached him on more than one occasion, he seemed to take nothing seriously, at first glance. He and his men were always to be found on the beach partying and singing operas. She once said to him, "Why don't you take your holiday on someone else's island?"
She hated the fact that this soldier was all about partying when her own Mandras was suffering gangrene in Albania.
"What is there to sing about?" she angrily asks him.
But there was a serious side to Antonio. Pelagia only found this after she got close enough to him.

The audience of this film, much before Pelagia herself, are given a glimpse into the serious and shrewd nature of Corelli, by his "Heil Puccini" reponse to the German Captain's "Heil Hitler".
It may have seemed comical and frivolous, but one got the distinct impression that two fingers were being cleverly stuck up in the face of Nazism without the German Captain noticing.

Once, he was playing with one of the local children and Pelagia rushed to take the child away from him.
Corellli said to her, "Signora, in times of war, one has to make the most of the innocent little pleasures."
He was right of course.
Never judge a book by its cover.


Pelagia and Corelli
Pelagia was very honourable despite what appears to be disloyalty to the man to whom she was engaged.
Mandras was a bit of a fool, and played an embarrassing practical joke on her the night before he left for the war effort, in front of everyone. There were many strikes against him, I feel.

Pelagia's behaviour around the time she falls in love with Corelli is suitably irrational and illogical but also reveals a woman trying very hard to stay 'honourable'. At one point she points a (unloaded) gun at Corelli. Several times, she 'tells him off' for his behaviour (quite rightly). At the dance hosted by the Italian soldiers in an effort to appease the locals, she dances Tango with another Italian soldier to avoid dancing with Corelli and quite possibly (bizarrely enough) to make him jealous. Even though she didn't want to want him. Cognitive dissonance at its best.

Interestingly, I think Pelagia also demonstrates another golden rule about women. That women are very conscious of their public image. That trait is being lost amongst some younger women nowadays, but these are actually the outliers.
Pelagia is publically embarrassed twice - once by Mandras and once by Corelli. In Mandras' case, it was a stupid, little boy prank which should never have happened - certainly not on the eve of his departure to war. The writing on the wall was there following this prank, I feel. An immature man is the worst consort for a woman. She and her children will always suffer.
In the case of Corelli, Pelagia is publically embarrassed when Corelli tells everyone that the beautiful mandolin piece he has just played is 'Pelagia's song'. Mandras' mother is present at that gathering. Everyone knows that Pelagia is engaged to Mandras. It is humiliating and scary for Pelagia because she is beginning to realise that she is falling in love with Corelli, an enemy of her people.
But at least, in this latter case, it was a declaration of love, of sorts, by Corelli. Pelagia is actually being validated. A man had composed a beautiful piece for her. She just couldn't handle the fact that it was done publically before she had had a chance to sort out her feelings.
Therein the difference between Mandras' and Corelli's public embarrassment of Pelagia: Mandras' prank spelled the end of their marriage before it had begun, Corelli's misplaced display of love led to the consummation of said love the very next day :-)


Pelagia and her father
These two had a wonderful father-daughter relationship. The father was a very wise man whose advice to Pelagia was central to the film. He spotted the waning love for Mandras, and of course the growing love for Corelli in his daughter.
His speech about love being what happens when the 'flames die down' is so true. Pelagia was blushing throughout of course, because it's not the kind of conversation one wants to have with Dad and all...but she needed to hear it.

To be honest, I suppose one could say that Pelagia's father was biased against Mandras from the beginning. Mandras was an illiterate man. Pelagia was on her way to becoming a doctor. Her father was well aware of the 'hypergamy' instincts his daughter was likely to harbour and advised her accordingly. He also always believed that no man in the village was good eough for his daughter (what father doesn't think this of his daughter?!) and that she would end up marrying a foreigner.

When he spotted that his daughter was in love with Corelli, he said to Corelli, "When I met Pelagia's mother, she was actually betrothed to someone else...he almost killed me. I had to lay low for a while..."
Talk about aiding and abeting Corelli!

