Joanna Topor

Somebody asked me recently why, in this day and age of rampant divorce, single parenting and common law arrangements, I said "yes" when my boyfriend proposed. Why get married anymore, when so many people choose not to and it doesn't affect them in any way, save for potentially missing out on Bush's stamp of approval?

Is it to fulfill some sort of childhood notion of what life is supposed to be? I would like to think not. It's been a long time since I thought I needed a guy to validate me, the last time I think was sometime in high school. And I'd like to think that if things went sour between my fiancé and me, I would survive and save all my lovin' for someone who'd love me, while being a successful and confident single woman. But really, who am I kidding?

In the last decade, television shows like "Friends" and "Sex and the City" have tried to inundate us with the idea that you don't have to settle down to get the best of the coupling world. Showing us the importance of being single and figuring out what you want out of life first, as well as the importance of "cosmic dating" (dating and sleeping with many different people, because you never know). But now that both shows are drawing to a close, isn't it interesting that everyone's pairing off? Looking back, I can't help but realize that this was their goal all along. The "Friends" cast bounced from one relationship to another under the pretext that the last fling just wasn't "the one." Chandler clung to a relationship with Janice, out of fear of being alone and Monica broke up with Tom Selleck's very charming Richard because he ultimately didn't want children. The idea of settling down with just one person has been the backdrop for the series since the very beginning, starting with the perfect and innocent love that Ross had been nursing for Rachel since high school. When she got pregnant and decided to keep the baby, no one blinked, but not because it was a natural thing to do, but because Ross was the father of said child there always existed the possibility of them getting back together. When Monica and Chandler decided to get hitched, they went to Monica's parents to make a withdrawal from the "Monica Wedding Fund" indicating that, just like all of us in our Barbie days, Monica had always wanted to get married. It just took her a while to find the right person.

The New York clique of Carrie et al has headed down a similar path. Yes, the fab four who redefined being single and took it from a taboo to an aspiration, have all given up their whorish ways, and not a moment too soon. Be it Mr. Big or Baryshnikov, the quest for finding someone to fill the time between happy hour and brunch has been the driving force behind the series. We didn't watch to see if they'd had a bad day at work, it didn't even seem to bother us that really they were questionable and scantily employed, we watched for the sex. But the sex was a pre-text for shopping around for an ideal husband. From Charlotte's desire to wed, to Miranda's un-planned pregnancy and consequent nuptials, to Samantha's flings and Carrie's inability to commit, the quest has been to find a perfect match. Even Samantha has found herself in a stable relationship, but don't think that her past hijinks have been forgotten. True to form with conservative beliefs of just deserts and old-school film theory, the promiscuous blonde in the cute bikini is never the one you want to take home to meet ma and pa and is always the first one to die. Why is Samantha--vivacious and flamboyant in her support of casual, non-committal sex, and don't forget she's the one who slept with a woman--being punished with a diagnosis of breast cancer? They may as well have taken it a step further and have her diagnosed with HIV because the effect is the same.

There are just some things you don't mess with in President Bush's America; the sanctity of marriage is one of them.

(2004-02-11)

Also by Joanna Topor

What's in a name
Spanning thirty-two years, this highly anticipated follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Interpreter of Maladies," is a penetrating investigation of two generations of the immigrant condition
(2003-09-10)

A stab through the heart
Fan sites and Thursday lunch meetings have given rise to entire sections at Borders devoted to unofficial viewing guides dissecting vampiric archetypes in Buffyverse, an online academic journal entitled "Slayage," and academic conferences where hip scholars looked to this campy movie spinoff as a higher aesthetic.
(2003-04-09)

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