The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/romance/page/2/)
For a while, Love, Simon flew under my radar. Once I first saw trailers for it though, I became intrigued — but also cautious. I didn’t know how a teenage romance movie would handle a gay protagonist. The film, directed by Greg Berlanti and written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Bergerm, could easily go so wrong. Luckily, my fears have been dispelled.
I’ve been taking it easy lately. Last fall, I realized I wouldn’t graduate a computer science major if I didn’t load up on classes. Now that I’ve reached the end of the tunnel and have time to relax, I started playing a game. It’s called Tinder; you’ve probably heard of it. Tinder is part dating app, part middle school sleepover party and part ego booster.
My sister tells me I’ve turned into a book snob. She claims that my reading list is largely propelled by a hunger for cultural capital, that I don’t enjoy the things I read, that I’m checking off the novels of someone else’s book list: some antiquated, white professor’s book list. And to an extent, she’s right. As an English major, I have not only become trained in applying psychoanalytical and queer theories to the ample texts we chow down in a semester, but I’ve become adept at prioritizing certain genres of texts over others, according to their so-called intellectual merits. The classics: Good.
In my first year of college, I made the misstep of taking class at the ungodly hour of 8:00 a.m. Against all advice, I, the beaming young student, was eager to tackle the demons of chemistry in the wee hours of the morning. The folly of my decision would soon become apparent through sleepless nights of composing reports and balancing equations, but for the moment I possessed an unrelenting determination to succeed. After successfully ignoring my alarm for a week, I soon understood that 8 a.m. was not as charming as I had thought, and I numbered the days until I would finally drop the course. On the last day, I decided out of respect for the teacher that I would brave the challenge of the early morning one final time. So I sat in the last row of seats, unsure of whether or not to take notes, feeling an awkward sense of premonition.
Buzzfeed, or some similar listicle oracle, recently informed me oh-so-helpfully of the top seventeen most romantic places to visit (I assume they meant with a partner and not just by yourself). Which, of course, got me thinking – what makes a place romantic? I guess this is where we have to admit that romantic means something different for everyone. So dozens of people might call Ithaca’s gorges romantic, but to one person that might mean, “Damn, these gorges really make me wanna bang anything that moves,” and to another, “Golly doesn’t this gorge just make me want to stare at the moon and talk about our spirit animals,” and to yet another person, “This would be a postcard-perfect place to begin an attempt to beat the 50% odds of divorce.” And yet, most people can agree that scenic vistas of nature are romantic, similar to cute or expensive restaurants or places that are quiet and private. Then, you have misattribution of arousal – a term used in psychology – which is actually pretty trippy.
When I went home for winter break and saw The Prince Who Turns Into A Frog broadcasting on television for the twentieth time since its first airing in 2005, I still felt the nostalgia that only certain dramas can evoke in me. The plot is quite cliché and unrealistic at times, but it is one of those classic dramas that unknowingly makes you accept the impossible for the hour that it broadcasts just so you can immerse yourself in the romantic fantasy of the drama. As expected, The Prince Who Turns Into A Frog revolves around the love story between a poor girl and a rich man – you know the gist. But their relationship is actually much more complicated than you think, with Shan Jun Hao, the CEO of a hotel chain, constantly getting into accidents and losing his memory and Ye Tian Yu, an ambitious gold digger, falling in love with the contrived identity she gave Jun Hao when he first loses his memory. Not to mention, Jun Hao was already engaged with his childhood friend Fan Yun Xi when he falls in love with Tian Yu after Tian Yu takes care of him while he remains clueless about his own past.
In more ways than one, To The Dearest Intruder reminds me of The Fierce Wife, as both are Taiwanese dramas that revolve around the themes of family, love and the taboo of adultery. But while the former irritates me more than the latter in terms of the fake mustache of the male protagonist and many other little details regarding the actors and actresses – yes, I am an extremely judgmental person – I still find To The Dearest Intruder pretty intriguing. The Fierce Wife was, in 2011, a popular drama about a naïve mother named Xie An Zhen who lets her cousin Li Wei En temporarily live with her family of three, only to regret her decision tremendously later on when she discovers that her husband Wen Rui Fan has begun to cheat on her with Wei En. She receives guidance from Lan Tian Wei on how to become a more attractive and independent woman in hopes of winning Rui Fan’s love back, but slowly realizes that his love is no longer what she desires for. Similarly, To The Dearest Intruder also illustrates the life of a married couple and the female protagonist’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity, but what makes this particular drama different from The Fierce Wife is that the intruder is, in fact, the female protagonist’s own best friend.
In the midst of a controversial Oscar season, one that is plagued by criticism for its lack of diversity, we can assure ourselves of one thing — Saoirse Ronan deserves her place as an Academy Nominee for Best Actress in a Lead Role, for her gripping performance as timid Irish immigrant Eilis (AY-lish) Lacey in John Crowley’s Brooklyn. The film, based off Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name, centers on Eilis and her voyage to the gilded United States — specifically Brooklyn — during the 1950s. Eilis lives in an Irish boarding house, shared with other immigrants and owned by the cheerfully senile Mrs. Kehoe (Barbara Walters) and works at a high-end department store. As she settles in, emotional turmoil ensues and the transition of leaving her sister, Rose, and her mother proves to be almost unbearable. It’s at this point of weakness that she’s intercepted by charismatic and stereotypically Italian Tony (Emory Cohen), who inevitably becomes her cross-cultured love interest.
This leads me to step two of how to survive Ithaca – find a winter romance.
Zach Galifianakis’ latest project involves him clowning around — literally. He teams up with creators Louis C. K. (writer and star of Louie) and Jonathan Krisel (director of Portlandia) for a delightfully unorthodox comedy about pursuing your dream no matter what anyone else tries to tell you. Baskets is as odd as you would assume and then some, but its peculiarity feeds and then starves your need to know what happens next. The trailer for the show invites the curious in for a peek at the darker side of being a clown: it’s smart and refreshing. The FX show revolves around Chip Baskets (Galifianakis) and his failed endeavors to assimilate into real life while pursuing his seemingly bizarre ambition of becoming a professional clown.