There is a superlatively moving scene towards the end of the film where she thinks she has lost him in an earthquake at the rubble of their destroyed home, only to find him safe and well nearby. One couldn't help but feel utter relief for this poor woman who seemed to be losing all the men in her life.


Carlo
Carlo was a member of Corelli's squad. It wasn't particularly apparent to me in the film but he was actually gay. He says to Pelagia at one point that he would protect her if something happened to Antonio. In fact he did more than that: he saved Antonio's life by shielding him with his body during the massacre by the Germans.
Talk about bravery and honour.

Is God Gaming Me?

Charming Disarray, this one is for you.
It is a tongue-in-cheek post designed to kill two birds with one stone.

1. I feel rather playful today. (Grasshopper, I am wearing 'blue' today :-)

2. CD, I know you belong to the Faith beginning and ending with the letter 'C'.

I also know you detest with great intensity all things 'Game'.
This strangely amuses me.
But... my guilty pleasures aside, I thought to myself: how can I make this a bit more palatable to her?

The answer came to me bizzarely enough on a Sunday:
Just add 'God'.

:-)

So here we are. Game-food for the uninitiated, with a few sprinkles of  'God' as 'relish'.
Buon appetito.

I see God as a man. Masculine. Male.
Whether I am picturing the 'brimstone and fire' old dude with the long white beard in the Old Testament or the 'hippy' type fellow with the long hair and sandals in the New Testament.
Both are undeniably male. I have no other versions of God in my head, except of course the abstract versions like the roaring thunder in a fierce storm depicting 'the wrath of God' (again, Old Testament-like) or the 'still small voice' during a gentle breeze over the lake on a sunny day (?New Testament).
Both are still masculine, in my eyes.

To digress a bit, there is some music I 'see' and not hear. Some composers really know how to depict 'rage' or 'wrath' that I can 'see' - good examples are Beethoven's 'Rage over a lost penny' and Sibelius' sultry, moody violin concerto. Both seem to be innocuous on the surface, and then when you 'see' it, you feel there might be no escape, like I imagine the 'Great Wrath' to be.
On the other hand, Beethoven especially is the absolute master at creating that 'still small voice' too.
Practically all of his symphonies' second movements are so gentle, you could almost imagine hearing God speak.
Something to do with his deafness perhaps? He did afterall live in a silent world.


This masculinity of God was always the traditional view of God.
Until that is, the feminists tried to get a foothold in the Church.

There was a time when there was a drive to change 'The Lord's Prayer' into 'Our Mother, who art in heaven'...

It didn't catch on.
Not in the Catholic church, at least.

For all the Catholic Church's sins, deviation from the Patriarchy is not one of them, unless I am grossly mistaken.
Unlike many other churches in christendom, the Catholic church refused to and still refuses to ordain women as priests. It refused to accord women certain powers as demanded by secular society (read: feminists).

And yet the Catholic church, to me, is one of the most 'woman-friendly' churches there is.

Why is this?

The Catholic church, since 1970, has begun to accord some of its highest honours to women. There are now three female 'Doctors of the Church' (St Theresa of Avila, St Catherine of Siena, St Thérèse de Lisieux - this last one is referred to as a 'Doctor of love'!) and there are many more on the list, being considered by Pope Benedict.

The Catholic Church has always placed a high importance on Our Lady. To an extent that some people outside the Catholic Church believe that Catholics 'worship' Our Lady. They therefore have confused the Church with a 'Matriarchy'.
If indeed Our Lady is a Matriarch, then it is only in the sense that she is the type who defers to the Patriarch.
She, afterall, was very quick to say "Thy will be done" when she was given the task of becoming mother to Our Lord. No easy task considering she was a young, unmarried but betrothed Jewish girl, and she lived in a society where if a woman was found to be pregnant outside of marriage, she was stoned to death, no questions asked.

According to the Catholic Church, Our Lady is the 'highest' of all the saints.
It is no secret that some Popes, like John Paul II adored her till his dying day.

I am pretty sure there will never be a woman Pope in the modern era.
But I am sure there will be no need.

