Goodbye Betty! a bit more about endings

Ugly Betty finished on our screens tonight. Not such a classic in my opinion, but worth a look occasionally, and certainly worth my attention for its final episode ever.

And they got the ending right!

Ie, everyone had a happy ending and there was a good hint that Betty and Daniel just might, just might, put Mode behind them and have the relationship they are free to have now Betty's following her dream and Daniel's grown up.

That's how it's done!

Obsession

It seems that most teenagers are obsessed with something. I suppose as parents the best we can hope for is that the obsession is harmless. I have been thinking about this for a while, ever since my youngest daughter became a bona fide GLEEK, that is, a fan of the TV series Glee, about a high school show choir consisting of geeks and freaks and various other "uncool" types in the American high school culture. (Honestly - these programmes, and the various high school movies, make me soooo thankful we live in NZ.)

Currently the other major obsession I know of is everything vampire, focused mostly on Twilight and its various sequels. I have read the Twilight books and enjoyed the first one as I enjoy most romance novels - it was like candy floss, nice but not good for me and not much to it. But I must confess I do not think vampire obsession is healthy.

Twilight is about adolescent love - a love that is obsessive and juvenile, a manipulative boy who controls the actions of his so-called beloved and a masochistic girl who laps up the danger and is willing to literally die for love. Her willingness to embrace eternal death for his sake is chilling. (On an unwittingly telling note, he is freezing cold to the touch and hard like marble.) She is in constant danger, not least from him, and is seriously damaged many times, until, in the most gruesome birth scene I have ever read ... anyway suffice to say she gets her desire and becomes one of the undead to be dead with him for ever. Shudder.

And some grown women say this story has spoilt them for their husbands. Eh? What is this teaching our girls about real love and relationships? That a cold, manipulative dangerous man is worth dying for? Has anyone considered how totally boring being a vampire would really be?

OK. So back to Glee. Is that really as bad? No - I can't bring myself to say so. It is very affirming of geeks and freaks and has some really fantastic music - my kids are now familiar with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and show tunes from ages past. However, it is preoccupied with the sex lives of its characters, a recent episode was all about whether certain characters should lose their virginity or not (is sex really the most important thing in life? Really?) Also, while it is just possible stories about teen pregnancy and coming to terms with being gay are relevant for teenagers, the break up of a teacher's marriage and his subsequent (almost) relationship with another staff member are not. I think this story line introduces something far too adult into the mix.

BTW - Sue Sylvester, the cheer coach, is one of the best comic characters to appear on TV in ages.

As usual, parental guidance recommended.

The Idolatry of Bernada Alba

We do not frequently attend the theatre, but on Saturday my husband and I ventured forth to see The House of Bernada Alba at TAPAC here in Auckland. We had many reasons for this, not least we both knew the main actor and the director (from a long time ago) and I, personally, like the writings of Frederico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish playwright who was executed by Franco's army shortly after the play was written - either because he was a communist or because he was gay - take your pick.

The play was pretty much standard socialist fare - ie, playing up the injustice and prejudice of the "upper classes" against the honest desires of the proletariat. The main character reminded me of many old women I knew in my childhood - bitter and oppressed and always worrying about what people think. Those who are ignorant believe this is the lot of Christian women. Others of us know such women have replaced the opinion of others for the genuine love of God.

The cast was entirely female - those who worship the idol of public (or the neighbours') opinion and those who worship the idol of sex. Bernada Alba, a widow with five daughters, was malevolently controlling, and her daughters by turn subservient and rebellious. Repressed passions abounded. Obviously they came to a bad end.

By the way - the production was fantastic and our friend in the title role was brilliant.

And the programme was a work of art - a bargain for a gold coin donation.

The perplexity of endings

Endings. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, in the wake of the recent demise of LOST and the more distant last episode of ER, after 11 years, some sort of prime time record.

I am not a LOST fan. I was cured of the "mysterious" in TV series in the 90s when I sat through a couple of seasons of the "X Files" which promised "the truth was out there" until I discovered it wasn't and gave up. So with LOST I watched a couple of the first episodes, then whenever I caught up it was so incomprehensible, I couldn't be bothered. However, after reading a magazine article about the difficulties of ending a long running, and very popular TV series, I watched the final episode of LOST and was intrigued by the old cliches that it relied on to tie up what was obviously a very complicated saga.

What we got was essentially the "happy ever after in heaven" thing - which was probably very annoying for the sci fi freaks who were addicted to the thing and wouldn't embrace visions of heaven if paid to. For myself, of course, the heaven depicted was so unlike the real thing I'm not offended, just perplexed. Why do such a cliched thing? I'm left wondering if the whole series was Jack's hallucination as he lay dying. What was the point, really?

But beyond LOST, the article I read spoke about endings in general, and I realised that almost every ending I can remember, of a long term story, has been disappointing. When I say long term, I mean a long term TV series or a movie franchise that includes some sense of ongoing story.

I have noted here before that I dislike the third Lord of the Rings movie because (although the books actually end OK, because they were conceived as one book) Peter Jackson did not honour the whole story of all his characters. Specifically, he left Eowyn and Faramir dangling. He spent time on their stories and their triumphing over their individual struggles, but he did not give them enough screen time to triumph. In the book they fall in love. Even in the extended DVD version he gives them a brief incomprehesible head-leaning scene.

The Matrix trilogy is my favourite example of a trilogy that should have remained one movie. The Matrix is a brilliant sci fi story channeling Alice in Wonderland and the Gospel (oh yes, forget that the film makers are very woolly about this). The second and third movies are muddled rubbish. I don't even remember them that well. Too much money spent on too little imagination.

Star Wars, alas, is probably the highest profile and most expensive example of this phenomenon. The first Star Wars movie was brilliant, ground breaking (name a block buster from before?????) fun. Number two was great (movie geek types say it's the best, I like the sheer romance of the first better), number 3 was stupid, but it finished the story. The last three Lucas made were .... execrable rubbish. Wish he hadn't bothered.

I could go on and on. Especially film makers, but I regret to say book writers also often, fall prey to the impulse to try and end things off, and relapse into silliness, triteness, or sheer craziness. Mostly things should be left in mid air. Real life endings are messy. Let's not bother with them in our made up stories! (Books that end badly - Twilight. First book - fantastic teen romance with added vampires, book 4 - yeech! Harry Potter - actually book 7 is OK, despite or perhaps because of trite happy ending - but some of the in between volumes (no 5????) forget it!)

So why am I writing a sequel to ASKAR? I hope I'm writing a Godfather II and not a Godfather III - that's why.