Again, I wonder: why?

Do I need God to be 'female' to feel better?
Do I need to have a woman Pope to feel any more validated in this life?

Strangely, I feel the answer is 'no'.

But, alas I will never know. Because I have not experienced the above scenarios before.
But that's OK. I can live with that.

A woman does not need to be a 'leader' to be 'powerful'.
Because feminine power is an entirely different animal from male power.
It is less 'out there', but it is there, nonetheless.
You might miss it if you blink. But if you are looking for it, you see it.

Interestingly, speaking of composers above, I note there aren't that many female composers, if at all.
Why?
Afterall, there were many women authors from time immemorial.
What is the difference between the written word and a musical note?



So, because I see God as 'male', I sometimes correlate his 'behaviour' to that of men in general. This is done in jest, a kind of intellectual joke I play with myself.

If I need a prayer answered and I don't get what I want, I wonder, "Is God gaming me?"

If I ask God to intervene in my daily life and it doesn't quite happen in the way I envision, I think "Is God GHOW where I am concerned?"

If I don't seem to get an answer from him, I think,  "Am I being negged?"

And then when he does do something nice for me, I secretly think, "Is he going all beta on me?"

And then he is back to alpha.

Appreciating female beauty

Code: I am doing it again: I am translating from the french 'apprécier', in the sense of 'to enjoy' or 'to like' and not in the sense of 'to be grateful for'.

I read with great interest Roissy's recent post imploring men not to let a woman's beauty affect them. At first I was alarmed. Even appalled.
I thought this was surely bad advice for men.

Because the whole point of female beauty was that it was the signal men picked up on to suggest to them her youth and therefore fertility and therefore eligibility for the mating game (unless of course, the man concerned is MGHOW).
So, if men were to find a way to ignore or lessen the impact of female beauty, they would be eliminating one of their own very important attraction triggers.
Counterproductive!
This was my initial thought.

Then after a while, I calmed down.

Here's why.

A while ago, Bellita's post What would Frankie do? touched on femininity. What was interesting about this post is that it quickly morphed into a discussion about female beauty.
Someone mentioned the french singer Alizée.

Whilst I had never heard of Alizée before, I was suitably impressed with her when I saw this video.

The first comment on the video is from a man who says, and I quote word for word, "This chick is so HOT my girlfriend just got a boner!!!!"

Whilst this was not quite my reaction, I kind of get it.
First of all, I was asking myself, "how does she do that?"
The very fluid arm and body movements are essentially feminine, and she executes them exceedingly well.
She is also a naturally beautiful woman, there is no doubt.
She is stupefying. At least at first.

(Sadly for you, gentlemen, this woman is off the market, by the way. She got married at age 19. Let's hope her husband agrees she is a 'nice girl' according to my previous criteria, and that she remains that way for life).

Even as a woman, I was struck by her beauty.

There was a time I used to compliment women who I noticed were very beautiful. Out and about, on the streets, in the shops, at college, whenever I saw an extremely beautiful woman, I would go up to her and say it. I usually got one of two reactions:

Some would be very gracious and even compliment me back.
Some would be visibly perturbed that another woman was telling them this. I could see the unease on their faces, and the suspicion of my 'orientation'.

Because of the latter reaction, I stopped doing this.
Because it felt like I was unnecesarily putting these women in a position of superiority over me. And I was not being rewarded for it.

I guess this was what Roissy was alluding to. If even I as a woman can be reduced to a virtual statue for a while, how much more a man?

Appreciating a woman's beauty can lead men to over-pedestalise a woman. A certain amount is fine, because it causes a positive feedback loop in a woman's mind when she knows a man finds her attrractive. But too much, and the attraction she has for him can be killed off.

Also, a man who can retain his composure when faced with a beautiful woman, particularly if she is used to men drooling all over her, will be seen as 'unusual' by her. As per this post, this is good for the man, because that alone gets him in her good books. Especially as his composure prevents him from being lewd.

Nothing more unpleasant for a woman, especially if she is 'well endowed' than to have a strange man stare at her chest (assuming her 'friends' are not out on open display, that is).

The man who achieves this can go to near the top of the list, if not right at the very top.
But if a longterm relationship is to come of this initial encounter, there will have to be a time when he goes through a 'beta' phase, which essentially includes some degree of pedestalisation.

The problem with being stupefied by a beautiful woman on first seeing her is that it makes a man 'beta' straight away.
It is crucial that the whole 'alpha/beta' thing starts off in the right order. It has to start with 'alpha'.

Does complimenting a woman on her beauty increase her entitlement complex?
I think this depends on the woman. For some women, that's all they have going for them, so their self-worth may be entirely based on their beauty. So for these women, perhaps it is a necessary tool.

Others know that beauty is skin-deep and fleeting, and so understand its place in their value/worth and don't over-rely on it. Such women would not have an inflated sense of self based on their beauty alone.

So Roissy is right afterall. It is surprising sometimes who ends up as an 'ally' on the journey into the unknown.

Appreciate a woman's beauty. But don't let it go to your head.

As Dannyfrom504 says, his approach to pretty women is somewhat like this:
"I often tell women, "ok, you're pretty...now what?"
That's some serious Game right there.
Even the prettiest woman will stop in her tracks with this.

Let the woman chase you

I do not consider myself experienced enough in life to give anyone advice. It would result in a hilarious case of the blind leading the blind.
So I won't.

But Morgan Freeman will.
Whilst being interviewed by Piers Morgan on CNN recently, Morgan Freeman was asked in jest what the secret to his success with women was. He almost did not answer this question, preferring to tell Piers Morgan the answer after the show.
But I am glad he eventually answered the question on air.

He said, and I somewhat paraphrase:
"Don't chase women, let them chase you".

Now, I have heard this before. In several guises.
If I must box it up and label it, I would call it 'Game'.

Women have their feminine charm, men have 'Game'.

A man without Game is like the proverbial fat girl at your former school.

Thankfully both afflictions are reversible.

In all seriousness, even though the intricasies of Game are hard to swallow (so to speak) for a woman, where it is used with decorum, I do believe it is necessary for a man.
Not just 'nice to have'.
Necessary.

Grandma (not specifically mine, but you get the idea) says fondly of Grandpa:
"He chased me until I caught him".

Everyone laughs when she says this, even for the millionth time at yet another Christmas dinner.

And then years later, someone asks out of the blue, 'what did she mean, exactly?'

To illustrate what Gradma meant, let me opine that women who divorce their husbands don't say what Grandma said. At least not with fondness. Ever.

Here's why.

Back to Grandma's young days, and good old Grandpa, hormones raging, spots a girl (who eventually became Grandma) that he liked. He went after her like his life depended on it.
Everything was great. He and Grandma were like, floating on clouds and everything. But Grandma, being a 'good girl' was notably more reserved than Grandpa.

Then he did that really annoying thing that almost all men do. He withdrew a little.
Grandma was devastated. She began to show more affection to Grandpa in the hope of winning him back.
She showed she was vulnerable too, much the same as he had right at the beginning of their relationship when he was infatuated.
It takes a while, but Grandpa decides this is the girl for him afterall. He may have chased other girls in the meantime, but in the end, he chooses Grandma.

Grandpa may be a natural 'alpha'. He may be a 'beta'. No one really knows. But it doesn't matter. Because in his pursuit of Grandma he is in turn alpha (when he first encounters Grandma) then beta (when he falls hopelessly in love with her), then alpha again (when he disappears for a few weeks/months/years), and so on. In the era of Grandpa that second alpha stage nicely coincides with the war.

In scenario two, imagine that when Grandpa withdrew, Grandma showed no particular signs of distress. She couldn't be bothered if he was alive or dead.

Note: what I am describing here is to be distinguished from self-preservation/hurt/anger/self-respect on Grandma's part.
I am specifically talking here about a complete lack of interest in the whereabouts of Grandpa during the time he is AWOL.
We would hope that Grandpa would see the light and walk away for good.

Some men don't.
They pursue a reluctant woman and she becomes a reluctant bride.

This is the woman who seven years down the line will declare she is 'not happy'.
Some men in the manosphere know this phrase very well.
This phrase precedes real pain. The destruction of a family. Loss of financial control. Pain. More pain. Yet more pain.

It is not her fault.
A woman should feel unequivocally excited about marrying a man. If not, her disdain for him will come back and haunt him.
This disdain stems from another example of cognitive dissonance. I gave one example in a previous post here.

A woman does not do well with cognitive dissonance. It tears her apart. First. Then everyone else around her.

Women are more complicated than men. We have to be. We have a lot more to lose if we are easy to read.
The nature of womanhood (being receptive in nature) is such that it is in our best interests to be selective. That's a good thing in my humble opinion.

I firmly believe that biology does dictate that in the end, it is the woman who chooses.
I believe there is a good bio-social reason for this.
Women are the 'relationship experts' as one wise old man I know puts it.
A man is preoccupied with his work all his life. That is the source of his self-significance.
A woman will take some time out to obsess about her relationships, and I don't just mean the romantic ones. Women are 'connectors' and 'communicators' by nature. That is the true source of our self-significance.
In terms of relationships, a woman's vested interest is to keep a man she has already attracted. It is important she chooses right, because she has to care enough to work harder on the relationship than he would. Because in fact he won't. It is not his natural domain.
This is why a relationship is never really over until the woman decides it is over.
The female-driven sky high modern day divorce rate proves this point.

Grandpa thought he chose Grandma, but Grandma in fact chose him by physically atracting him. Grandpa didn't know what hit him. Years later, his level of insight into the whole episode would remain, 'well, there was something about that girl.'

A woman will have many men after her during the course of her reproductive life. She will be truly attracted to only a few.
A man will be after many women in his lifetime. The smart man will settle down with the one who, on a primordial level, demonstrates to him enough indicators of interest, like displays of loyalty, and a certain deference which he will interpret as 'respect'.

So if a man's withdrawal leaves a woman breathing a sigh of relief as opposed to crying into her cornflakes, she is in fact fulfilling an important and natural function: eliminating him from her 'list of interest'. A woman spends most of her life performing this function. It is a necessary part of womanhood, though it needn't be executed in a harsh manner. Much like hypergamy and emotionality, it's female nature.
And no, she won't change her mind.
Unless she has a secret agenda compelling her to overrule her ambivalence towards him and grit her teeth on the long walk to the altar.
Like her fertility is waning and she desperately wants a child, but not the man.
Like during his absence she got pregnant by the man she really wanted but who rejected her.
Like she got tired of being the only single one at her married friends' parties.
Like he is rich and famous and she is thinking, well this can't hurt. (Monaco anyone?)

At some point, despite her complicated nature, even the hardest woman to read becomes like an open book. To the man she truly loves.
She will do a little chasing. OK, a lot of chasing.
I really have to point out here that I am not referring to sexual chasing. That's masculine, actually. The chasing I am referring to may include sexual chasing of course, but it is a lot more than that.

Game allows this 'female chasing' to happen. A man needs it to distinguish which woman to rule in, or out, as the case may be.
A man's worst mistake in life is to marry a reluctant bride.
Don't be that guy.

The smart woman will only do this chasing, though, if she has absolutely no doubt in her mind that the man concerned has feelings for her beyond the physical.
Men are simple in comparison to women. In addition, women are naturally blessed with 'female intuition'. So a woman's success in figuring this out in her man is easier than the other way round.

Male nature being what it is, every man, on some level is a reluctant groom. But his reluctance does not bear nearly as much significance on the longterm success of the relationship as bridal reluctance does. Not even close.

I make the point again: relationships are a woman's domain. She initiates it and she can terminate it if she so desires. But it is in her best interests not to.

So, to conclude, Morgan Freeman is right. To be successful with a woman longterm, gentlemen, and by that I mean if you want a woman who will love you till your dying day, let her chase you a bit. It is good for you, and her.